CAB, SCBAT and GAT
I wanted to wait until I did some more CAB 101 posts before I got to this, but one of the exciting things we have been working with the last 3 days is the GAT and it's use in SCBAT. As you saw from my posts, CAB is two things: very hard to understand at first and two, there are many ways to do things with CAB both of which lead developers to struggle. Of course you don't want that architecting and leading a team that has CAB has a huge part of its client architecture. The PAG group has utilized GAT to create Guidance Packages in SCBAT that allow you to run a "receipe" and out comes a CAB module in Visual Studio with the correct folders, file structure and initial code. Other packages include "View (with Presenter)." This allows an Architect to customize these and enforce one way of doing CAB things which can eliminate the thrashing that occurs on many teams that use CAB in the real world. I should have spent more time with the GAT as it has amazing power. As a former (recovering) VSIP guy (who had to write thousands of lines of C++ COM), this is so much easier to use to add wizards, and other guidance directly into VS.NET!! What is GAT? The Guidance Automation Toolkit is an extension to Visual Studio 2005 that allows architects to author rich, integrated user experiences for reusable assets including frameworks, components and patterns. The resulting Guidance Packages are composed of templates, wizards and recipes, which help developers build solutions in a way consistent with the architecture guidance. You really need to read GAT Masters Oscar Calvo's blog , Wojtek, and Daniel Cazzulino blogs. These guys are amazing. More soon...
Addition: Steve Eichert has a great list of CAB Best Practices he picked up from the event
