This requires MsDeploy to be installed on the build machine.

MSBUILD /T:Package /P:Configuration=QA;PackageLocation="C:\BuildArtifacts\eserve\DEV\QA\QA.zip"

Deploying the package with MsDeploy to a web site

How to get the msdeploy command.

-source:package='C:\BuildArtifacts\eserve\DEV\QA\QA.zip' -dest:auto,ComputerName='https://eserve-dev.sacda.org:8172/MsDeploy.axd?site=eserve-dev',UserName='conwayc',Password='austin_1',IncludeAcls='False',AuthType='Basic'
-verb:sync
-disableLink:AppPoolExtension
-disableLink:ContentExtension
-disableLink:CertificateExtension
-allowUntrusted
-retryAttempts=2

Copying the package with ROBOCOPY

Copying the package to another folder with robocopy has an issue. Robocopy uses exit codes as success/error codes. CI servers look at the exit code of a command to determine success or failure. Robocopy breaks this model. Luckliy the sql team posted a code snippet to get around this issue.

rem http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/robv/archive/2010/02/17/61106.aspx
robocopy %*
rem suppress successful robocopy exit statuses, only report genuine errors (bitmask 16 and 8 settings)
set/A errlev="%ERRORLEVEL% & 24"
rem exit batch file with errorlevel so SQL job can succeed or fail appropriately
exit/B %errlev%

Usage:

 $("form#loginForm").validate();

Plugin:

(function ($) {

    $.fn.validate = function () {
        var items = $(this).find('[class~="required"]');

        var isValid = true;

        items.each(function () {
            var self = $(this);

            self.blur(function () {
                var field = $(this);

                if (field.val().length == 0) {

                    isValid = false;

                    var siblings = field.siblings('label[class~="field-validation-invalid"]');

                    if (siblings.length == 0) {
                        var error = $('')
                            .addClass('field-validation-invalid field-validation-error')
                            .text('This field is required');
                        field.after(error);
                    }
                } else {

                    var errorMessage = field.siblings('label[class~="field-validation-invalid"]').get(0);
                    errorMessage = $(errorMessage);
                    errorMessage.remove();
                    errorMessage.text('');
                }

            });
        });

        var buttons = $(this).find('[type="submit"]');

        buttons.each(function () {
            var button = $(this);

            button.click(function () {

                //reset the value, otherwise it's stuck in false mode forever.
                isValid = true;

                items.each(function () {
                    var self = $(this);

                    self.blur();
                });

                if (!isValid) {

                    return false;
                }
            });
        });

    };
})(jQuery);

Code contracts will be installed on your machine, but you’ll notice that Visual Studio beta 11 does not see them. You’ll need to run the Visual Studio beta 11 installer and “Repair” the install.

Another snag that might be encountered if you have Resharper installed is “JetBrains.ReSharper.TaskRunner.CLR4.MSIL.exe – Precondition failed.” Enabling the Contract Reference Assembly will resolve the issue. You’ll notice once this is enabled a folder called “CodeContracts” in the bin/debug directory.

The install screen is a fish with bubbles. No indication of progress. I wait and wait and wait. I press the num-lock key to ensure the computer has not frozen. Not frozen. Hump. I’ll wait some more.

After a couple minutes the the install screen came up. The ensuing install experience is virtually the same as Windows 7.

Start Menu

It’s a new beast. The old one is history.

Task Manager

Much hype has been around the task manager. It’s gotten it’s first makeover. Most will find it easier to read.

Hot Keys

Microsoft has trimmed the fat from Windows. Sometimes in places that need a little fat. For example, the shutdown button is hard to find. Below are hot keys that will help navigate through Windows 8.

