Speakers at DevWeek 2008

NOTE
The information on this page refers to DevWeek 2008. This site will be updated with information on DevWeek 2009 closer to the event.

DevWeek 2008 and SQL Server DevCon 2008 feature a number of the world’s best-known experts on software development, who between them have written dozens of books and hundreds of magazine articles.

They include:

Jeff Prosise Jeff makes his living programming Microsoft .NET, and teaching others how to do the same. His latest book, Programming Microsoft .NET, was published by Microsoft Press in May 2002, and his previous book, Programming Windows with MFC, was widely considered to be the definitive work on MFC programming. A co-founder of Wintellect, Jeff is a contributing editor to MSDN Magazine, where he writes articles about Microsoft .NET and authors the Wicked Code column, and last but not least, he is the only person to have spoken at every DevWeek since the first event in February 1998.

Aaron Skonnard Aaron is a co-founder of Pluralsight, a Microsoft .NET training provider. He is the author of Pluralsight’s Applied Web Services, Applied BizTalk Server 2006, and Applied WCF courses. Aaron speaks regularly at various conferences around the world, including Microsoft’s PDC and TechEd events. He has written a number of books including the Essential XML Quick Reference and Essential XML, and he has a regular column in MSDN Magazine – The XML Files. He currently writes MSDN’s Service Station column in conjunction with his blog, and he is recognised by Microsoft as an MVP.

Dave Wheeler Dave is an independent trainer and consultant, specialising in Microsoft .NET technologies. He is a regular conference speaker, ASP.NET forums moderator and author of occasional articles for VSJ magazine. Dave also teaches various courses for DevelopMentor, with WPF and Silverlight being particular areas of focus.

Ingo Rammer Ingo is an independent consultant, developer, author, and trainer, and one of the co-founders of Thinktecture, an organisation that provides consulting, support and training services for software architects and developers. His books Advanced .NET Remoting and Advanced .NET Remoting in VB.NET were published by Apress in 2002. In his day-to-day work, he focuses mainly on the architecture of enterprise applications – primarily using .NET and web services – and has worked with various companies in the telecommunication and software industries.

Itzik Ben-Gan Itzik Ben-Gan is one of the founders of Solid Quality Mentors. A SQL Server Microsoft MVP since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training courses around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. He is the author of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying and T-SQL Programming, and he has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and white papers for MSDN. Itzik’s speaking activities include TechEd, DevWeek, PASS, SQL Server Magazine Connections and various user groups around the world.

Niels Berglund Niels is a member of DevelopMentor’s technical research, curriculum development and teaching staff in the UK. He specialises in the .NET system software and database areas, and is co-author of several of DevelopMentor’s database courses. He speaks regularly about .NET and database technologies at various industry conferences around the world, and he is co-author of A First Look at SQL Server 2005 for Developers.

Dino Esposito Dino is an instructor for Solid Quality Mentors, and a trainer and consultant based in Rome. He edits the Cutting Edge column for MSDN Magazine, and is a regular contributor to various other journals, including VSJ. He is the author of various books, including Windows Shell Programming, Instant DHTML Scriptlets, and Windows Script Host Programmer’s Reference. Before becoming a full-time author and consultant, Dino worked for Andersen Consulting, and he also co-founded www.VB2theMax.com to share knowledge with the global VB community.

Christian Weyer Christian is co-founder of thinktecture, a European company aiding and supporting software architects and developers in designing and implementing distributed solutions. He has modelled and implemented distributed applications with Java, COM, DCOM, COM+, Web Services and other technologies over the years, and recently he has been focusing on the ideas and concepts of service-orientation and their practical translation in customer projects, primarily using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).

Fernando G. Guerrero Fernando is one of the founders of Solid Quality Mentors. He has been working with SQL Server since 1993, and for more than 20 years he has been designing information systems, and providing training and mentoring. A former Principal Technologist and SQL Server Product Consultant at QA, Fernando has presented at numerous conferences including TechEd, PASS, VBUG, VBITS, MCT Conference, SQL Server Magazine Live, and DevWeek. He is a SQL Server MVP, and his book Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Programming By Example, was published in 2001.

