Signs on the Sand

Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate is available for download (all three editions - Pro, Premium and Ultimate) and I ask you to install it, give a try and more importantly - try your real projects on it. Why bother? Because you can help to make it the best Visual Studio version ever. 10 might become new 6, but these small nasty beasties like this one can spoil everything. It is not too late to fix crashes and other severe bugs we might have missed. The bug bar is very high now, but crashes in common scenarios and data loss issues still can be fixed by RTM, we just need to know about them ASAP.

Here are some more download links:

1. Visual Studio 2010 SDK for RC

2. ReSharper 5.0 Beta 2 for VS2010 RC if you into it

3. CodeRush Beta for VS2010 RC if you can't live without it

Again: we desperately need your feedback. File bugs to http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio or just post them here if you feel lazy.

From dozens of cool PDC 2008 videos there are two I obviously like the most:

"Deep Dive: Dynamic Languages in Microsoft .NET" by Jim Hugunin

The CLR has great support for dynamic languages like IronPython. Learn how the new Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) adds a shared dynamic type system, a standard hosting model, and support for generating fast dynamic code. Hear how these features enable languages that use the DLR to share code with other dynamic and static languages like Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and C#.

"IronRuby: The Right Language for the Right Job" by John Lam

IronRuby is a new dynamically-typed language for Microsoft .NET that offers more runtime flexibility at the expense of compile-time verification. Find out why this is a good thing in the right situations: static compile-time verification for components that need additional rigor, and dynamic typing for more fluid parts of a program. See how to use dynamic typing to create internal Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) and how to use them for systems that you create.

This is Microsoft Dynamic Languages Team, responsible for IronPython and IronRuby. Not as big as you might expect for the "most important project at MS today", but 100% blogging! Dynamic languages are the next big thing so believe me you want to keep an eye on these guys. I compiled an OPML file for the team, which you can import into your favorite blog reader to subscribe to the whole team in one shot.

In no particular order:

• John Lam - IronRuby PM
• Harry Pierson - IronPython PM
• Jimmy Schementi - PM for Silverlight integration
• Shri Borde - dev lead for the team
• Dave Remy - PM lead fro the team
• Oleg Tkachenko - Visual Studio integration
• Dave Fugate - IronPython tester
• Curt Hagenlocher - IronPython/IronRuby dev
• Jim Hugunin - architect for the team, DLR and Visual Studio languages
• Tomas Matousek - IronRuby dev
• Srivatsn Narayanan - IronPython/IronRuby tester
• Jim Deville - IronRuby tester
• Dino Viehland - IronPython dev

I still can't believe my name is on the list...

Jim Deville of Microsoft IronRuby team has started blogging. If you are interested in IronRuby, definitely subscribe.

I've updated Interactive IronRuby Web Shell aka Try IronRuby to IronRuby r113 engine. This is so manual, I need to implement automatic update.

I also added a bit controversial recording feature. I now record everything users type there for security and research purposes.  Security - because "Try IronRuby" is hosted on a shared ASP.NET hosting and if somebody crashes it I need to know how it was done to prevent it in the future.

Recording results are live and open at http://ironruby.info/ir/CodeViewer.aspx.

Funny thing - when I started recording I added a disclaimer below the console:

Your Ruby code might be recorded for research purposes. No personal data (such as IP address) is ever collected. View what others typed here.

Immediately a concerned user with name "Life Liberty Property" posted this comment:

While the Try IronRuby piece was cool/fast, the fine print underneath concerns me.

It shows signs that Microsoft doesn't get it, their shills don't get it, M$ and cronies refuse to change, they think they own everything, and they are no more open than before:
"Your Ruby code might be recorded for research purposes"

Do I have to study in detail the MSPL, too, to make sure they don't own everything I write?

Man, my trust surely wasn't earned today.

You mean that somebody is already trying to take code that isn't theirs? Get a life.

What's interesting is that http://tryruby.hobix.com/ doesn't pull this stunt. Of course, _why doesn't need my code.

I'd better respond.

First - sorry for unclear wording. Microsoft obviously doesn't own your Ruby code and IronRuby obviously doesn't record your Ruby Code.

Here is a revised disclaimer you can see below the console:

Everything you type here might be recorded for open research purposes. No personal data (such as IP address) is ever collected. View what others typed here.

I hope it's clearer.

And second - http://tryruby.hobix.com/ does pull this stunt too. And _why does need your code too. Because it's fun!

