About this site
Visual Studio is undoubtedly the most powerful integrated development environment in the world. Yet the vast majority of .NET programmers only use a very small portion of all that Visual Studio has to offer. Most of us have a Formula One racing car that we are treating like a bicycle.
There are endless reasons why we haven't invested more time in understanding how to use Visual Studio more productively. In our world of ever expanding scopes and shrinking schedules it's hard to find time to stop fighting fires and invest in our own self-improvement. Maybe we have never actually given it much thought. Perhaps we even like to blame our tools from time to time. However we must remember that a good tradesman knows when to use a scalpel instead of a hammer, and a master craftsman is skilled in their use.
The gap between the best software engineering practice and the average practice is very wide - perhaps wider than any other engineering discipline. A tool that disseminates good practice would be important.
Frederick P. Brooks
No Silver Bullet - Essence and Accident in Software Engineering
We all want to be better programmers, and we all know that there is no silver bullet. However even Frederick Brooks understood the value of more powerful software development tools. By understanding the full power of our primary tool and wielding it with precision we can become more productive and produce better quality code. We can become the master craftsman.
About the authors
Chris Anderson
Chris Anderson is a software developer, consultant, and director of Peer Placements, a company that he co-founded in 2008. Chris began writing Basic code in his early teens before completing a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Systems. He has been a professional developer for over 10 years, specialising in building desktop, web, and mobile business applications using Microsoft technologies for industries as wide ranging as accounting, property valuation, mining, the fresh produce industry, pet cremations, logistics, field services, sales, and construction.
Chris is based in Sydney, Australia, and can be regularly spotted as an attendee and presenter at many user groups in the area.
Chris is co-author of the upcoming Professional Visual Studio 2010 and also has a blog at http://chrisa.wordpress.com/.
David Gardner
David Gardner is a seasoned.NET developer and the Chief Software Architect at Intilecta Corporation. David has an ongoing passion to produce well-designed, high-quality software products that engage and delight users. Since the mid-90's, David has worked as a solutions architect, consultant, and developer, and has provided expertise to organizations in Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia.
David is a regular speaker at the Perth .NET user group, and has presented at events including the .NET Framework launch, TechEd Malaysia, and the Microsoft Executive Summit. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) and is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.
David is the co-author of Professional Visual Studio 2008 and the upcoming Professional Visual Studio 2010. He also maintains a personal website at http://peaksite.com/.
Mike Minutillo
Mike Minutillo is .NET software engineer with a bachelor of science degree in computer science. In 2000, Mike started writing .NET software to fund his university studies and has been an active member of the .NET community ever since.
Mike is a regular attendee at the Perth .NET Community of Practice where he has given presentations on new features of C#, ASP.NET MVC and Test-Driven Philosophy. In 2009 he started the Perth ALT.NET user group which meets monthly to discuss software engineering tools and practices in the .NET development space.
Mike is half of the winning team in the 2008 Microsoft DevSta programming competition winning best overall application and best mobile application.
Mike is co-author of the upcoming Professional Visual Studio 2010. He maintains a technical blog at http://wolfbyte-net.blogspot.com/ and can be contacted at http://twitter.com/wolfbyte/.
Keyvan Nayyeri
Keyvan Nayyeri is a software architect and developer and an active .NET community member with a bachelor of science degree in Applied Mathematics.
Keyvan began his programming life with over eight years of system programming and much experience with practices. In the development world, Keyvan is a middle-tier developer and an expert in markup languages and their related technologies. Recently he has switched to Service Oriented design and building distributed systems. He is a young community member who has written several articles for .NET communities. Beside this, he's running some open source projects. Keyvan has been a Community Server MVP since April 2006 and primarily focuses on codes and APIs and has written several modules and custom controls for Community Server. He joined the Community Server folks in the early days and actively has helped many Community Server users to find their way in this world.
Keyvan is the author of Professional Visual Studio Extensibility and co-author of Professional Community Server. His thoughts on .NET, Community Server, and Technology can be found on http://www.nayyeri.net/.
Nick Randolph
Nick is currently the Chief Development Officer for nsquared solutions, having recently left his role as Lead Developer at Intilecta Corporation where he was integrally involved in designing and building their application framework.
After graduating from a combined IT/Commerce degree, Nick went on to be nominated as a Microsoft MVP in recognition of his work with the Perth .NET user group and his focus on mobile devices. In addition to his experience with a range of technologies, Nick has also co-founded two companies and has assisted a number of other startups with technical advice in a previous role as Technical Manager of Software Engineering Australia.
Nick has been invited to present at a variety of events including Tech Ed Australia, MEDC and Code camp. He has also authored articles for MSDN Magazine (ANZ edition), two books entitled Professional Visual Studio 2005 and Professional Visual Studio 2008, and helped judge the 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008 world finals for the Imagine Cup.
Nick also has a blog at http://community.softteq.com/blogs/nick/.
An apprentice carpenter may want only a hammer and saw, but a master craftsman employs many precision tools. Computer programming likewise requires sophisticated tools to cope with the complexity of real applications, and only practice with these tools will build skill in their use.Robert L. Kruse,
Data Structures and Program Design
