I’ve released v0.4.1 of my SharePoint Syndication project (abbreviated SPSynd). Note the new name and new link. I’ve been following Sam Ruby’s project formerly known as Echo with great interest and I realized that if I wanted to support more than RSS, I shouldn’t embed RSS in the project name. The new version supports WSSBeta 2 Technical Refresh, which is generally available. I’ve also spun up a GDN Workspace for SPSynd where you can download code and releases. Collaborators welcome.

Early Adopter has a couple of thoughts on code generation that mirror my own. It’s not the end of coding as we know it. My big problem with code generation is intelligence: developers (usually) have it, code generating programs don’t. They can only generate what they’ve been programmed to. Which means they’re only good for redundant tasks. Data access code is a good example of this. But I can’t write my whole program that way.

Code generation is a simple first step, but it’s only the first step on a road that ends in language innovation. The point of higher level programming languages is to eliminate the redundant mindless tasks. While code generation is valuable (the original C++ compiler was simply a C code generator) you don’t stop there and declare victory. Developers are much more productive when the higher level abstraction is embedded in the language. VB.NET’s event handling mechanism is a great example of this. In C#, you (or the tool) need to write a bunch of code to wire up event handlers. In VB.NET, I just declare the method handles a specific event with the “Handles” keyword. True, VS.NET writes that for you in C#, but you still have to manually manage it. I’ve deleted event handler methods in C# countless times, which results in a compiler error since the auto-magically generated code isn’t auto-magically deleted.

Places where code generators are useful are indicative of future disruptive programming language innovations.

According to the Windows Server 2003 site, the Beta 2 Technical Refresh of Windows Sharepoint Services is now available (though the link still takes you to the beta 2 download page). I got access to this build earlier in the week, and I’ll be posting a v0.4.1 update to WSS RSS that supports WSS B2TR. Cool thing is that B2TR changed some stuff to make rendering link URLs easier, so the issue w/ the doc libraries getting the wrong URL in RSS is fixed.

I was at a MSFT event for the last 2 days on future VS.NET / .NET FX stuff (I’ll avoid the pre-MSFT-Scoble-esque Longhorn-rocks-but-I-can’t-talk-about-it-because-it’s-NDA posts). I ran into a bunch of Software Legends who all knew me.

• Don Box, who made a big deal of remembering my name.
• Chris Sells, who knew me from my Messenger.NET stuff I built on his imcli classes.
• Jeffrey Richter, who doesn’t work for MSFT like Chris and Don, but has been consulting w/ the VS.NET team since early in the .NET FX dev cycle. I took an early class on .NET (Dec 2000) from Jeff.

This is part of why I love working for MSFT. You add Paul DiLascia (author of Windows++) to that mix and you would have the core group of authors that helped me learn Win32, MFC, COM and ATL. I doubt my previous jobs would have afforded me this opportunity.

The prescriptive guidance is coming fast and furious now. The User Interface Process Application Block is a framework for abstracting the control flow and state management out of the user interface layer. The Configuration Management Application Block is a solution to manage configuration data across your applications. And the Updater Application Block provides a mechanism to build the ability to update directly into your application.

Also, from ScottW, I discovered that the Data Access Application Block v2 shipped last Friday. Hasn’t shown up on MSDN yet.