It’s time again to pack the car with our laptops, giveaways, staggeringly unhealthy travel snacks, and dangerous quantities of coffee as we set off across the northeast for the March 2009 Northeast Roadshow.
The Roadshow is a series of free, full day events where we deeply focus on topics for developers and architects, sprinkled with our “unbelievable” senses of humor, demos that usually work, and plenty of giveaways to keep unruly audiences at bay in case they don’t.
In welcome news - after a brief Roadshow hiatus to focus on the MSDN Developer Conference series, Bob Familiar will again be joining Jim O’Neil and me as we sweep through these cities, on this our eighth series:
Join us as we cover Windows Azure, .NET Debugging, Programming with F#, Game Development with XNA, SQL Server for Developers, and Effective .NET Practices. Click the above registration links to read the full agenda.
Sincere thanks to the companies and organizations who make the Roadshow possible by hosting us in various cities, including KnowledgeWave, Autotask, Rochester Institute of Technology, The Hartford, and the State of Maine Government Offices.
Register today, and we’ll see you on the road!
-Chris
As I've mentioned before, Microsoft is in the process of moving/growing groups to a great new location in the Cambridge area. Microsoft SoftGrid is one of the groups moving into that space on 1 Memorial Drive on September 24th.
The SoftGrid team has a bunch of Software Development job openings available - Dev Manager, Lead Test Engineer, Software Engineers, Sustaining Engineers and Test Engineers. )
Here's a link to the details:
http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/results.aspx?FromCP=Y&JobCategoryCodeID=&JobLocationCodeID=104&JobProductCodeID=&JobTitleCodeID=&Divisions=&TargetLevels=&Keywords=%20&JobCode=&ManagerAlias=&Interval=10
If you're interested, send your resume to:
Lauren DayMicrosoft Staffing Consultant- SoftGrid/MSD/Forefront27 Melcher Street 3rd Floor, Boston MA 02210[moving to 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge on 9/24/07]Direct: 617-896-5601 EST Home office: 978-686-2234 ESTladay@microsoft.comwww.microsoft.com/careers
For more information about SoftGrid, take a look at:
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid
Matt Winkler gave a session this week at TechEd where he described how to use Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) to control the page flow of a client-facing application. This has certainly been a popular request since the early days of ASP.NET (giving rise to such MVC frameworks as Maverick.NET.) A preview of this technology was given at TechEd 2006, but didn't make it into the current release bits.
The good news is that the Page Flow sample is now available with full source code. It includes a new PageFlow project template, a new Navigator workflow type, and new controls (InteractionActivity and InteractionGroupActivity) for Visual Studio. This sample can be used with multiple UI technologies (e.g. ASP.NET, WPF, etc.)
Read Matt's Post for full details and a sample use case.
This post is inspired by the presentation that Patrick Hynds and I gave on ASP.NET MVC at StackOverflow’s DevDays conference in Boston. Whether you attended DevDays or happen on this from the web, I hope this is useful for you to learn more about ASP.NET MVC. (Let me know if you have additions or questions.)
ASP.NET MVC is an implementation of the Model-View-Controller pattern on ASP.NET and is freely available via:
ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 2 is also available, providing a look at the next version. Note that ASP.NET MVC 2 will also ship with Visual Studio 2010 (itself available as Beta 2).
So, why is this useful? There’s a 3 minute overview "Why ASP.NET MVC?" for decision makers, and a 10 minute technical “ASP.NET MVC How?” video for developers.
To start learning ASP.NET MVC, go to www.asp.net/mvc/learn. There’s tutorials, videos, sample applications, etc. to get you underway.
Then, grab a cup of coffee and sit down to study the Nerd Dinner sample application. It has plenty of intermediate concepts like testing, repository, validation, and more.
Here are some other places you can turn for more:
These are intermediate topics we touched on in the Boston session, and pointers for learning more.
Learning the M-V-C of ASP.NET MVC is only part of the story. Routing is what takes an inbound web request and maps it to a controller action (and arguments). There are routing tutorials on the ASP.NET site and on MSDN. You can also define custom routes, route constraints (a route that is satisfied only when constraints are met), and custom route constraints.
Code generation in Visual Studio is customizable via T4 templates, and ASP.NET MVC uses these as well. Need a different view or controller created in your projects? Change them or add new ones. They can change for all projects, or you can add/override them in specific projects.
Learn more at T4 Templates: A Quick-Start Guide for ASP.NET MVC Developers.
One of the key features of ASP.NET MVC is flexibility in implementation. Head to MVC Contrib to find additional options for extending and modifying how ASP.NET MVC functions, including:
We had good questions during and after the DevDays session and I wanted to share details for some of the key ones:
There were a few questions about taking data from a submitted page and getting it to arguments in an action method. This is well supported via model binders, which let you map posted form data to classes passed as arguments to action methods.
