Sessions

Sessions:

• Session: LINQ to Everything

  A 300 level presentation by Leon Gersing.

  This presentation happens in two parts. The first is an overview of the new language additions to the C# 3.0 specification and how these features culminate in the formation of LINQ. The second part applies these new concepts in a demonstration of LINQ by creating simple and complex queries to join data from disparate systems. There will be no drag and drop LINQ data sources here! We�re going to examine LINQ from the perspective of the C# developer looking to get going with LINQ to create the next great application! Topics covered: Type inference, Lambda expressions, Expression trees, Extension Methods , Object Initializers, Anonymous Types, Query Expressions, LINQ to (Entities|SQL|XML)

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• Session: A Quick Tour of the Windows Mobile Development in Visual Studio 2008

  A 200 level presentation by Nino Benvenuti.

  This session will give attendees a quick tour of Windows Mobile Development in Visual Studio 2008, primarily focusing on developing with the .NET Compact Framework 3.5 against the Windows Mobile API and SQL CE 3.5. See what features are in VS2008 to enable development of Windows Mobile applications for both the hobbyist and the enterprise. This session will also discuss and demonstrate use of Windows Mobile APIs including GPS, Outlook Mobile, SNAPI, and WISP as well as SQL CE 3.5

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• Session: Access to Your Data Anytime and Anywhere With the Microsoft Sync Framework

  A 300 level presentation by Nino Benvenuti.

  The Microsoft Sync Framework (MSF) is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables synchronization, offline, and collaborative scenarios for services, applications, and devices. This session will discuss MSF, its architecture (including the default providers (Sync Services for ADO.NET, Sync Services for File Systems, and Sync Services for FeedSync)), and the mechanisms by which MSF can be extended. Demonstrations of MSF usage and building a custom provider will also be featured in this presentation

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• Session: An Introduction to Boo and DSL

  A 300 level presentation by Jay R. Wren.

  DSL shwee ess ell. Isn�t this a Digital Subscriber Line? Domain Specific Languages get all the lip service and none of the implementation or use. Real world DSLs are hard work. Boo makes it much easier. Just what does it take to make a DSL with Boo? Why would I use Boo instead of that Ruby thing I keep hearing about? You might get some answers here.

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• Session: An Introduction to Castle ActiveRecord, or Stop Writing CRUD!

  A 200 level presentation by Michael Eaton.

  Nobody likes writing CRUD. After writing an obscene number of methods and stored procedures you are left with a mountain of repetitive,error-prone,data access code. Wouldn't it be great if you could spend that time writing actual business logic instead of being a plumber and writing the same old data access code? In this talk Michael Eaton will introduce you to an open-source framework called Castle ActiveRecord that will help you write less data access code and be more productive.

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• Session: ASP.NET applications for SharePoint

  A 300 level presentation by Leon Gersing.

  The majority of SharePoint development, integration and customization is through Web Part development. What happens, though, when you want to offer a deeper integration experience than what Web Parts have to offer? In this session, we�ll look at building truly integrated ASP.NET applications into the WSS v3 platform. This session is a developer deep dive that seeks to demystify WSS v3 development for ASP.NET developers and provide guidance and best practices around WSS v3/MOSS 2007 development. Topic covered: Web Parts, Site Pages, Application Pages, Custom CAS policies, Solutions, Features, EventReceivers and the SharePoint Object Model

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• Session: ASP.Net Performance and Optimization

  A 200 level presentation by Jeff McWherter.

  So, you�ve created a slick ASP.NET web application, but the performance isn�t what you were expecting. In this session I will demonstrate tools to help find the bottlenecks and offer advice on resolving them.

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• Session: Creating Silverlight 2.0 Presentation in Silverlight 2.0

  A 300 level presentation by Matt Casto.

  Get ready for a recursive experience! This presentation is actually a Silverlight 2.0 application which gives a presentation about the features of Silverlight 2.0 and how to use them to build a presentation about Silverlight 2.0. Got that? You�ll learn about the XAML elements, dynamic languages, data binding and networking support available in Silverlight 2.0 Beta.

