Sam Gentile's Blog (if (DeveloperTask == Communication && OS == Windows)

Welcome new readers! There are a number of great posts that caught my attention today. In addition, I have started my 3rd CAB article to be posted here as well as getting my Syracuse WCF slides up on the site.

Agile/Extreme Programming/TDD

• Now, Scott Ambler has taken the ugly heavyweight monstrosity, Rational Unified Process (RUP) and tried to morph it into the Agile Unified Process (AUP). I have a lot of respect for Scott and his huge contributions to many areas of Agile but I am frankly sick and tired of making Extreme Programming  politically correct for brain-dead software companies and watering it down further and further with these kind of things. The tendency these days is to further dulute "Agile" (I hate that term) methodologies to make them palatable. Enough. [via Mike]
• Ayende on Rhino Mock Limitations
• The 5C's of Agile SCM
• Brian Marick list the things on his mind as he goes to Agile 2006.
  
• Also see his Reafctoring, Redefined
  
• Twelve Benefits of Writing Unit Tests First
  

Ruby/Rails

• Rails Not a DSL or Ruby a DSL?
  

CLR

• The BCL team wants to add arbitrary length Integer/arbitrary precision Double classes and would like your feedback
• Brad Abrams announces a very good looking video cast series from Microsoft teams: Live from Redmond. I notice that Steve Lasker is doing the first one on Smart Client: Offline Data Synchronization and Caching for Smart Clients. I looked at and used some of Steve's stuff by permission when I was presenting on Occassionally Connected Smart Clients and it is great stuff! All the other talks look great as well.
• Greg continues to rock with Method Calls: Part 1 (Normal Calls)
  

Avalon/WPF/Smart Clients

• The man, Charles Petzold has shipped his Avalon book to the printers. This is one that I am highly anticpating!
• Peter was interviewed by Dr. Dobb's Journal on CAB, the Smart Client Software Factory and Agile Software Development.

WCF/SOA

• Tomas on Async Web Calls and the 2-Call Limit

Data/LINQ/OR/M

• Ralf Lämmel and Erik Meijer. Revealing the X/O impedance mismatch. [via Lambda]