FASTDash: A Visual Dashboard for Fostering Awareness in Software Teams

Nice video!

But what about when you are working on a function and as a reference you just hop to another file to see another functions implementation. I assume it will show up as if you are working on that function while you are only looking at it, I can imagine this could confuse some your co-workers.

Is it possible to use it over the internet? Lots of activity going on so if it uses allot of bandwidth, and how about security? Because using it in teams with people spread over different locations would be really useful.

Very cool concept and hope to see it in the next version of VS .

(btw, Wish I had a Microsoft Natural MultiMedia Keyboard . I own a Natural Ergonomic 4000, but it's crap as I tend to push the space bar on the right en left top of the key. The space bar will then bend instead of go down. This is so annoying that I now use a Comfort Curve 2000.)

ORCAS ORCAS!!!! This is super kool!!!

This is great stuff. Thanks!

Is this something we can access if we have an MSDN universal subscription?

Great video.

Are you building in metrics as to how many times a developer requests help and who responded to the request for help?

If so, are you tracking these metrics to the quality of the resulting code?

I loved the three monitor layout. They look like tablets. Are they?

While I hope it increases collaboration, I see micro-manager bosses monitoring the developers every move or key stroke. I see the potential for some real abuse.

Very nice demo - I once imagined a similiar idea (but not nearly as nice), but of course I had "features" to work on which are "more important" than process improvement.   

I'm glad to see that MS is working on this kind of thing.

Folks, Greg and I are busy all day with a VP review and a conference paper deadline tomorrow (where we are submitting the FASTDash paper to!).  We will definitely answer your questions first chance we get tomorrow and so appreciate your comments and feedback.  Thanks for watching!
Mary

Mary,

Is  your team the same team that developed Visual Source Safe? If so, when was the decision made to drop VSS, and start development on FASTDash? Secondly, why did you decide to go with a completely different application, instead of developing VSS to the level of FASTDash?

Jonathan

From the last couple of seconds in the video, it appears that Greg is in a wheelchair, and that the object in his right-hand it a mobility-assistance device of somesort. Either way, it is awesome to see that Greg is a successful developer. There is a web-developer in my city who is pretty well-known. He has a rather successful history of work here, and yet he doesn't write any code with his hands. He has a paralytic-condition which keeps him in a wheel-chair, and he actually writes code with an object attached to his head. He is amazing.

Ion Todirel wrote:

hey Charles, what was in the right hand of Greg?

Certainly the right direction! There is a well-known (eww) Java IDE out that now has IM'ing team members and 'team debugging' wherein the dev can 'share his token' with the other and debug side-by-side (without a nice lab like P&P.. or physically being side-by-side). Can we bake that into version 2??!! ow about shared unit test development , etc. Now that would be 'the stuff' to Scrum about.

Serendipity Rules!

mixelz wrote:

Nice video!

But what about when you are working on a function and as a reference you just hop to another file to see another functions implementation. I assume it will show up as if you are working on that function while you are only looking at it, I can imagine this could confuse some your co-workers.

Is it possible to use it over the internet? Lots of activity going on so if it uses allot of bandwidth, and how about security? Because using it in teams with people spread over different locations would be really useful.

We are able to detect when you're editing vs. just not editing, so we can reflect that in the vis. 

In our prototype we took advantage of the corporate network for security and used SQL Server.  But there's no reason it couldn't be re-designed as a web service for wider geographic dispersion if introducing a little more lag was acceptable.

No fair previewing but not releasing!

jsampsonPC wrote:

Mary,

Is  your team the same team that developed Visual Source Safe? If so, when was the decision made to drop VSS, and start development on FASTDash? Secondly, why did you decide to go with a completely different application, instead of developing VSS to the level of FASTDash?

Jonathan

VSS is a full-fledged source control system - FASTDash is a team-awareness visualization meant to work *on top* of a source control infrastructure, so we're not really trying to replace anything that's already there.  Improving and integrating the vis into an existing SCM solution would probably be a great progression - but we're in Research, not in the product teams, and there's still more research to do...

Greg Smith
MSR

jsampsonPC wrote:

From the last couple of seconds in the video, it appears that Greg is in a wheelchair, and that the object in his right-hand it a mobility-assistance device of somesort. Either way, it is awesome to see that Greg is a successful developer. There is a web-developer in my city who is pretty well-known. He has a rather successful history of work here, and yet he doesn't write any code with his hands. He has a paralytic-condition which keeps him in a wheel-chair, and he actually writes code with an object attached to his head. He is amazing.

Ion Todirel wrote: hey Charles, what was in the right hand of Greg?

You're exactly right - it's my splint for typing...

This looks awesome! But, it adds to the amount that your manager can look over your shoulder.

I wish I had a triple monitor setup at work...

Good video

Is there any update on FASTDash?

Is there a plan to ship it with Orcas, Rosario or as a TFS Power Tool?

Is this video still available? I couldn't open it.

Thanks.
- alex