hackystat-sensor-visualstudio -- Code Review

Introduction:
I was actually pretty interested in testing this project because I was curious to see just how data could be taken as you are coding. It wasn't what I thought it would be but it was interesting nonetheless. They expected to retrieve data on the programmer by monitoring how changes in opening, saving, closing files and such would indicate some kind of change of state. I don't really see how much data could be taken from these actions but they added other actions such as compiling the code, state changes, changes in the buffer and program itself. I could see some data come from this but it's really quite vague on just what kind of data could be had here. It seems like all the data being collected are things that I should know as I'm coding, it would be nice to see a sensor that could take the code I've written and give me data that reflects whether this file has an associated test that goes with it, or if there was a sensor that told me that I was writing code that would not be executed (i.e. white box testing).

Installation:
Other than the fact that getting Visual Studio 2008 was extraordinarily difficult for me (I did not have a MSDN account and wasn't aware of that till the last minute), the rest of the install was a breeze. I was able to download the files with no problem. I was able to follow the instructions online and installed the sensor with no problems. This is to say that I already had hacky stat installed and for a regular user there should be a bit more information on how to install just the "essentials" of hackystat.

A few problems that I did run across was that I didn't have .NET 3.5 and I had to download and install that along with Visual Studios 2008. I think this team should make a note of that for future releases. On the plus side, although I was blocked from using the sensor without this piece of software, the installer did direct me straight to where I could download with ease.

I could also possible see someone getting lost when trying to install hackystat. They should be specific to which part of hackystat they need to install. Also the very first line of the installation guide reads, "This sensor is compatible with Visual Studio 2008 or a Visual Studio version that supports up to .NET Framework 3.5." I had Visual Studio 2005 install with the .NET 3.5 framework and it did not work. They should change this to reflect that.

Code Review:
I'm not to familiar with C# but it was surprising to see that it was very similar to Java. I have no idea what the coding conventions are so I can't really say much about that but I was able to follow along with the code without much difficulty. There was a slight error with "VisualStudioSensor - For Testing.Addin." Apparently it was looking for a file that was not there. I checked the installation guide and could not find anything on this file. I really have no idea what this file is for but I was able to run through the rest of the program without any errors.

Bugs:
The few bugs that I found were running more than one instance of the program caused the sensor to crash. I don't know if this is something they never planned for or if it is a deliberate function.

The status bar text reminding you that the sensor was initiated only works when Visual Studios is started manually. If I opened a .sln file there was nothing to tell me that the sensor started.

There was also another bug with NUnit gave some kind of error but this was fixed with the latest release of the sensor.

There is also that Testing.Addin mentioned above ealier.

Overview:
This project installed very easily and ran almost without a hitch. The only problems that I really ran across was a few errors that had to do with multiple instances and basically things that I would do only to "break da bugguh." Other than that, each of the DevEvents worked fine. I was able to open, save, and close files and see it reflected on the project viewer. I was also able to use the other feature and find corresponding DevEvents on the project viewer as well.