Dominick Baier Dominick leads the security curriculum at DevelopMentor. This includes teaching and authoring courses about .NET, ASP.NET, WinFX, and ‘Vista’ security. He holds a degree in Computer Science, is a certified BS7799/ISO17799 Lead Auditor, and speaks at various conferences around the world about application security. When not teaching he spends his time researching security, doing audits and penetration tests, and helping other developers worldwide to build more secure applications. Currently he is writing a book about ASP.NET Security for MS Press. Dominick is a Microsoft MVP in the “Visual Developer – Security” category.

Kevlin Henney Kevlin is an independent consultant and trainer based on the UK. He specialises in programming languages, OO design, patterns, development process and software architecture. He has been a columnist for various magazines and web sites, including The Register, Application Development Advisor, Java Report and C/C++ Users Journal. Kevlin is co-author of two recent volumes in the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture series. He is also a regular speaker at various conferences, including DevWeek.

Mike Taulty Mike works in the Developer and Platform Group at Microsoft in the UK, where he has spent the last two years helping developers understand and get the best from the Microsoft platform. Prior to this, he spent three years with Microsoft Consulting Services as a consultant on developer technologies. Before joining Microsoft, Mike spent nine years working as a software developer for a number of enterprises, consultancies and software vendors, working with a variety of operating system, client, communication and server technologies. He holds a first-class degree in Computer Science from the University of Leeds.

Kevin Jones Kevin has been involved in software development and design for longer than he cares to remember, originally as a mainframe programmer and more recently developing .NET and Java applications. He’s been programming Windows since Windows 1.04, and Windows 32 since the first beta release in July 1992. Kevin has been involved in training and consultancy since 1990, and helped co-found DevelopMentor UK in 1997. He is the author of DevelopMentor’s ‘Visual Studio Team System’ and ‘Code Smarter with Design Patterns in .NET’ classes, and co-author of the books Servlets and JavaServer Pages: The J2EE Technology Web Tier and Team Development with Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

David Gristwood Ever since David programmed his first ‘10 ? "hello world" : goto 10’ program on a PET computer in the late 70s he has been hooked, and has worked with computers ever since. During his career, David has managed to secure a distinction in Computing at Newcastle University, worked as a freelance computer journalist, visiting lecturer, director of a software company, as well has having designed and developed a wide range of applications, from warehouse to finance systems, whilst working for a number of ISVs. For the past 12 years David has worked at Microsoft, firstly in its fledgling consultant service section, then in EMEA as a technical evangelist (yes, that was his official job title), and now in the Developer and Platform Group where he works with ISVs and partners.

Adam Machanic Adam is an independent database software consultant, writer, and speaker based in Boston, Massachusetts. He has implemented SQL Server solutions for a variety of high-availability OLTP and large-scale data warehouse applications, and also specializes in .NET data access layer performance optimization. He has written for SQL Server Professional magazine, serves as SQL Server 2005 Expert for SearchSQLServer.com, and is co-author of Pro SQL Server 2005. He regularly speaks at user group events and conferences, and he is a Microsoft MVP for SQL Server. Adam’s latest book is Expert SQL Server 2005 Development.

Fritz Onion Fritz is a founding partner of Pluralsight, a Microsoft .NET training provider. He is the author of Pluralsight’s ASP.NET curriculum, and he teaches courses around the world. He is the author of Essential ASP.NET and Essential ASP.NET 2.0, a columnist for MSDN Magazine, and a regular speaker at conferences including the PDC, TechEd, and VSLive! Prior to .NET, Fritz’s work focused on Windows development with C++ and COM, and he has written several courses and many articles on C++, MFC, COM, and ATL. Microsoft recognizes Fritz as an MVP for his contributions to the ASP.NET community.