Learn more about model binding at:
Using the ViewData dictionary is one way to get data to a view, but you can also create classes to contain that data. Called the ViewModel pattern, these classes help to structure and identify the data needed.
You can learn about ViewModel here:
If you’re wondering whether/when to use ASP.NET WebForms or ASP.NET MVC, Rachel Appel has a good blog post and a session recording from Mix ‘09 on the topic.
It’s important to keep in mind that you can mix ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET WebForms in an application, so this isn’t necessarily an either-or proposition.
Let me know if you’ve found something else particularly helpful in learning about ASP.NET MVC. I’ll be happy to add it.
The Microsoft Learning site has a number of self-paced eLearning courses on current technologies (e.g. .NET 2.0 & 3.0 and VS2005.) I've pulled the subset of the developer courses that are free and listed them below, but take a look at the full developer catalog as well (the courses with fees are pretty reasonable.)
Collection 5134: Developing Rich Experiences with Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.0 and Visual Studio® 2005
Summary: This collection of 3 2-hour premium clinics teaches Enterprise Developers and Software Architects about the new capabilities provided by the .NET Framework 3.0. Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: NoPrice: FREESubscription: 3 years
Clinic 5136 : Introduction to Developing with Windows® Workflow Foundation and Visual Studio® 2005
Summary: This 2 hour premium clinic teaches Enterprise Developers and Software Architects about the functionality Windows Workflow Foundation provides for enabling business processes within applications.Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: NoPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 5137: Introduction to Developing with Windows® Communication Foundation and Visual Studio® 2005
Summary: This 2 hour premium clinic teaches Enterprise Developers and Software Architects about the functionality Windows Communication Foundation provides for service oriented development.Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: NoPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 5135 : Introduction to Developing with Windows® Presentation Foundation and Visual Studio® 2005
Summary: This 2-hour premium clinic teaches Smart Client Developers and Software Architects about the powerful features Windows Presentation Foundation provides for building rich user experiences. Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: NoPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 5045: Inside Look at Developing with Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0
Summary: In this 2-hour premium clinic you will learn about the rich capabilities that Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 offers to developers. The clinic will focus on Architecture and List Management, Building and Extending Windows SharePoint Sites, and Packaging and Deploying Windows SharePoint services solutions.Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: YesPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 5046: Inside Look at Building and Developing Solutions with Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007
Summary: In this 2-hour premium clinic you will learn about the rich capabilities that Office SharePoint Server 2007 offers to developers. The clinic will focus on Fundamentals of Building Solutions with Office SharePoint Server 2007, Building Business Solutions with Office SharePoint Server 2007 and how to Incorporate Office SharePoint Services into Business solutions. Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: YesPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 3402: ASP.NET for PHP Developers: Introduction to ASP.NET
Summary: In this clinic, you learn about ASP.NET as a Web development platform and how it compares to PHP. You will explore features including Server Controls, Master Pages, and Profiles. Additionally you will also learn about Visual Web Developer Express, a powerful free tool for authoring ASP.NET Web sites.Audience: Developer Available Offline: Yes Price: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 5230 : Developing Enhanced Web Experiences with Microsoft® ASP.NET AJAX Extensions
Summary: In this 2-hour clinic you will learn about the rich functionality that ASP.NET AJAX Extensions provides for building highly responsive and enhanced web applications. Audience: Developer Available Offline: YesPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 2806: Microsoft® Security Guidance Training for Developers
Summary: This online clinic provides students with knowledge and skills essential for the creation of applications with enhanced security. Students will learn about the need for implementing security at every stage of the development process and best practices for applying security principles. Students will also learn how to use established threat modeling methodologies and tools with other best practices to minimize vulnerabilities and limit damage from attacks. Finally, students will learn how to implement security features to enhance security for Web applications and Web services that are built by using Microsoft ASP.NET.Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: YesPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 2807: Microsoft® Security Guidance Training for Developers II
Summary: This clinic discusses best practices for building security into the design, development, testing, and deployment phases of the software development life cycle. It is targeted towards individual with at least one to two years of programming experience. The course will provide developers with the skills and knowledge to design and develop more secure Microsoft solutions.Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: YesPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
Clinic 2954: First Look: Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 for Developers
Summary: This clinic provides developers with an introduction to BizTalk Server 2006.Audience: DeveloperAvailable Offline: YesPrice: FREESubscription: 1 year
[UPDATE 11/19 - We've added New Hampshire to our tour for December 18th!]
We just couldn't take not being out on the road, talking about tech, so we're heading back out again in December for the Winter Northeast Roadshow!
This, our seventh Roadshow, will feature a ton of great stuff like jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX, WPF, WF, Silverlight and WCF/REST, and even some interesting things from Microsoft Research!
