(Part 2, Part 1)

Concerning architecture, patterns, etc.:

• Pattern libraries exist from IBM, Sun and Microsoft–and it’s especially important to consider each viewpoint where interop and heterogeneity are concerns in your enterprise and/or target market.
• Folks weighed in on services vs. objects, SOA, services vs. components, etc. ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]).
• David Hill weighed in on the definition and makeup of smart clients (also here on his blog). I’m looking forward to contributing to this particular area of architecture as a member of the Microsoft Architect Advisory Board (MAAB).
• If you are an architect, are you more of a Purist or more of a Realist? Michael Earls compares these two architect behaviors. Chris Anderson puts himself more on the Realist side; he also offers a great quote: one of my favorite things about Microsoft is that you are never the smartest person in the room. Later, Michael Platt blogs about architectural types.

Concerning web services:

• Christian Weyer reminds us not to blindly trust public information–this time in the context of WS-I Basic Profile conformance in ASP.NET Web Services (ASMX). Matt Powell comments. (Mindreef SOAPscope 3.0 has received a fair bit of positive press in the web services ranks, in general, lately.) Digging still deeper, Christian uncovers an IIS behavioral issue at the root of his previous post, and offers a workaround. I’m looking forward to full BP conformance support in Whidbey of later this year.
• W3C updated its Web Services Architecture document.

Concerning applications, tools & samples:

• Project Niobe is a prototype SDK that abstracts the VBA, COM and MAPI layers into a single managed object model. From here, you can develop applications that integrate with Microsoft Outlook using existing technologies, but develop against an object model that’s more in-line with the design of the classes and namespaces in the .NET Framework. – Simon Guest, author (more from Microsoft-Watch)
• Christ Pratley, OneNote GPM at Microsoft, talks about the genesis of OneNote, using OneNote for blog prep, why OneNote doesn’t have feature X, and OneNote’s development process.

Concerning blogs, RSS, etc.:

• The January 2004 issue of the Architect Journal featured an in-depth article on dasBlog, a weblogging engine based on .NET.
• .Text author Scott Watermasysk details how .Text handles Trackbacks.
• Robert Scoble talks with the FrontPage team, who demo’d a RSS-reading component for SharePoint. Looks like the team is interested in RSS and weblog usage scenarios. Not surprisingly, elsewhere in Microsoft an effort is underway to leverage RSS from Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). SharePoint Syndication hits GDN soon thereafter.
• After Dave Winer visits Microsoft, Robert Scoble comments on why Sharepoint really isn’t used for weblogging.