Win + I – Open Desktop Settings (including shutdown)
Win + W – Show Tablet settings.
Win + F4 – Kills the application.
Win + Tab – Cycles through tablet apps
Alt + Tab – Cycles through all the applications
Win + E – Opens the explorer window
Win + D - Hides all open windows

Check out 30 New HotKeys For Windows 8

Conclusion

All in all Windows 8 is a refreshing perspective on the Windows OS. It takes tablet concepts and tastefully melds them into a desktop environment. I am optimistic that Windows 8 will be a good operating system. Overall it’s a refinement of Windows 7. It’s preparing us for the next step: Windows 9. I’m on the edge of my seating in anticipation of Windows 9.

Windows 8 is a faster and smaller version of Windows 7. So much so, that I am not upgrading my hardware. Will Windows 8 have widespread adoption? No, most will stick with Windows 7. I’m saying this now. Windows 7 was the last truly desktop operating system.

Windows 7 is the Windows XP of this decade.

First Impression

• Fast start-up
• the project icon is easy to read
• the solution and class explorer are merged
• active tab and inactive tab are easily distinguishable

For example, Sever A calls server B for updates. Both Servers use UTC Time. Server A sends over a timestamp, how do we know that the two servers clocks are synchronized and that the two times match, we don’t. The odds are they are not. How can they be? Absolute time does not exist. It’s all relative. By using a timestamp to retrieve data from another server you are making an assumption that both servers have the same time.

*photo reference

We talked about a number of things, but one that really stuck out was data migration. He says never to migrate via code, use a tool. You are reinventing the wheel. You are locked into your solution. All the risk is in your court. And the solution is not flexible. With that said. He went on to say the most efficient way to move data is with a primary key and a hash.

The destination side will request all the primary key and row hash. Taking the primary key it will check if the row exists. If it does exist it will compare the hash of the source to the hash of the destination row. If they match then the process is repeated for the next row. If they don’t match, then the primary key is added to a list of rows to request from the source. If the primary key does not exist then the primary key is added to the list of rows to be retrieved from the source. When the row comparison is completed all the rows that are stale or do not exist are requested from the source and persisted to the destination.

If you enjoy grunt work you’ll do the above. If you are a developer who enjoys building robust applications you’ll leave the grunt work to the tools.

*Image reference

A bug was reported in one of our products. A co-worker was tasked with finding and fixing the problem. His approach was to deploy new code from development into qa. The reasoning was that many bugs had been fixed since the issue was first reported. We might have already fixed it.

At first blush this makes perfect sense. Why worry about something when it could already be fixed. If we can’t reproduce it, then there is no issue.

But had we really fixed the bug? It reminded me of a phrase from the Pragmatic Programmer, called “Coding by coincidence.”

Had we really fixed the bug? Until we witnessed the bug and tracked down its cause we don’t know. Maybe we had, maybe we hadn’t.

If we could not witness the bug in action and then made a change to the code and then witnessed the bug not occurring we would not know it was fixed. Even if the newly deployed code did not exhibit the symptoms we don’t know if the bug was actually fixed or the symptoms simply suppressed.

A pain point I’ve encountered is route evaluation.

For example if you have 10 routes:

1. mq/s
2. mq/t
3. mc/e
4. mt/t
5. mt/r
6. ms/s
7. tr/r
8. kl/d
9. kl/c
10. kl/x

The routes are evaluated in the order they appear. This is logical. Evaluating a route consists of processing the incoming url and attempting to extract data from it. If no data exists a null is returned to the Routing Engine and the next route is tried. The issue I have is there is no smarts built into the route evaluation. It iterates over the route collection. For example if my route is the last one “kl/x” the first 9 have to be checked before it reaches the correct one. I’m assuming all the routes are relative to the root of the site. Why couldn’t there be a pre-evaluation to eliminate the routes? For example, I’ve requested kl/x. First 9 will be processed before kl/x. Why can’t the routing framework determine that 8, 9, 10 are the closes possible matches? Instead processing 9 routes we process 3.

This gets bigger when custom constraints are added. Say, for each route there is a constraint that looks up a user in the database then the database will be hit 10 times for the same data! Sure you can throw in caching, but that’s not the point.

Wrapping this up, Routing works great for 80 percent of the cases. It’s a good little framework with a few tweaks it could go from good to great.