Join my fellow road and code warrior, Jim O'Neil and me for a relaxed day of deep content for developers and architects. Oh, and it's free.
We're heading to six cities in December:
Most of our stops for the Fall Northeast Roadshow filled up, so if you're interested, register early.
[Times are for all events except Rochester, NY, which starts 30 minutes earlier.]
8:30 – Register, Grab Some Coffee, and Pull Up A Chair
9:00 - Morning TechUpdate
Before we dive into the sessions, we’ll take some time to update you on the latest news, tools and technology from the developer world.
9:15 - Turbo Boosting for Web Developers: Using jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX
Like things that help you go faster? Of course! That’s why we’re focusing this session on the powerful set of features that jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 offer web developers. We’ll get up to speed with jQuery, a popular open source JavaScript library with powerful features, a concise syntax with chained commands, but at the same time is fully extensible via a plugin-based architecture. Microsoft will be distributing jQuery (as-is) with Visual Studio going forward, and offers IntelliSense support for jQuery as well. We’ll complement that with a look at the latest in ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX with Visual Studio 2008 to provide extra code-writing acceleration along the way. Like hitting “Boost” in your favorite racing game, jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX will have you speeding toward great rich internet applications in no time!
10:45 - Workflow Foundation (WF) Steals the Show
As Shakespeare put it, “All the world’s a stage”, and WPF and WCF love to bask in the limelight, but now it’s time for their cousin, Windows Workflow Foundation, to assume the leading role. We’ll go beyond the usual introductory demos to show that, despite lacking a third letter in its acronym, WF is a very powerful environment for building robust and scalable applications that capture complex and real-world business processes. From dashing good looks (a visual designer which you can even host in your own applications) to dazzling abilities such as new options for integration with WCF (both as a service provider and consumer), resumable programmable activities as building blocks, and built-in services for persistence, transactions, scheduling and tracking, WF is a standout performer for any application. We’ll have Hamlet saying, “The Workflow’s the thing!”
12:00 - Lunch in the Lab: A Look at Tools & Tech from Microsoft Research
Grab some lunch, get out your Bunsen burners and microscopes, and join us as we don lab coats and take a tour of the latest and greatest tools and technology from Microsoft Research. From developer tools that you can use today like CHESS and Pex, future tech like DryadLINQ, to the just plain cool of AutoCollage, Boku, and SecondLight, there’s a lot for us to experiment on. We promise not to set anything on fire in this lab, well, unless you ask nicely…
1:00 - Deeper into Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) has a rich set of features to create visually appealing, high-performance applications on the .NET Framework with declarative markup. And perhaps you’ve seen the “hello world” demos and get the general idea. But you say “Great! What else can I do with it?” Funny you should ask, because that’s exactly what this session is about. After a brief introduction to WPF, we’ll dive into the host of new features that .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 has brought – enhanced 3D capabilities, Visual Studio designer improvements, and more. We’ll cover important WPF topics such as interoperability with WinForms and achieving reuse via resources, templates, and user controls. Finally, we’ll round out the talk by showing the new WPF Toolkit, including new WPF controls like Calendar, DatePicker, and DataGrid. Now, aren’t you glad you asked?
2:30 - Adventures in Data with Silverlight, WCF REST, and ADO.NET Data Services
You’ve heard that REST is the talk of the town (well, the really geeky part of town) these days, but what does it mean to you, someone who needs to get work DONE? Get ready to improve your Silverlight skills, because this session features a practical, code-based focus on the use of the new WCF REST Starter Kit, ADO.NET Data Services (formerly Astoria), and databinding techniques to tap the power of RESTful services. A from-scratch implementation will be created, using Silverlight to build a data-centric application covering concepts such as the WebClient and HTTPWebRequest objects, syndication formats, cross domain policy, and data binding in XAML.
3:50 – Wrapup, Evals, and Giveaways
It's always nice to unwind after a Roadshow, and we'd love to chat with other developers in the community, we're looking at our options for informal gatherings at local brewpubs and the like after each event (except Rochester, which will need to be the night before on 12/1).
Let us know if you have the "perfect place" to be social (and my personal preference, has good beer) in your city and we'll help get the word out!
A huge thanks goes to the companies and organizations who volunteer their space for the Roadshow visits!
This time, we return to two venues that have been great hosts for previous Roadshows. In Rochester, NY, we again descend upon Rochester Institute of Technology's Golisano Auditorium. In Burlington, VT (well, Williston, actually), we return to Vermont Technical College.
In the Albany, NY area, Autotask has graciously offered their meeting facilities for the event.
Last, but by no means least, thanks to great support by the developer community in Maine (and a 100% packed room last time!), we're running the Roadshow in the much larger Florian Auditorium at the Central Maine Commerce Center.
