From Jan Tielens: Hippo.NET is a tool for streamlining the build process of .NET projects in a team envirionment. It provides continuous integration by monitoring the shared Visual SourceSafe database and starting the build process when changes are detected. An important design goal is to provide a nice and easy-to-use user interface, to monitor builds and trigger the build process when needed.
Now you can download a stable version of this tool, with full source code.
Current features are:
- Client/server model
- Trigger build from remote clients
- Implements the build process proposed by Microsoft
- Automatic build number updates in AssemblyInfo files
- Build history information
- Current activity information
- Fully configurable
- Rich Windows Forms UI
After my first week at Microsoft *everyone* wanted to
know how it went, both internally and externally. I learned some things:
I learned that folks at MS will call a meeting for lots and lots of reasons,
including at the slightest sign of confrontation or hurt feelings. For a guy
that hasn’t really attended a meeting in the last decade, this is quite a
switch : )
I learned how to schedule a meeting w/ multiple people
and a conference room (listed as “conf room <bld>” in the address book), all
with conflicting schedules and all remotely using Outlook Web Access and
without a SmartCard (I was pretty proud of that one, actually : )
I
learned that no one uses the phone for anything — instead, they schedule
meetings
I learned that it’s the person that wants something that
does the actually scheduling of the meeting
I learned that it’s OK
to open your laptop in a meeting, otherwise when would you get any work
done?
I learned that it causes quite a stir when you disagree with
the technical lead of one of the major pieces of technology that you’re
supposed to be taking to the world
I learned that it’s darn hard to
find out who to talk to your first week, and that you should take your boss
to most of your initial meetings so that s/he can make sure you’re getting
what you need to get from them
I learned that you can mix Exchange
and POP3/SMTP to keep your new and your old email addresses going, if you
use Office 11 and if you are willing to give up calendar and follow up
notifications on your POP3/SMTP account (have I missed something?). I also
learned that internal MS support doesn’t help w/ such things.
I
learned that internal MS support is the greatest support in the whole darn
world. These people don’t let you off the phone ’til everything works.
They’re amazing
I learned that you can volunteer for absolutely
anything you think is cool or important so long as you get everything else
done, too
I learned that it’s not good to ask for NDA access to
super-secret bits for your friends the week before you start working there
(OK, I’m pretty sure I knew that before, but I had to try… : )
I
learned that the right folks hanging out at lunch can make all kinds of
interesting things happen
I learned that MS and it’s employees is
the most charitable company in the country (world?)
I learned that
the internal resources for MS employees are unbelievable. I could work their
my whole life and never take advantage of all of them
I learned that
it’s important to sign up for your benefits immediately if you’re going to
be remote w/o a SmartCard for a while, otherwise your son may wake you up in
the middle of the night with a hard toothache and when you take him to the
dentist the next day, the dentist won’t be able to confirm your dental
insurance (as one example : )
I learned that most everyone at MS is
very nice (even when they’re telling you to f-off)
I learned that
everyone (and I’m no exception) has a hard time fitting in at first. One
interviewer told me that his first 6 months at MS were the worst of his
life. I pray that it doesn’t last that long for me
I learned that
after the initial period that few that survive it would ever think of
leaving. I absolutely see how that could be
From Matthew Mastracci: NAnt 0.8.2 was recently released. Note that this release has support for both the Microsoft.NET framework v1.1 and Mono.
See the download link above or the NAnt homepage:
http://nant.sourceforge.net/
Sam Gentile and I wrote a piece on building WinForms apps in MC++ using the new designer support in VS.NET 2003. Unfortunately, it acquired some small errors along the publishing path, e.g. STA does not stand for "spanning three algorithm" in this case. However, the errors are minor and C++ programmers interested in the .NET forms engine should definately take a look.
I'm sure that this is all over the web by now, but I couldn't help but congratulate my new team on a wonderful revamp of their most important content into Developer Centers (DevCenters) for architecture, web services, VS, VB, VC++, C#, J#, .NET and Windows Server 2003. It looks great, guys. Congrats!