Obviously Microsoft forgot about XInclude when they were shipping Visual Studio, so when you edit your XML and use XInclude you get no intellisense. It's easy to fix though. Just get this XInclude schema (standard XInclude schema improved a bit by Laurens Holst) and drop it into

{Visual Studio install drive}:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Xml\Schemas

Now it's better:

Very cool talk by Steve Yegge, available in video or transcribed form. I particularly enjoyed tooling part:

Moving right back along to our simple dynamic languages, the lesson is: it's not actually harder to build these tools [for dynamic languages]. It's different. And nobody's done the work yet, although people are starting to. And actually IntelliJ is a company with this IDEA [IDE], and they... my friends show off the JavaScript tool, you know, and it's like, man! They should do one for Python, and they should do one for every single dynamic language out there, because they kick butt at it. I'm sure they did all this stuff and more than I'm talking about here.

I'd add couple more modern IDE tools supporting dynamic languages: NetBeans (Javascript/Ruby) and Visual Studio 2008(Javascript, IronPython via IronPython Studio). But Steve is completely right - this is just the beginning.

IronRuby is coming! Expected to be released this year Microsoft's IronRuby is quite a unique project. Fully open sourced, OSI-approved/GPL-inspired  license, hosted at Rubyforge, accepting external contributions. Yes, Microsoft's IronRuby. Cool.

Anyway, I decided why don't I build IronRuby version of the famous "Try Ruby in your browser" by _why? So anybody with 15 free minutes at hands could play with IronRuby. That sounds like cool way to learn IronRuby internals.

IronRuby includes ir.exe - nice interactive IronRuby shell. Thanks to open sources I managed to hack up simple AJAXish Web version in just one night. ASP.NET 3.5 application hosting IronRuby runtime + simple Web console emulating ir.exe.

It's hosted at http://www.ironruby.info/ir, currently at version "0.first.hack". Go play with it, but please don't crash it often. Here is a screenshot for those lazy ones:

Hosting a programming language shell on Web poses additional interesting problems. Ruby is a powerful language and IronRuby additionally provides access to the whole .NET framework. Letting anybody writing and executing any programs on my shared hosting??? Well, I managed to make it running under Minimal Trust level, which means execute permissions only. No file system, no network or Web access, nothing. That should be safe enough, but please don't hack me. Learn IronRuby instead!

Go Try IronRuby in your browser.

Any comments are welcome!

Here is a small quick release. IronXSLT v0.3.

New in this version:

• IronXSLT installer turns on dynamic XSLT Intellisense  
• Improved compatibility with Visual Studio 2008

A very little known fact is that Visual Studio 2008 does support real XSLT intellisense - not a static XSLT schema-based one, but real dynamic intellisense enabling autocompletion of template names, modes, parameter/variable names, attribute set names, namespace prefixes etc.

For some obscure reason it is off by default and obviously completely undocumented. I'll show you how to turn it on. But before - a little teaser.

1. When you about to call a named template you are presented with a list of all named templates in your stylesheet. My favorite feature. Finally you don't have to remember all your template names:

2. In XSLT template parameters are passed by name, so when you call a template and want to pass parameters you actually have to know exactly what parameter names are. And you better know them for sure, because if you make a mistake you pass a parameter with wrong name you get no error or even warning. XSLT 1.0 specification allows such nonsense.  That's why template parameter name autocompletion is a real time saver:

3.  You can pass parameters when applying templates too. Obviously due to dynamic XSLT processing model it's hard to know in advance which template will be matched at run time, so it's hard to suggest list of parameter names. In this version of XSLT intellisense we get list of all parameters used in all templates, filtered by mode. I believe XML Tools could optimize it a bit by filtering the list when it's clear from the context which template will be matched. Anyway, very useful:

4. Autocompletion of template modes is also extremely useful. Make mistake in mode name and you can spend hours in debugger trying to figure out why your template isn't matched, because again this is not an error or even something wrong according to XSLT spec. That's why this is so cool:

5. Finally a couple of useful namespace prefix autocompletions. exclude-result-prefixes now becomes easier:

6. If you use <xsl:attribute-set> elements, you will be happy to see this one:

These are autocompletions I'm currently aware of. There might be more - it's currently completely undocumented and I probably the first one writing about this feature. For example key names are collected too, but I haven't found where they are used. If you happen to discover another XSLT autocompletion, report it in comments section please.

And finally how to turn this awesomeness on:

Yes, regedit. Create String value called "XsltIntellisense" under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\XmlEditor" key. "True"/"False" are valid values.

If you are too lazy for editing registry manually, here is XsltIntellisense.reg file you can run (but rename it to .reg before).

If you don't want to mess with registry, wait till tomorrow. I'm going to release IronXSLT v0.3, which will turn XSLT intellisense on for you while installing.

Enjoy!