Developer Break: Dart, DotTrace, Azure and YUI

Developer Break – catching the smaller but important changes and updates to tools and specifications, utilities and libraries:

• The Dart team have begun making 64-bit and 32-bit binaries for the Dart SDK and Dart Editor; after requests, the developers have now added 64-bit binaries for Linux.

• JetBrains DotTrace 5.2 now supports .NET Framework 4.5 and Windows 8, can attach and detach from running processes, and works seamlessly with ReSharper 7.

• The "Chief Craftsman" of Scrum.org, David Starr, is moving to Microsoft where he will be a Senior Program Manager for Visual Studio ALM (Application Lifecycle Management).

• A new "Embedded Community" has been launched for embedded Java developers to exchange information as Java for Embedded devices evolves.

• The first version of Devart's code review tool "Review Assistant" is now available. The add-on for Visual Studio integrates with Team Foundation Server, Subversion and Mercurial, and allows developers to have a "conversation" about their code.

• Microsoft has announced the "Windows Azure Authentication Library", a new component in the developer preview of Windows Azure AD. It offers authentication against a number of AD environments and also supports Kerberos ticketing for programatically retrieving tokens.

• Context-tracking, mouse support, presence control, combined gestures and a new KinectUI sample are all part of version 1.2 of the Kinect Toolbox for developers using the "Kinect for Windows SDK".

• MongoLab has presented Dex, a tuning tool for MongoDB. The MIT-licensed tool compares queries to available indexes and suggests new indexes that could improve performance.

• YUI 3.6.0 brings a RESTful HTTP Model sync layer, new LazyModelList and better handling of hash-based URLs to the web-based user interface layer. The update also brings boosted unit test coverage and a new suite of automated example tests.

(djwm)