Every Roadshow we do quite honestly is a blast for us (well, once we're ready and out on the road,) and we hope you'll enjoy it too.
We’ll see you soon!
I recently gave an “Introduction to F#” session for the Cape Cod .NET User group and, with Talbott Crowell for the Boston MSDN Developer Conference.
(And for those of you in Maine, I’ll be delivering the session on February 19th with the Maine Bytes User Group in Portland.)
Here are some resources from the session along with others I hope you’ll find useful as you explore functional programming and F#.
And, for the curious, a few commercial products written in F#:
I hope you enjoy delving into F#!
So, you’re making a Windows Store game using JavaScript and HTML5? Excellent!
The good news is many others have created games with web-based technologies and, with many common features that games need, some great libraries have emerged to make things easier.
CreateJS is a set of JavaScript libraries and tools for games and other kinds of apps:
I’ve used CreateJS in my “Catapult Wars” WinJS tutorial series and, certainly far more impressively, the Atari arcade game experience was developed using CreateJS as well (and there are many other examples.)
We’ll focus on EaselJS for now, but more on the other parts of CreateJS at the end of the article.
First, you’ll need a Windows Store game into which you’ll plug CreateJS. In Visual Studio 2012, create a new project and choose JavaScript –> Windows Store –> Blank App:
If this is your first look at JavaScript Windows Store apps, read Getting started with Windows Store apps and Part 1: Create a "Hello, world" app for a good background. Also, read “JavaScript templates for Windows Store apps” to learn about the moving parts in the “Blank App” template.
The key places to put your own content are default.html, /js/default.js, and /css/default.css.
Go ahead and run it (just press F5). Now, aren’t you glad you did? We’ll make things less boring more game-like soon.
Let’s get started. We’ll focus on EaselJS here, but every part of CreateJS can be added the same way.
EaselJS is ready to use, but our game still doesn’t “know” about it. Open default.html and simply drag the EaselJS file you added right into the source. Visual Studio will wire up the reference for you:
Okay, let’s play!
EaselJS focuses on making it easier to work with the HTML5 canvas element. A few of the key classes:
There’s more of course (see the online EaselJS docs, and examples like the API Demo for more), but these will get things started. Speaking of which…
First, we’ll need a canvas to draw on, so in default.html, replace the default <p> element with a new <canvas>:
<body> <canvas id="gameCanvas" width="800" height="600"></canvas> </body>
(For simplicity, the canvas is fixed size, but a real game would use JavaScript to scale it automatically based on screen size.)
Now, some JavaScript to get things started. We’ll add an init() function and have it called when everything is ready. In default.js, find the app.onactivated handler. Change this line:
args.setPromise(WinJS.UI.processAll());
to this:
args.setPromise(WinJS.UI.processAll().then(init));
Then, just add the init() function after. Something like this:
Init needs to:
Let’s add that to init(), along with a few variables:
[Note that with recent versions of EaselJS, classes are namespaced so you’ll need “createjs.” before any uses. Keep this in mind if you’re looking at older examples.]
Run the game and you’ll have something like this:
Yes, it’s your game equivalent of “Hello, world”, but at least there’s something game-like on the screen!
We won’t create the full game here, but here’s a taste of how to add a game loop with some basic motion.
Add the following to the end of init() and a new gameLoop() function:
We’re asking the Ticker class to start the game’s heartbeat. 30 frames per second, it will call the gameLoop() function, where you would place code to read input, move things about, check for collisions, end the game, etc. [Note you need the stage.update() call to have EaselJS refresh the canvas based on what you’ve changed.]
For now, the ball simply moves slowly, sadly fated to move in one direction… forever. Now’s your chance to step in to move the paddles, bounce the ball, score points, etc.
For deeper use of EaselJS, including input, collisions, and scoring, see my Catapult Wars tutorial series. There are also some helpful demos on the CreateJS site, and more as part of the EaselJS download.
Congratulations! You’re ready to put EaselJS to good use in your game, saving you time and trouble. The other libraries in the CreateJS family can save you time as well, so a quick introduction is in order.
Sound can be very tricky in JavaScript-based games, and SoundJS handles detecting playback capabilities, and give you ways to play, pause, loop, and overlap sounds that would take a bunch of manual code to get working consistently.
You can get an idea of the supported features in this test suite:
Tweening is about adjusting values from a start to an end. It could be animating the position of a ball, the size or rotation of a paddle, or even other attributes like something’s color. TweenJS supports tweening, including chained calls and delays. Here’s an example:
TweenJS also offers a set of easing functions. Easing is a function that controls the rate of change.
