I downloaded all the guidance automation (toolkit/extensions) way back when the Services Factory was released. At the time it was just a bunch of prerequisites so I could get to the “real stuff” (a.k.a. the factory).
Since then I have realized that I may be more interested in the guidance automation capabilities than the factory itself. I spent all last night pouring over the guidance automation documentation and I realized that this is an incredibly powerful tool, especially for architects and lead developers. I have spent a lot of time (i.e. 5 years) on many code generation technologies for pattern implementation and framework adoption. The hard part is always keeping it integrated with visual studio, and having automated guidance that is flexible enough to be easily maintained as the underlying technology layers change and patterns become more mature. I think that this guidance automation is a quantum leap ahead in that space, and I intend to put it under the microscope for the next several months.
My first impression of the documentation is that it was certainly written for developers and I had to read it several times before the concepts really started to make sense. I’ve also been playing with the meta guidance (guidance for writing guidance) which I am very glad to see. Using guidance can be hard enough, writing guidance is even harder. I will add another TAG to this blog and chronicle my experiences with the guidance automation. If my enthusiasm for this offering continues and I don’t get buried in client work, I intend to release a number of incremental items to this blog exposing this guidance and making it approachable.
If you have requests centering around these packages or have problems you would like to share, let me know and we’ll see what we can come up with.
I’m excited! How ’bout you?