This morning I am sitting in a very full session by the P&P folks: “Patterns & Practices for Mobile Client Part 2/4 – Mobile Composite UI Application Block“. I have started to look at the Mobile Client Software Factory bits, evaluating the various components for use in my current project (of course comparing to Avanade’s own ACA Devices asset). Once I have fully explored it, I’ll be dropping some blog posts. Join the workspace for the MCSF and pull down the latest drop if you haven’t yet.
One great point that John [Socha-Leialoha] made during the presentation was that while some of the code looks complex, it allows teams to scale – as opposed to some simpler-looking code that won’t scale (and becomes spaghetti code). While you might think that this is only applicable to teams (or even large teams at that), I would argue that it is applicable and valuable to a team of one (just like source control). He also noted that they use pair programming (a concept which I admittedly still struggle with), and, of course, Test-Driven Development (TDD).
The Mobile CAB bits of MCSF (and MCSF itself) are a GoodThing(tm) for managed mobile application developers. I am very excited to see this output from the P&P team. …and go get the MCSF bits. The bits, while not yet RTW’d, will release on June 30.