I lump this into the "... for Dummies" style of writing and frankly, developers who are at a level where they are serious about implementing architecture practices are most likely well beyond being dummies. The best writing style I have ever seen in a computer book can be seen in Juval Lowy's books. English isn't even his first language from what I understand. His writing is absolutely clear and to the point. I do not need "candy store" analogies to understand clearly written documentation. Please keep this concise and clear.

I haven't read the document in detail, but did read most if it through the exception handling section. Thank you for a document which places an emphasis on the "big picture" instead of the complex implemenation. While the detailed documentation is critical as one becomes more familiar with the product, it has been a great trial to get up-to-speed on the VAB and PIAB which we are starting to use extensively. The logging and exceptions would help our project greatly, but the team members doing the implementation have made the case that the learning curve on MSEL is so high that they can't make a go/no-go decision in the time they can "adequately" implement something new.

My impression of this document is that it will result in substantially greater adoption.

Final comment, while I enjoy a laugh now and then and some insight into what the thinking is at times, less cracking wise and more assumption that the reader knows what their alternatives are would make this even more useful (if much less interesting to write).

Thanks for improving the documentation.

Jeff Landry

I totally welcome this kind of document ,it has been a nightmare to implement the Enterprise Library and many thanks to the support forum which has improved drastically since avanade is looking after it.

Using the Enterprise Library like everything is very easy "once you know it how" but personally and for many of my collegues we found out that it was more of a "black art" on how it should be used . This kind of document however simple and dummy for the seasoned Enterprise Library developer it will make a difference in my view. So many people gave it up as they could not make it work.

I do hope that version 5 will drastically improve the Configuration Manager and make it easier to configure multiple configuration files .
Thanks for providing this document.

Super idea. To go from no knowledge to the full documentation is a bit overwhelming for newbies. A great stepping stone. If it is "... for Dummies" style - bring it on!

Very use case centric. Very perscriptive. I think this is a great format.

I've started reading the 5.0 notes preview. I'm enjoying the engaging writing style.

First, there's nothing wrong with the ...for dummies style of writting. I would discourage the authors/editors from accepting the response from rcollette as any measure of what is looked for. As the documentation states, and as brix states, it is a "nightmare to implement the Enterprise Library" if you don't know where you came from, and where you are going. Meaning, If I don't look under the hood, kick the tires, and race the engine, I'll never know if it will work for me. A esoteric treament of application building blocks does not suite most of us who are trying to keep up with all the technologies, while at the same time, being flexible to accept new 'best practices'. Thanks for the effort, it does show! Compare the preview docs to the initial EntLib documentation, and it's a world of difference. This is the kind of focus Microsoft needs to provide to developers to keep them.

The current EntLib 5 (59326) does not compile under VS 2010 Beta 2 (48 errors, 38 warnings). Is it the way it should be? How do I use it in the VS 2010? Should I try using the supplied dlls?

The current EntLib 5 (59326) does not compile under VS 2010 Beta 2 (48 errors, 38 warnings).

I tried recompiling and testing the DataAccessQuickStart solution under VS 2010 Beta 2, but I got 10 errors and 1 warning. An example ot the errors found is:

System.ApplicationException - Unable to located specified reference: 'H:\Users\eduquint\Downloads\Enterprise Library 5.0 - 59326\Blocks\bin\Debug\Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.dll
H:\Users\eduquint\Downloads\Enterprise Library 5.0 - 59326\Quick Starts\Data\CS\DataAccessQuickStart\TlbImp DataAccessQuickStart

Will I be able to test EntLib 5 under VS 2010 at all?

Thanks in advance for your help.

@eduquint
We haven’t done any work on .NET 4 and VS2010 compatibility yet. Our final goal is to have the existing binary run on 3.5 SP1 and 4.0, and let you compile with VS2010 if you want to. But we’re not there yet.

The best place to post this type of comments would be under Discussions and not as feedback to the Dev Guide.