Inside the March Issue of VSM
Well, it's snowing hard again in the Northeast, and that must mean we're getting ready to debut the next issue of Visual Studio Magazine. Just like last month, we're expecting a foot or more of the good stuff ahead of our issue hitting the streets. And
just like last month, we've got a great lineup of how-to features, product reviews and developer insight to offer our readers. Look for the issue to hit
our Web site on March 1st.
Roger Jennings leads off the March issue with his exploration of the new sharding features coming to SQL Azure databases. Jennings shows how to configure and work with sharding to achieve maximum performance, and puts to rest the myth that SQL can't scale to cloud proportions. Also check out Jeff Levinson's walk-through for associating unit tests with requirements in Visual Studio 2010. With more and more dev shops adopting test-driven development and other Agile-inspired techniques, programmers are looking to move beyond code coverage to ensure that they can map unit tests to requirements.
Our Language Lab columnists are hard at it with in-depth tutorials in our March issue as well. Kathleen Dollard digs deep into ASP.NET MVC 3 this month, introducing the Model-View-Controller programming technology and answering questions on topics like the new Razor view engine and dependency injection. Finally, On VB columnist Joe Kunk offers a primer on getting started with Windows Phone 7 development in Visual Basic. Kunk has been working with WP7 for a few months now and says he's very happy with the platform. Be sure to check out his useful introduction to Microsoft's fast-moving mobile platform.
VSM Tools Editor Peter Vogel has kept busy with in-depth VS Toolbox reviews. He explores Telerik's TeamPulse Silverlight-based team project management suite for Agile development, as well as ComponentOne's Studio for ASP.NET AJAX controls package.
As ever VSM is long on expert opinion and insight, with our columnists looking at how Microsoft manages the gaps. Mark Michaelis has been a Microsoft MVP on C#, VSTS and the Windows SDK for years, and his VS Insider column brings that experience to bear on Microsoft's strategy of mirroring functionality already available in open source solutions. Andrew Brust, meanwhile, weighs in on Microsoft's track record for bridging the gap between legacy and emerging technologies and platforms, from QuickBasic to SQL Azure.
Winter clearly hasn't lost its snowy grip. And with the big plans we have in place for our April issue, I'm a bit worried I may be writing about yet another snowstorm 30 days from now.
Posted by Michael Desmond on 02/25/2011