Download the Visual Studio 2008 (Open XML SDK 2 CTP1) C# demo code.

Further information can be found here.

My Sample Articles
Using XML And XSLT In Delphi
XML Topic Maps

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There’s no doubt about it, XML as a means of representing data has arrived. Whilst Microsoft’s .NET framework 1.1 did a good job of bringing XML and data representation/access together, it’s fair to say that the .NET framework 2.0 brings with it significantly more integration and ease of use.

I was pleased to be given the chance to pick up a copy of this book hot off the press direct from one of its authors: Alex Homer. It’s unlikely to arrive in the UK officially until April 30th!

The UK’s software legends, Dave Sussman and Alex Homer teamed up with Microsoft’s Mark Fussell to produce this 528-page (1″ thick!) coverage of ADO.NET, the System.Xml v.2.0 namespace and XML integration with SQL Server 2005. It’s about as bang up-to-date as you can get, and you’re reading about it here!

This review is available as a PDF.

Related Resources
Alex Homer and Dave Sussman – on-line
The publisher’s web-site for this book
XQuery in The Delphi Magazine, Issue 75, November 2001
Part 1 of my own [old] introduction to XML

Technorati Tags: ADO.NET, Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, Mark Fussell, System.Xml, XML, XQuery, book review, .NET, Microsoft, Richplum, Developers Group

Test-driven development (TDD) has become very popular in recent months. Until now there was only one textbook on the subject [Beck02]. “test-driven development: A Practical Guide“ by David Astels, was published in July 2003 and complements Beck’s original TDD work.

This book is part of The COAD Series, named after Peter Coad, Borland’s Senior Vice President and Chief Strategist. The book itself is a little over 550 pages long and offers up-to-the-minute advice on how TDD can change your development and testing philosophy.

This review is available as a PDF.

Technorati Tags: TDD, Dave Astels, Kent Beck, Test-Driven Development, COAD, Borland, book review, Richplum, Developers Group

Weighing in at a little under 500 pages, sitting at an inch thick, The Art of Project Management makes for a good travelling companion. Its sixteen chapters are split into three sections: Plans, Skills and Management, each containing five chapters. If you think that this is just another book about project management, I urge you to read on. This book is about project management, but you won’t find any project plans, PERT charts,
Gantt charts or any form of methodology-specific advice.

What you will find is a very readable and well structured collection of chapters that offer you material that generally doesn’t make it into books about project management. I’m talking about the “soft” skills that a project manager needs in order to make progress. But these aren’t just skills that project managers need, anybody involved in the project needs them too. So please, read on and learn how you can become a better citizen in the project(s) that you
are involved with.

This review is available as a PDF.

The publisher took part of this review for their own web-site:

“This is Berkun’s first book and with it he joins a short list of cult authors including, but not limited to: Steve McConnell (Code Complete, Rapid Development; After the Gold Rush), Frederick P. Brooks (The Mythical Man-Month) and Jim McCarthy (Software Project Survival Guide, Debugging the Development Process, Dynamics of Software Development).

When recruiting new staff I often ask them the question: ‘Have you read McConnell’s work?’ Those interviewees who do not know who McConnell is, or cannot even name the books are removed from the shortlist. I would like to think that one year from now I will be able to ask: ‘Have you read The Art of Project Management?’

Finally, we have a book that doesn’t just teach project management, it teaches the art of project management – this book teaches you the people skills that are required to bring projects in successfully. More importantly, it is a portable book of common sense – it should be required reading for those folks on a project and anybody who has interaction with the project team, e.g. upper management, sponsors, CEOs, CIOs, information providers and even customers.”

Technorati Tags: The Art of Project Management, Scott Berkun, book review, project management

Edinburgh – 14th January 2005

This session was a repeat of The Best of Delphi 2005 session held in London, 29th November 2004.

Download the PowerPoint (1120K)
Download the source code for the demonstrations (50K)
Download the source code for the demonstrations (226K)

Technorati Tags: Delphi, Delphi 2005, XML Web Services

Technorati Tags: methodsandtools, TDD, Scrum, Frostburg State University