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• Session: Exploit the XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008

  A 300 level presentation by Jason Follas.

  XML-based data is very prevalent in today's data world to the point that every database developer should know how to work with XML. Middle-tier translation of XML into relational data may be inflexible, and often leads to a loss of fidelity over time. One solution is to move the XML handling into the database itself in order to improve overall integration. SQL Server 2005 provides powerful XML processing features that allow easy access to data stored within XML without sacrificing any of the original fidelity.

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• Session: F# It!

  A 300 level presentation by James Bender Amanda Laucher.

  Functional languages like LISP have traditionally been considered a niche, academic langage not widely used in the business world. Lately these languages have been experience a surge of popularity as developer rediscover their benefits and find ways to apply them to everyday business development. F#, based on the .NET platform, bring all the power of a functional language to a familiar environment and framework. This presentation will explain what F# is, how it is different from other .NET languages you are using and how to start leveraging it�s power in your day to day development right away!

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• Session: Getting Started with ASP.Net MVC

  A 200 level presentation by Tim Wingfield.

  Are you finally tired of trying to maintain state in your web forms? The event model and page lifecycle finally pushed you too far? Fear not, ASP.Net MVC is on its way. In this talk we'll investigate getting started with the MVC Framework, how it differs from Web Forms, and all with an eye towards TDD.

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• Session: Happy Marriage of Agile and TFS

  A 200 level presentation by Alexei Govorine.

  Alexei Govorine from Quick Solutions will talk about Hands On Agile Practices. Alexei will run through the fundamentals of Agile Planning and involve the group in mock sessions of agile practices such as standups, the estimating game, the planning game, development steps, and other critical pieces of the Agile puzzle. Alexei will show how Team Foundation Server can be leveraged to implement the vision to insure seamless integration between the methodology and development team.

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• Session: Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation

  A 200 level presentation by Dan Rigsby.

  Windows Communication Foundation is Microsoft's "next-generation" programming platform and runtime system for building, configuring and deploying network-distributed services. It was initially released with .Net 3.0, but there are many people who have yet to dive into this technology. This is an introduction session that will guide you through the basics of WCF, why you should move to WCF, and how you can move your existing applications to WCF.

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• Session: IronRuby and the Silverlight DLR

  A 200 level presentation by Carey Payette.

  This beginner level session is aimed at developers who are interested in learning how to use IronRuby in their Silverlight applications. The DLR concepts will be explained. This session will review step by step what is required to hit the ground running in this technology space.

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• Session: Looking Out for IronPython

  A 200 level presentation by Darrell Hawley.

  There's been a lot of talk lately about new languages for the .NET platform. One of these languages, IronPython, a port of the Python programming language, started out as an experiment to see how dynamic languages would perform on the CLR. The experiment proved enough of a success that it eventually gave birth to the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), the basis for IronRuby and the next Visual Basic. In this talk, we'll discuss the state of IronPython and it's uses before coding-up some examples where we can make some comparisons with the more traditional .NET languages.

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• Session: Reliable Messaging in WCF

  A 300 level presentation by James Bender.

  One of the newest and most exciting features of WCF is the ability to easily integrate reliable messaging without the pain of writing a bunch of �plumbing� code to handle this for you. For those who have done this in the ASMX world, this feature alone is a huge selling point of WCF! Strategies for implementing reliable messaging will be covered as well as an overview of the MSMQ binding.

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• Session: SEO for ASP.NET Developers

  A 200 level presentation by Dan Hounshell.

  Search Engine Optimization is the art of making web sites irresistible to search engines and the people using search results. Good SEO = more traffic = more $$$. I will debunk SEO myths such as: It is a �dirty� business. It is not the developer�s job. It is too difficult. It is something that can be done later. I will explain why you should care about SEO, demonstrate some simple ways to build SEO into your sites from the beginning, and describe some changes that you can make right now to improve your site�s search engine rankings.

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• Session: Soft Skillz: They aren�t just for humans anymore.

  A 100 level presentation by Brian Prince.