For example, you could simply move from A to B at constant rate, but for a more polished effect, you could start motion from A slowly, move quickly across the screen, then slow down to settle into position B. (This is called ease in/out.) Here’s an example that shows various easing functions:
PreloadJS can be useful to load and instantiate your graphics, sounds, and other assets so they’re ready to go in your game.
You can load individual files, or specify a manifest of multiple assets to load and indicate how you’d like to process them.
I hope you find this guide and these libraries useful. Good luck with your Windows Store game!
September seems a long time from these warm days of July, but we’ve set the dates and locations for the next Northeast MSDN Roadshow and wanted to tell you about it now!
Join Jim O’Neil and me for one of our stops of the Fall 2009 series as we bring developer goodness to a town near you, including our first Roadshow stop in Rhode Island*.
*Update – 7/31: Sorry for the inconvenience, but we couldn’t get the timing to work in Warwick, RI. Signs are excellent that we’ll make a stop there for our Winter series, though!
Update 8/31: Thanks to the Beantown .NET User Group and the Microsoft New England R&D Center, we’ve just added a new stop on September 28th in Cambridge, MA!
But there’s something else new as well - four of our events will be in partnership with morning TechNet IT Pro events! (The TechNet events are separate events you’ll need to additionally register for if you wish to attend both.)
Please note of the times of each event, because they’re not all the same and not the usual times of previous Roadshows.
For those of you in Burlington, VT, while won’t have a Roadshow there this time, we will be in town on September 12th as part of the VT Code Camp and hope to see you there!
Here’s our agenda, the humor of which will provide you countless minutes of enjoyment:
The Fall 2009 Northeast MSDN Roadshow: Food for Thoughts Tour
After a long summer, you’re probably hungry for more tools and techniques to feed your development efforts. Touring the northeast this fall for the tenth Roadshow, road and code warriors Jim O’Neil and Chris Bowen have cooked up a select menu of sessions that are sure to please the heartiest of appetites. From current tools and technologies to practical insights, there is plenty to digest!
Reservations are required, so register today for a seating at these free and relaxed technology events.
You’ll see how Chris and Jim handle the heat of the demo kitchen, dish out knowledge, and pepper guests with half-baked humor, all the while being grilled by audience questions.
The Agenda – A Four Course Meal for the Mind:
1:00 - Essential Patterns, Practically Served
Design patterns, they’re important but often presented with unappetizing formality, like getting only the oat bits from a box of marshmallow cereal. We’ll sample a small set of key patterns, but also show you how free frameworks and tools (such as Enterprise Library, Prism, Unity, Velocity, and others) put each of those patterns directly into practice – so you can too. You’ll leave with a mind full of practical technology and a healthy understanding of how to turn underlying patterns into recipes for success.
2:15 - 7-Up(grade) Your Applications
Refresh your existing applications by pouring in some the new features of Windows 7 via the managed-code Windows API Code Pack. We’ll quench your thirst for how to incorporate the Taskbar, jumplists, and Libraries by taking the cap off an existing Windows Forms application and adding new capabilities, all the while retaining compatibility for your XP and Vista users. We’ll have you bubbling with excitement, able to give your applications that extra pop.
3:30 - Silverlight Snacks that Satisfy
There’s a generous amount of delicious ingredients in Silverlight 3 and we’re going to focus deeply on some of the most enriching. We’re going beyond the standard fare in this code-heavy session to create an application that leverages the new out-of-browser and offline execution features, local and remote connections, local data storage, and more. You’ll see that Silverlight 3 applications can be fortified with features so they can go well beyond being eye candy.
4:45 - Chips off the .NET Block
As seasoned developers, we know there’s a mix of options on the trail to implementing requirements. From staples like value types vs. reference types, interfaces vs. classes, Strings vs. StringBuilder, to other more exotic ingredients you may have yet tried, this session will dip into ways to leverage .NET, offering a taste of the impact they have on code execution, performance, and extensibility.
5:50 – “Check Please!” – We’ll box any leftovers, collect your comment cards, and distribute an array of giveaways.
Register today and we’ll see you on the road!
The Roadshow returns for tour #9 in June! The full agenda is below, but in summary, these are free, full-day events for developers and architects, covering Windows 7, ASP.NET MVC, WPF, Silverlight 2 & 3, Developing for IE8, and Data Access Guidance.
Our (late Spring slash early) Summer Tour will feature stops in five cities in June:
Okay, so maybe we went a little overboard with the theme (you’ll see what I mean) this time, but we enjoy doing these so much, it’s easy to get carried away.
Also, you can check out the Northeast Channel 9 home and Northeast Code Gallery for resources from past Roadshows and more.
Register with the above links and we’ll see you on the road!
