Web Service Software Factory v3

I found this video from Don Smith about v3 of Service Factory. See it here.

The v3 release of Service Factory I think will be great. Now the Service Factory will use model-first. I think that model-first is critical for most to start use the Service Factory in real life project.

The realease date for v3 is set to 15 november 2007. Can't wait.

Web Service Software Factory v2 evaluation

After some tests of the Web Service Software Factory v2 it's time for my thoughts some kind of evaluation.

The whole Software Factory idea is great. You got a built in framework and built in code generation in the development environment. Your development time could decrease and the quality could increase. I say could because it doesn't matter what tool, framework or technique you use you could abuse it and get the opposite result.

I think that this version of Service Factory isn't ready to use in real life projects. There are some critical issues that must be solved first.

• The framework doesn’t quite feel like a whole. There are different wizards you must use and then there still are source code you must write manually. This work flow must be clearer and more natural.
• The code-generation is just for the first time, and then you must code changes yourself. There must be a way to do the generation many times.
• The code-generation is made from the existing database. The work flow should start with the creation of the business entity. The database should be a place for storing data and the focus should be the business entity model. If we use model-first we have a model to use for repeatedly code-generation when needed.
  

My main concern is that this version of Service Factory isn’t using a model-first perspective. By model-first I mean that the development is starting with the creation of a business entity model and a model for the service contracts. The models will be the glow that holds the whole application together, all code-generation will use the model as the truth.

Today I found and downloaded the v3 of Service Factory. It is really great. The major difference to v2 is that now we use model-first and the models are the foundation of the application. If you do any changes in the model just re-generate the source code.

Web Service Softeware Factory Resources

A collection of resources for Web Service Software Factory

• Webcast MSDN Webcast: Using the Web Service Software Factory (Level 300)
• The PAG team site for Web Service Software Factory. Here you got download site, Hands-on-labs and and some documentation.
• A MSDN article about Service Factory written by Aaron Skonnard
• Tom Hollander's blog. Tom is the product manager for the PAG team.
• The Service Factory site on CodePlex.
• A blog post thats critical to Service Factory.

I'm doing some labs on Service Factory right now and I will post some conclusions here when I know more and when I got some hands-on experience.

Webcast about Service Factory

I just saw a great webcast about Service Factory. See it. It gives you a great overview over how a Software Factory works and especially Service Factory. It's called "MSDN Webcast: Using the Web Service Software Factory (Level 300)". Download it here.

Web Service Software Factory

You must check out the Web Service Software Factory (Service Factory). I really think the Software Factory thing will be a generell method to develop applications now. Why invent the wheel over and over again. You can use one of Microsofts factory or design a factory by your self with Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT). If you're using a factory from MS you can modify that one to fit in your organisation and your needs.

In december 2006 the service factory version 2 was released. This version is using WCF.