Dr Juha-Pekka Tolvanen Dr Tolvanen is the CEO of MetaCase, a leading provider of domain-specific modeling environments. He has been involved in model-driven development and tools, notably method engineering and metamodeling, since 1991. He has acted as a consultant world-wide for method development, and has written over 50 articles for software development magazines and conferences.

Keith Brown Keith is a co-founder of Pluralsight where he focuses on application security. A contributing editor for MSDN Magazine, he authors the Security Briefs column. He authored the book Programming Windows and co-authored Effective COM, and he has recently finished a new book: The .NET Developer’s Guide to Windows Security. Keith spends most of his time researching security techniques and technologies, and has spent close to a decade teaching and developing course material for professional software developers. He speaks at many conferences, including Microsoft’s TechEd and PDC events in the USA.

Peter DeBetta Peter, a Microsoft MVP for SQL Server, is an independent consultant specializing in SQL Server design, development, implementation, and deployment. He also consults and trains SQL Server topics for Wintellect. Peter develops software using SQL Server and .NET, teaches courses, and presents at various conferences, including Microsoft events, the SQL PASS Community Summit, VSLive!, DevTeach, and SQLConnections. He writes courseware, articles and books, including the Microsoft Press title Introducing SQL Server 2008 for Developers.

Richard Blewett Richard has worked in software development for 19 years, with experience ranging from mainframes to distributed Windows-based systems. He has worked on a number of high-profile projects, such as the UK National Police Systems, as well as developing software for several large financial institutions. He spends his life these days in the world of connected systems with WCF, Workflow and BizTalk. Richard is the CTO of DevelopMentor UK.

Alex Homer Alex has written or contributed to over 40 books on Web technologies for various publishers, predominantly on Microsoft ASP and ASP.NET, ADO and ADO.NET, XML, and mobile device support. He has also contributed over 50 articles to ASPToday, DevX, 15Seconds.com and other ASP-related Web sites, and developed documentation of the Microsoft Patterns and Practices group. Alex regularly presents sessions at conferences in the US and Europe, and he has also conducted training sessions for various companies on ASP.NET and XML. He is a MicrosoftMVP, and a member of the ASPInsiders Group and the CodeWise Community.

Chris Webb Chris is a Solid Quality Mentors associate mentor, who has been working with the Microsoft BI toolset since 1998. His main focus is Analysis Services – complex MDX queries and calculations are his particular interest – although he has much experience with Reporting Services and Integration Services. He spent three years working for Microsoft Consulting Services, and he has also worked on internal BI development projects in a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, banking, finance, manufacturing, engineering and retail. He is a co-author of the book MDX Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 and Hyperion Essbase.

Ian Griffiths Ian is an independent consultant, developer, speaker, and author. He has written books on Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Forms, and Visual Studio. He lives in London but can often be found on various developer mailing lists and newsgroups, where a popular sport is to see who can get him to write the longest email in reply to the shortest possible question. More information about what Ian is up to can be found on his blog.

James Winters James is head of technical courseware development at QA-IQ. He consults, teaches and authors training courses, mainly aimed at the architect space. He is a regular conference speaker, and has over the last few years focused on Microsoft .NETt technologies, and is a regular on many forums. Just to remind himself that there is life beyond Microsoft, James is a member of the Java Community Process and the JSR 283 Content Repository expert group.

Klaus Aschenbrenner Klaus works as a software architect for ANECON (a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner) in Vienna. He has worked with the .NET Framework and especially with SQL Server 2005 from the very beginning. His support for the .NET community earned him MVP awards from Microsoft in 2004 and 2005, and he currently travels around the world teaching clients the core concepts of SQL Server 2005. Klaus is the author of the book Pro SQL Server 2005 Service Broker, which was published by Apress in June 2007.

Mark Whitehorn Dr. Mark Whitehorn specialises in database technology, data warehousing and OLAP, and has written nine books, the most recent of which, on MDX, was co-written with one of the architects of the language – Mosha Pasumansky. On the academic side he holds a research position at Cambridge University, working on the application of multi-dimensional database techniques to improving our understanding of how Darwin developed the theory of evolution. He also holds an honorary position at Dundee University. On the non-academic side Mark runs his own consultancy company, which specialises in data warehousing.