The Summer 2009 Northeast MSDN Roadshow: “Technology Blockbuster Tour”
Coming this June to a city near you…
In a world where technology changes can be quick and dramatic, developers need reliable sources of knowledge, and the Roadshow Guys are here to answer the call, featuring a style and wit the critics call “unique”. Join us (Chris Bowen, Jim O’Neil, and Bob Familiar – three amigos who just love a theme) as we travel by planes, trains, and automobiles to cross the northeast to bring you a full day of deep content for developers and architects, all with the amazing ticket price of zero.
Register today and join us for our 9th series of these free, relaxed days where we'll dive into the latest technology, tools, and practices for developers and architects.
3-D glasses are optional, but as you’ll discover, we’re frighteningly real enough. [Rated PG – “Practical Guidance”]
The Agenda – Jim, Bob, and Chris in “Client Side Story”: Tales of Browser, OS, and Application Technologies
8:00 – Bypass the ticket booth, grab a coffee and a seat (but of course you’ll only need the edge…)
8:30 – Windows 7: A “Dev Story” “Windows 7 means never having to say you’re sorry…” There’s a lot to love in Windows 7, and in this session we’ll take a look at the foundation of any enduring relationship – compatibility. As you move on from your days with Vista, you may be surprised at how comfortable Windows 7 is; you don’t have to completely reinvent yourself (or your applications) just to get along. Of course, the newest OS on the block also brings with it the allure and excitement of new features – multi-touch, jump lists, and the scenic ribbon – and who doesn’t want to show that off! Leave your tissues at home, we promise a happy ending to this one.
9:50 – “Desperately Seeking Silverlight” – Developing with Silverlight, Today and Tomorrow Searching the newspapers for something new to spice up the day-to-day life of your applications? Silverlight is that cool jacket your applications can wear to attract a new world of interest. In this session, we’ll take a brief look at what you can accomplish in today’s world with Silverlight 2 development using .NET and XAML for a great client experience. Then, it’s time for a sneak preview of the coming attractions of Silverlight 3, including out-of-browser support, new graphics to video options, productivity and performance improvements. We’ll also take a look at the very cool features coming in Expression Blend 3. Answer your customers’ want ads with Silverlight, and get ready for a mob of new followers!
11:10 – “Data Quest” – Pinning Down Approaches to Data Access Your applications are growing up, and it’s time to graduate from DataReaders and DataSets. Want to get your applications in shape, but wrestling with the concepts of multiple data access options like ADO.NET, LINQ to SQL, and Entity Framework? This match session will pull you back from the lunatic fringe by going to the mat with these data technologies and helping focus a vision for your application’s data requirements
12:00 – “Nightmare on IE Street” – Adding IE8 Web Slices and Accelerators to Your Web Site The reality is that supporting multiple browsers can be a nightmare. In this session, we will review how to handle browser compatibility and how to take advantage of IE8 Web Slices and Accelerators. A Web Slice enables users to subscribe to content directly within a Web page, without requiring a separate RSS feed file. Accelerators are contextual menu options that can quickly access applications or Web services from any Web page. Not all slicing needs to be the stuff of terror, and understanding IE8 will make your web pages a dream for your users, while striking fear into your competition.
1:00 – “20,000 Leagues under the MVC” – Diving into ASP.NET MVC Setting sail on the web can be an uncertain proposition. Tales of peril abound of sites that have sunk and never been seen since. ASP.NET with WebForms has always been a trusty vessel, worthy of the voyage, but a new design has just left dry dock. Now officially released, ASP.NET MVC 1.0 is a new option for creating web applications that makes it easy to have fine-grained control over how pages in your web application are generated, encourages separation of concerns, and fosters testability. In this session, we’ll focus on learning to build a new site with ASP.NET MVC, while sharing advice to help you decide when to choose MVC or WebForms. MVC’s fine-grained control and implementation flexibility can be keys to navigating what can be a turbulent sea of changing requirements and market demands. Captain a site with ASP.NET MVC, and you may find that it’s not monsters under the surface, but hidden treasure instead.
2:10 – “The Coding of WPF 1 2 3” – Ribbons, Grids, Threads, and More When the stakes are high, you don’t need to be held hostage by the old ways of doing things. Jump on the WPF train and break free of those UI bonds. In this code-heavy session, we will demonstrate the power of WPF with the new Office/Windows 7 Ribbon Control, the new WPF Grid Control, and how to leverage background threads to make your user interface scream. When having the richest client experience is a non-negotiable requirement, you can be the hero, saving the day with WPF.
3:30 – Wrap-up, giveaways, and the mad dash for the exits!
If you're interested in learning more about the what's coming in the VS 2010/.NET 4.0 wave, check out the "Visual Studio 2010 & .NET 4.0 Training Kit" (November Preview):
The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features and a variety of framework technologies including: C# 4.0, Visual Basic 10, F#, Parallel Computing Platform, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX 4.0, ASP.NET MVC Dynamic Data.
