Visual Studio 2005 really is a dream environment for any serious .NET Solution Architect or Developer. The built-in designers, the great new CLR and the language extensions, super new controls etc. make designing and developing complex applications less of a hassle. And as you may have derived from some of my previous posts, I also really dig automation of mundane tasks such as daily builds, build verification tests and of course coding and documentation of Data Access Layers, collections and the like. Enter Microsoft's Software Factories initiative.
A Software Factory, basically, is any automated process that generates software; be it code, a model, a spec, whatever. Software factories make the process of designing and building software less error-prone, faster and easier, freeing us up to focus on the interesting bits. And one of the absolutely coolest new things in this area is Microsoft's GAT.[...]