Build process prototype finally complete.  Thanks for McP's initial prototypes, I finally got the process working end to end today.  Although a bit of a chore to get everything going, once it's going there's nothing better then checking in some file and seeing ccnet kick off the whole process. 

ccnet watches vss (probably change this to a few daily builds)
ccnet kicks off nant build script
nant builds both sln, and test sln to versioned dir
nant kicks of nunit on test sln
nant kicks off fxcop on sln
nant kicks off ndoc/vbdoc and makes html/chm
nant cleans/copies to latest
ccnet collects nant, nunit, and fxcop results, emails buildmaster, and waits for us to check on web

Hardest part was getting fxcop and nunit results into ccnet.  After some searching, I found the easiest way was to kick out both logs to a XX-results.xml in the latest dir, then have ccnet merge the files into mail ccnet file.  The newest build of ccnet handled fxcop out of the the box.

Couple this with the document generation out of EA, and whats left for us to do?   Oh yeah, code. 

Recently, I got sick of having my ip change, and my dns not be updated.  I use zoneedit for all my dns needs, and have looked into a few options for dynamic updates.  Nothing was quite what I wanted.  I wanted a little app that would update my list of domains with the current ip, only if it changes, and if it can't update, email me the ip.  So after a few nights with the thinkpad, and I have a beta.  I have been using it here now for the last day and it seems to be working well.  There are a few issues, and the email portion is not implemented yet, but it works.

If you have never looked at zoneedit for DNS I would suggest it.  Full free DNS (first 5 domains), with well priced add-ons like mail backup.  With this app, using it with a dynamic ip should be a snap  :)

Anyone whos interested, or even if your not humor me and at least check out the link  :)

www.iceglue.com

After working with Together for VS.Net and Enterprise Architect, our initial thoughts were that Together, or at least the description of the next version from Borland, was the product for us.  The modeling was very simple, and LiveSource was a very nice feature.  LiveSource keeps the source, and the diagram in sync at all times, kinda cool.  This was despite bugs in how the current version of Together works with VSS.  There may be work arounds, but it seemed to want to check the whole project out for every change.

So we start to contact Borland while we begin testing Enterprise Architect.  Having always been a fan of Borland, I was floored by my experience with them.  It was so difficult to talk to someone about the product.  Horribly difficult.  After leaving a number of voicemails and emails to various people I was referred to, we never got any of our serious questions answered.  But two people offered to sell it to me.  To their credit, I was contacted by a support engineer a week afterwards. 

After testing Enterprise Architect, though, it was easy to walk away from Together.  Within two hour we had the corporate trial installed, a model deployed to SQL Server, and a couple developers working in the designer.  The designer, although not as convenient then being directly in the IDE, easily makes up for it with its power and flexibility. 

EA allows users to lock the various objects within the model, and does it pretty well.  You can lock and unlock items through a context menu in the model explorer, much like vss integration in vs.net.  I'd like to see more visual notifications of which items are locked.  Sometimes you start to type in a new member, and realize the object is locked. 

In all, though, EA seems like a fantastic tool.  The learning curve is pretty minimal, and has an extremely robust feature set.  As far as team enabled editors, I didn't see anything that comes close to the feature set anywhere near the price point of EA. 

Did more searching on c# edit and continue, and it's not hard to find proof of the opposite.  It's a shame.

http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/archive/2004/02/03/66949.aspx

Stumbled on this thread over the weekend.  Interesting read about the futures of VB.Net and C#, and why they may be on different paths.

First off, it's the first I have heard about c# and edit and continue.  I may have been the only one, but I was definitely happy to read that.  On the other hand, though, some of the things stated about the different paths make me worry slightly about VB.Net's future.  I hope Microsoft does not try to dumb it down for productivity, move away from the notion that VB.Net is a first class citizen.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=OY0SJiZCEHA.2256%40TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl&rnum=8&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dvb.net%2Bc%2523%2Bc%252B%252B%2B.net%2Bproductivity%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3DOY0SJiZCEHA.2256%2540TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl%26rnum%3D8

We have been doing a decent amount of UML at work, and we anticipate that we will be doing quite a bit more.  We have been using Visio to model classes and sequence diagrams for some logical design, but find that the lack of team support is really a hindrance.

Because of that, I have been researching some team based UML tools lately.  I am actually surprised how few vendors there are with products.  I could only find a handful of UML tools that would work in a team environment, and most of them were very costly.  We are a relatively small team, and using something like XDE is a bit of an overkill, plus a huge cost that was never expected.

If anyone has any experience out there with UML tools it would be great to get some opinions on tools they have used in the past.  Below is what I have found so far.

Visio for Enterprise Architects (Microsoft)
Visio's UI is familiar, and Microsoft added UML support in an intuitive manner.  Adding diagrams and objects is very simple and fast, and quick to get used to.  The internal validations work very well, but too well in some instances.  For example, Visio doesn't allow an actor as a valid object on a sequence diagram. 

Visio does allow for very quick creation of diagrams, but its lack of team features are a major hindrance.  We thought about trying to partition the diagrams, but felt the integrating diagrams was going to be too much overhead.

Enterprise Architect (Sparx Systems) www.sparxsystems.com
EA is a very capable UML modeler.  The new version 4.0 cleaned up the interface quite a bit, and added to the already impressive set of features.  EA is very robust, and flexible.  I found moving around in diagrams to be very intuitive, and EA's handling of packages to be excellent. 

The UI does take some getting used to though.  Working with the actual objects can be cumbersome.  For example, adding an operation or attribute to a class is at 5 clicks away from the diagram.  After getting used to the UI, though, the amount of power is daunting. 

The professional version is team enabled, using a JET backend.  It also supports 2 models, using a shared file, or using a replication model.  Our team may be small, but maybe just a bit too large for a JET backend, so the corporate edition looks like a real possibility as it uses any oledb source.

Together (Borland) www.borland.com
My first impression of Together was that it was clunky and really a chore to use.  After giving it some more time, I have quickly changed my mind.  Once I got used to the VS.Net addin, I found it to actually be the most comfortable UML modeler I had used.  Working in the diagrams is very fast and easy, and navigating around is very simple also using the model explorer.

Together does not seem to be nearly as robust as EA, but has all of the elements you are used to working with.  Also, using what Borland calls LiveSource, your class diagrams and source are kept up to date on the fly.  I must say it was impressive to add a property in code, and switch to the diagram to see it already added. 

Right now Together doesn't support VB.Net (which is an issue since we are a VB.Net shop), but Borland has informed us that the next version will, and that it is slated for this quarter.  Since the diagrams are added directly to your solution, your source control ends up enabling team usage.  Right now there is a known issue that when you check out any of the diagrams, you will also need to check out the project (at least with VSS).  We have to evaluate how this may effect usage. 

Thoughts
Well I rambled on long enough about this.  Right now I hope we end up using Together, but it will really depend on what they can tell us about the upcoming version.  More details soon.