The kit will be expanded and updated periodically as final release approaches, but here's what the kit currently contains:
To try these labs, you can download a VPC with the CTP of .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 here. (You can also check out Brian Keller's post on a faster way to download large VPCs.)
BTW, there's a similar Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Training Kit as well.
P.S. This is exactly the kind of the stuff you'll hear about at the MSDN Developer Conference series from December through February!
We're just under a week from New England Code Camp 11: "Developer Stimulus Package" (what is Code Camp?), a free day filled with with technology sessions given by the local developer community. Code Camp 11 will be held on March 28th at the Microsoft offices in Waltham, MA.
Registration is at over 300 350 375 400 people and still open at:
http://TheDevCommunity.org/CodeCamps
But the real story is that there's been a fantastic show of support from volunteers giving their time and expertise to speak.
CC11 is currently scheduled to offer 41 44 sessions by 32 speakers, all for free! The grid (as always, subject to change) is below, here are the session descriptions, and we'll have printouts of the grids and descriptions waiting for you at registration.
The Schedule (click to expand):
Register today, plan out your weekend with the schedule below, and we'll see you at Camp!
A Code Camp tradition for years, we're informally gathering over at the Waltham Westin's lobby bar for a chance to unwind on Saturday night. Drop by after sessions are over to relax, chat, and network with fellow New England devs!
Last but certainly not least, budgets are hard everywhere these days, but Infragistics has really stepped up to help make Code Camp a success by sponsoring lunch! Many thanks to them, and you can see Infragistics’ own Tony Lombardo who is coming from the NYC area to speak.
See you at Camp!
Update: Slides and links from the events are now available.
Ready to learn HTML5? Enjoy games, too?
Join in the HTML5 Game Camps, free events offering a chance to learn about the next wave of web standards including HTML5, CSS3, Canvas, SVG, and more. And while you gain practical knowledge about HTML5 and JavaScript techniques, it’s all joined together by the fun of creating games!
These are part of the Microsoft Web Camps series and feature a half day of sessions followed by hands-on game creation time. Get up to speed with HTML5 and game dev concepts in the sessions, then turn your ideas into reality as we leave the slides behind. Design and develop creations of your own, with plenty of guidance and help for your questions.
Here’s where the HTML5 Game Camps are heading, with links to details and registration:
(Note some of these events are morning through afternoon, and others are afternoon to evening.)
Don’t forget to read the prep steps at the bottom of the event pages. To get ready for coding, consider installing WebMatrix (it’s free) and other tools via the Web Platform Installer. Also, consider attending with a friend and tackling the game creation as a team!
For those of you in the Rochester, NY area, there’s a special RIT Game Camp the weekend of December 2nd-4th. It’s all about game development, and features multiple ways to learn about and create games:
It’s free, hosted on the campus of RIT, and open to everyone. So, choose what you’d like to participate in, and enjoy!
In an bit of good timing for some holiday season downtime, Dan Fernandez has announced the first release of AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft on CodePlex.
World of Wacraft supports user-generated utilities and interfaces, called AddOns. Now we can use Visual Studio to help create our own:
AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is an open-source development tool aimed to bring the Visual Studio experience to building World of Warcraft addons. This is the first release of the project and we have lots more ideas around how we can better improve addon development in the future.
AddOn Studio is a good example of what can be done with the Visual Studio 2008 Shell to create customized editing environments based on Visual Studio. It offers the VS2008 design surface and has editor and IntelliSense support for both LUA and FrameXML, used by World of Warcraft add ons.
Check out Dan's post for more details and a link to an interesting demo video. I also recommend running through the helpful tutorial that's included with the install.
I haven't played World of Warcraft since about Tech*Ed 07, when my "friends" Patrick Hynds and Duane Laflotte evilly tempted me back in, but something like this (and seeing what new AddOns the community can produce) might pull me in yet again.
Well, if only for a month...
The Northeast Roadshow
We're at it again! It's time to pack our laptops and gear to head out across the northeast for our fifth Roadshow! Only this time, you're getting three of us for the price of, well, zero - the events are free after all... Jim O'Neil, our new colleague here in the northeast, is joining Bob and me as we set out to tour various cities, bringing you deep developer and architect content. And some giveaways as well, of course.
What's the Roadshow?
Starting with our first one in March of 2007, the Roadshow is our chance to head out to various parts of the northeast to reach the broader community. In these free full-day events, we bring you deep technical content including not just the "how to", but also discussion of why and when you may consider technology and practices. We're also hugely entertaining, especially when failing to hit our marks as we throw things into the audience.
Where? When?
How?