  As Brian transitions into his new role at Microsoft, he looks back at 15 years of being a developer, consultant, and business leader. He will talk about the skills and wisdom that you need to be happy and successful.

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• Session: Story-Driven Testing

  A 200 level presentation by Jim Holmes.

  How many times have we developers missed the ball on domain-specific issues? Developers don�t have expert knowledge of payroll systems, insurance claims, or order entry systems � yet all the time we pitch ourselves as the experts to implement such systems! Learn how to bridge this gap with Fitnesse. Bring your customers intimately into your design and development phases by creating stories sheets describing specific system operations � and then see how you can those exact sheets directly in your test-driven development. This session will show you a great system for boosting customer collaboration and increasing your code�s quality.

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• Session: Test Driven Development

  A 300 level presentation by Phil Japikse.

  Test Driven/Test First Development is more than writing your unit tests first. It requires a very different thought process. We�ll dive into that process with a completely code driven session.

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• Session: The C# Variety Show

  A 200 level presentation by David Redding.

  Let's face it, Technology is boring to the non-technologist. How many of you run home to your significant other and say "Ooh OOH Guess what I learned today�" I'm guessing at this point you get "That's nice dear, what's for dinner?". Well, let's change that. If you really want something to talk about, come listen how Dave has made his wife more efficient at fetching beer from the fridge using Yield Return, or about how Mom and Dad give Kid a personality disorder since he's a Singleton. This talk will cover a wide variety C# and Software development topics, ranging from Design patterns to C# specific implementations. I guarantee you'll see more references to Beer than you ever had in any other technology talk.

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• Session: User Interface Design for Programmers

  A 200 level presentation by Chris Poteet.

  An introduction the basics of user experience, information architecture, and usability geared specifically to application developers unfamiliar with the topics.

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• Session: Welcome to the church of Agile

  A level presentation by Michael Neel.

  Agile is hot � there is no denying it. Odds are your IT department has gone agile or seriously considering it. New terminology, tools, and rules; it can be overwhelming. Fortunately, the core idea of Agile is very simple. This session will take you though the �why� that�s often over looked, and help you learn to �think Agile.�

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• Session: Well, Isn't that Spatial�

  A 200 level presentation by Jason Follas.

  Thanks to the pervasiveness of GPS data, developers today are being asked to incorporate geospatial information into their data-driven applications. Working with spatial data, though, involves using complex geometric formulas that are difficult to implement in SQL queries. What developers need is a common abstraction layer running on the database itself that softens the complexity of working with geospatial data, yet is straightforward enough to incorporate directly into queries to provide spatial-based filtering and distance calculations. Microsoft introduced two new spatial data types (Geometry and Geography) in SQL Server 2008 that provide an implementation of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards.

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• Session: What's New with ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions

  A 200 level presentation by Jeff Hunsaker.

  It seems like every day Scott Guthrie posts some cool new feature included with the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions. This session will provide an overview of the possibilities with 3.5 as well as dive deep on 2-3 of these features. Likely demos: ADO.NET Entity Framework, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data Controls.

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• Session: Why Ruby

  A 200 level presentation by Joe O'Brien.

  This session answers the question many people are wanting to ask: Why Ruby? Why should I invest in learning another language? There is a lot of talk about IronRuby, and Ruby on Rails, but no one is really giving the compelling answer to this question. In this talk I will walk through the killer features that make this language worth looking at. Drawing upon our years of production Ruby experience, I will demonstrate the things that draw so many people to this language, show what makes it tick, and why you should spend more time learning it.

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• Session: WPF for Developers

  A 200 level presentation by Joe Wirtley.

  You've seen the sizzle, but what about the steak? In this presentation I will describe Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) for developers. No reflected images. No animated page flipping transitions. No Expression Blend. No Silverlight. Just Visual Studio 2008 and code to actually do stuff. I'll cover the WPF fundamentals, including XAML, dependency properties, data binding, commands, validation, and styles. Then I'll talk about how to use these features to create desktop applications and describe some of the challenges I encountered creating my first WPF applications.

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