DevWeek 2010® incorporating SQL Server DevCon 2010

DevWeek 2010 Pre-Conference Workshops

Monday 15 March 2010

The following workshops run for a full day (from 09.30 to 17.30), with a short break in the morning and afternoon, and a lunch break at 13.00.

Unless otherwise noted in the descriptions, they are presentation-based rather than “hands-on” labs.

A Day of .NET 4.0
WORKSHOP REF: M1
Richard Blewett
.NET 4.0 is a major release of .NET, including the first big changes to the .NET runtime since 2.0. In this series of talks we will look at the big changes in this release in C#, multithreading, data access and workflow.
The best-known change in C# is the introduction of dynamic typing. However, there have been other changes that may affect your lives as developers more, such as support for generic variance, named and optional parameter. There is a whole library for multithreading, PFx, that not only assists you in parallelizing algorithms but in fact replaces the existing libraries for multithreading with a unified, powerful single API.
Entity Framework has grown up – the initial release, although gaining some popularity, missed features that made it truly usable in large-scale systems. The new release, version 4.0, introduces a number of features, such as self-tracking objects, that assist using Entity Framework in n-tier applications.
Finally, workflow gets a total rewrite to allow the engine to be used far more widely, having overcome limitations in the WF 3.5 API.
This workshop will take you through all of these major changes, and we’ll also talk about some of the other smaller but important ones along the way.

The Productive Programmer
WORKSHOP REF: M2
Neal Ford
The Productive Programmer consists of two parts: mechanics & practice. In the mechanics section, I identify four principles of productivity: acceleration, focus, automation, and canonicality. This session defines the principles and describes their use, but the primary focus of this workshop is real-world examples of how you can use these principles to make yourself a more productive programmer. The second part of this workshop covers ten ways to improve your code, derived from the practices section.
This workshop includes tons of examples, all culled from real-world projects.

A day of Windows Azure
WORKSHOP REF: M3
Aaron Skonnard
Microsoft has fully engaged in the cloud computing platform with the release of the Windows Azure platform. This new platform promises to simplify the deployment and management of applications on low cost, pay-as-you-go, infrastructure. In this full-day workshop, we’ll discuss these new cloud concepts in detail and we’ll show you how to get started with your first cloud solution. You’ll learn how to use Windows Azure to host web and worker application logic; how to securely connect your applications (on-premise or cloud) using the messaging capabilities in .NET Services; how to store and retrieve data from SQL Azure; and how to connect people using Live Services.

Living the Silverlight Lifestyle (and Loving It!)
WORKSHOP REF: M4
Jeff Prosise
If you’re envious of all the fun your Silverlight friends are having and are worried you’re too late to the party, don’t fret: our Silverlight pre-conference workshop will get you up to speed in a day.
You’ll learn about XAML, CoreCLR, the Silverlight BCL, controls, data binding, templating, networking, isolated storage, and a whole lot more.
The time has never been better to join the RIA revolution!

A Day of ASP.NET 4.0
WORKSHOP REF: M5
Fritz Onion
This pre-conference tutorial will cover all of the new features found in ASP.NET 4.0, many of which cannot be listed at this time because of pre-release non-disclosure agreements.
We will look at the new AJAX features including client templates, ADO.NET data services support, DataView and DataContext, as well as live bindings.
We will also cover new features of the core platform including client ID management, CSS support, URL routing, and ViewState improvements.
Finally, we will look at the new dynamic data implementation and the enhanced filtering capabilities added to data source controls.

Architecture Awareness
WORKSHOP REF: M6
Kevlin Henney
Much is made of the architecture metaphor in modern software development, but sometimes the term seems to be vague or misapplied: just another way of saying design, the idea of blueprint-driven development, a synonym for technology selection, etc. The current fashion for vendor markectectures has also contributed to the confusion over the role and practice of architecture and architects. This Architecture Awareness workshop aims to explore some of the concepts that are valuable to software architecture, highlight responsibilities that are relevant in the role of architect, and outline some of the myths and misconceptions commonly associated with software architecture.
The session outlines specific areas of practice, such as attention to testing and dependency management, with concrete advice. Various architectural styles and considerations are covered, including the role of patterns in describing an architecture, and the relationship between architecture and agility.

A Day of OO Design Patterns
WORKSHOP REF: M7
Andrew Clymer & Kevin Jones
The pressure of code delivery means that developers constantly find themselves writing code using the same old bag of tricks they learned during their “apprentice years”. In the same way that areas of the platform evolve, so does understanding of good Object Oriented practice. This workshop aims to bring developers up to date on these latest good practices.
The process of examining patterns not only facilitates the learning of standard solutions, but also helps a developer to evolve a better understanding of OO principles, enabling them to effectively apply these principles to their own unique problem spaces. Patterns introduce a new standardised vocabulary to describe reoccurring techniques, enabling developers to communicate far more effectively. Patterns enable adaptive software and simple clear communication between developers and other team members. Software development teams are continuing to focus on agile methods in order to compete. The techniques covered in this workshop will show how it is possible to write code that allows for stable solutions that can evolve quickly. We will show how to write code that is closed for modification but open for extension, a key requirement for such solutions.
We will introduce patterns and pattern languages and cover the main patterns in use today, including Observer, Decorator, Factory/Abstract Factory, Singleton, Command and others.

Building Real-World WPF Applications with Team System
WORKSHOP REF: M8
Brian Randell & Ian Griffiths
In this workshop, Brian and Ian will take you through the end-to-end process of building real world WPF and Silverlight applications with Team System. You’ll learn how to establish a well-defined process that supports collaboration between developers and user experience professionals, so everyone can contribute to the project without tripping over each other.
We’ll explore what Team System can do for everyone involved in creating a rich client application. You’ll see how both developers and designers check-in and checkout files, how to track and manage work, and how to ship your application. You’ll learn how Visual Studio and Expression Blend fit together. And you’ll see what developers need to do to ensure that visual designers and interaction designers are involved as first class contributors to the project.
Once the foundation has been laid for team development, we’ll dig into WPF by first learning about the core WPF architecture and how to create and use WPF controls. You’ll learn about data binding and how to use a Model-View-ViewModel architecture. You’ll see how to design your application to be styled. You’ll learn about how WPF handles text and typography and how you can add printing support.
Finally, we’ll look at how you and use asynchronous processing and background threads to make your application more responsive. All of this will be done while reviewing a sample application which will have all source code provided. This will be a WPF example, but the techniques in this workshop apply equally well to Silverlight.

A Day on SQL Server 2008 R2
WORKSHOP REF: M9
Greg Low
SQL Server 2008 R2 is the upcoming release in the SQL Server product line, and was formerly referred to by the code name “Kilimanjaro”. It is focused around three key areas: self-service business intelligence, application and multi-server management, and scaling to the enterprise.
During this pre-conference day, Greg will help you understand the key areas introduced in SQL Server 2008 R2 along with associated technologies that are expected to be released around the same time. While the precise content of the workshop may need to be adapted to follow product changes, Greg currently expects to cover the following topics:

PowerPivot (Excel-hosted Analysis Services)

Dashboard Viewpoints (SharePoint Integration Enhancements)

Data Analysis Expressions (DAX)

Report Builder 3

Reports as Data Sources

Reporting Services Map Data

Parallel Data Warehouse

StreamInsight (Complex Event Processing)

Application and Multi-server Management and Connection String Virtualization

Distributed Caching Services (Velocity)

SQL Azure (Cloud-based SQL Server)

Master Data Services

Attending this workshop will let you gain an early understanding of how this new release might benefit your organisation.