Neal Ford Neal is an application architect at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery. He is also a designer and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, courseware, video/DVD presentations, and author of various books including The Art of Java Web Development and the 2006 No Fluff, Just Stuff Anthology. His primary consulting focus is the building of large-scale enterprise applications. He is a regular speaker at various conferences worldwide.

Simon Sabin Simon is an independent database consultant specialising in the world of search, distributed architectures, business intelligence and application development. He has worked with SQL Server since 1998, and has always focused on high performance reliable systems. He was awarded MVP status by Microsoft in 2006, and is a regular speaker at SQL Server events, as well as writing for the SQLServerCentral and Simple-Talk.com websites.

Daniel Moth Daniel has been working in the UK for Microsoft in the Developer & Platform group since May 2006. Daniel gets to ‘play’ with the latest Microsoft software, and then explains and demonstrates it via his blog, articles, webcasts, screencasts, online chats and in person at developer events. Before joining Microsoft, he worked for a large consultancy, and before that in an R&D department. In addition to significant industry experience, he holds a BSc in Computing for Business, an MSc with distinction in Object Oriented Software Technology, Microsoft certifications and he has been working with .NET since the first public beta in 2000. He gained the MVP award for his community contributions in 2004 and 2005. Daniel is the co-author of the Mobile Development Handbook available from Microsoft Press.

Tim Ewald Tim is a Consulting Engineer at SeaChange International, a leading vendor of the video on-demand and advertising systems that power cable TV. He is the architect for a top secret project that connects Internet video with TVs in a very cool way. When he isn’t slinging clouds, arrows and C# code, Tim is falling more and more deeply in love with LINQ, Ruby, Rails and his new Mac. Prior to joining SeaChange, Tim worked at Mindreef on web service development and testing tools, and at Microsoft, where he designed MSDN2. Tim is an internationally known speaker and author.

Oliver Sturm Oliver is an experienced software architect, developer, trainer and author, with a strong background in various different fields, including system and framework architecture and design, process modeling and user interface design. He is a C# MVP, and he works for Developer Express as a Technical Evangelist and Lead Program Manager for the Frameworks Division.

Javier Loria Javier is a Solid Quality Mentors mentor, based in Costa Rica. He began his professional career in 1992, as a software developer and system engineer. He became a SQL Server MVP in 2001, and he is also an MCT, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, and MCAD. He is a software architect, with a special interest in Business Intelligence, and the co-author of several books, including Designing Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Databases, MCTS Training Kit 70-431: Implementing and Maintaining SQL Server 2005, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Essentials Step by Step.

Andy Clymer Andy is a freelance IT consultant specialising in .NET-based technology. His last ‘real’ job was at Cisco Systems, where he was a lead architect for Cisco’s identity solutions. Prior to Cisco he worked in various small startups. He teaches various .NET courses for DevelopMentor, including Guerrilla .NET and Essential .NET 2.0.

Mike Ormond Mike works in the Developer and Platform Group at Microsoft Ltd, where he spends his time talking to customers about the latest Microsoft technologies. Prior to that he headed up the Microsoft Developer Support group in the UK. In previous lives he’s worked in imaging systems, automated testing solutions, and real time software development for automated payment systems. Mike’s areas of interest are primarily ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight and Windows Live, with occasional forays into Office Open XML.

Aaron Johal Aaron is a Solid Quality Mentor, based in England. He began his technical career in 1986, and is now a technical training consultant, with a special interest in effective information storage and manipulation. He is a Microsoft certified trainer for both instructor led and distance learning courses, and he has been involved with SQL Server, in one way or another, since version 4.2. Prior to this, he worked with Sybase SQL Server and PowerBuilder, and before this he worked with Ingres in a Unix Environment, as well as Mainframe systems using Cobol and Focus.

Download code samples from DevWeek 2008