Spec Explorer 2010 is a tool that extends Visual Studio for modeling software behavior, analyzing that behavior by graphical visualization, model checking, and generating standalone test code from models. Behavior is modeled in two ways: by writing rules in C# (with dynamic data-defined state spaces) and by defining model scenarios as action patterns in a regular-expression style.
Spec Explorer 2010 Release 3.5 contains new features, improved documentation, plus over 60 bug fixes. It runs on the Visual Studio 2010 Professional level product and above.
Spec Explorer Home Page
Microsoft Silverlight is a powerful framework for creating and delivering rich Internet applications and media experiences on the Web. Silverlight 5 builds on the foundation of Silverlight 4 for building business applications and premium media experiences. Among other capabilities, the Silverlight 5 beta highlights dramatic video quality and performance improvements, and features that improve developer productivity.
Silverlight 5 Beta 1 is now available. It’s an add-on for Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 to provide tooling for Microsoft Silverlight 5 Beta and Microsoft WCF RIA Services V1.0 SP2 Preview (April 2011). It can be installed on top of either Visual Studio 2010 SP1 or Visual Web Developer 2010 Express SP1.
Download Silverlight 5 Beta 1
New Features in Silverlight 5
Jurassic is an open-source implementation of the ECMAScript language and runtime. It aims to provide the best performing and most standards-compliant implementation of JavaScript for .NET. Jurassic is not intended for end-users; instead it is intended to be integrated into .NET programs. If you are the author of a .NET program, you can use Jurassic to compile and execute JavaScript code.
Jurassic on CodePlex
Entity Framework is Microsoft’s recommended data access technology for new applications. Entity Framework 4.1 brings a set of powerful productivity features, including “Code First” support, the productivity-enhancing DbContext API, and the ability to work with an existing database or have it created automatically.
Entity Framework Homepage
Qink has assembled a comprehensive list of freely-available libraries for the Microsoft .NET platform.
Free .NET Libraries
CSharpSharp is an open-source library that provides common functions to C# developers that are not present in the standard libraries. CSharpSharp makes complex tasks that should be simple, simple.
CSharpSharp on Google Code
Dapper is a single file you can drop in to your project that will extend your IDbConnection interface. A key feature of Dapper is performance. This open-source mapper provides three helpers:
- Execute a query and map the results to a strongly typed List
- Execute a query and map it to a list of dynamic objects
- Execute a Command that returns no results
Dapper on Google Code
Lighthouse is an open-source tool to run Silverlight unit tests. It currently supports running tests from the command line. This is useful for running tests on the Continuous Build Integration Server (e.g., CCnet or TeamCity).
Future plans include support for running tests from Windows Test Runner Application and from the Resharper plugin for Visual Studio 2010.
Lighthouse on CodePlex
Business Logic Toolkit is a set of components to simplify .NET application development. BLToolkit is provided as source code that you can use “as is” or customize for your applications. It is written in C#, compatible with .NET Frameworks 3.5 and 4.0, Silverlight 4, and Mono, and is available under the MIT open source license.
BLToolkit Home Page
The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 is designed to make it easier for you to build mobile applications that leverage cloud services running in Windows Azure. The open-source toolkit includes Visual Studio project templates for Windows Phone 7 and Windows Azure, class libraries optimized for use on the phone, sample applications, and documentation.
Windows Azure Toolkit for WP7 on CodePlex