Register today (venue details and links below) - it's free - and join us for a relaxed day of low-fluff, high-signal content for developers and architects!
Note that some cities consistently hit capacity, so don't wait to register.
The Agenda:
8:30-9:00 AM - Registration
9:00-10:25 AM - The Strongest LINQ - The Sequel (SQL and Entities)
Our story began with the previous Roadshow, where a tale of C# and VB language enhancements led us to an appreciation for how LINQ works. Now another story unfolds, featuring practical details of how LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities can make your life better as a developer and architect. We'll quickly get you up to speed with the foundations of LINQ, then dive deeply into the specific applications of LINQ for use with databases. Besides the how-to details of LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework, we'll also share practical insights for adoption strategies, performance optimization, and maintainability. The slide-and-code-based equivalent of a real page turner!
10:25-10:35 AM - We'll put a bookmark in the content so you can take a break
10:35 AM -12:00 PM - Leveraging .NET in the Office
In this overview of Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) with Visual Studio 2008, Jim will show how you can leverage your .NET skills to bring additional customized functionality to the Microsoft Office suite of products. We'll look at integrating custom actions in the Microsoft Word Ribbon control , creating form regions in Outlook, and extending existing VBA investments in Excel. With sample code galore, you can be a hero in your own office as you integrate and standardize your business's unique processes and requirements into those very familiar Office applications your colleagues and staff use day in and day out.
12:00-12:45 PM - All this talk has made us hungry. Lunch!
12:45-2:10 PM - The Architecture of RIA - The Silverlight 2.0 Story
In this session, we'll take a look at the current state of RIA (Rich Internet Application) development leveraging Silverlight 2.0. We'll focus on the architecture of RIA's, using XAML for user interface layout and design, WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) for Web Services, Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend for the design/development environment and Windows Server 2008/IIS 7 as the deployment environment. Hmm, all of that in one session? Even we aren't sure it's going to fit...
2:10-2:20 PM - Time to relax and consider your architecture options
2:20-3:45 PM - ASP.NET's Model View Controller (MVC) - What's All the Fuss About?
It's everywhere you look: blogs, magazines, the backs of cereal boxes. You may recall reading something about it in that "Gang of Four" book, but you're not entirely sure. What is it? MVC! In this session, we'll dive into the world of ASP.NET's Model View Controller (MVC) implementation. What the MVC pattern is, how it can clearly separate concerns, improve control over published URLs and HTML, where it might make your life easier, and of course, plenty of code showing how to use it with your websites. You'll end the day with the background necessary to confidently stride into technology discussions and boldly say "M-V-C".
3:45-4:00 PM - Wrap-up, giveaways, and a fond farewell
REGISTER!
Location
Date & Time
Registration
Vermont Technical College - Williston, VT
One Blair Park
201 Lawrence Place, Room 401
Williston, VT 05495
May 22, 2008
8:30 AM-4:00 PM
Register
Event ID: 1032378634
MESDA Technology Center - Westbrook, ME
506 Main Street
Westbrook, ME 04092
May 28, 2008
Event ID: 1032378637
Microsoft Office - Waltham, MA
201 Jones Road Suite 601
Waltham, MA 02451
May 29, 2008
Event ID: 1032377292
Rochester Institute of Technology - Rochester, NY
1 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623
June 10, 2008
Event ID: 1032378639
Microsoft Office - Farmington, CT
Pondview Corporate Center
74 Batterson Park Rd.
Farmington, CT 06032
June 12, 2007
Event ID: 1032376991
See you on the road!
** Note the date for Farmington is different than what I had mentioned at the Hartford Heroes Happen Here event. We are now visiting Farmington on June 12th.
We're under a week from New England's Code Camp 10: "Dev InTENsity!" (what is Code Camp?), a free weekend filled with technology sessions given by the local developer community. Code Camp 10 will be held on September 20th & 21st at the Microsoft offices in Waltham, MA.
Registration is at over 315 345 385 people and still open at:
CC10 will feature about 50 sessions by 30 speakers, all for free! The grids are below, here are the session descriptions, and we'll have printouts of the grids and descriptions waiting for you at registration.
A Code Camp tradition for several years, we're informally gathering over at the Waltham Westin's lobby bar for a chance to unwind on Saturday night. Drop by after sessions are over to relax, chat, and network with fellow New England devs!
P.S. There's also a Code Camp Facebook page, which is another way to connect with others in the northeast community.
Getting Started with the Web DataGrid
Lunch (Food in Kitchen & MPR A + B)
Thanks to Magenic Technologies!
Code Generation with the Visual Studio 2008 SDK
Thanks to Syrinx Consulting!
[File this under Cool Tips That Are News to Me]
Thanks to Julie Lerman for pointing out a nifty little feature of the Visual Studio 2008 distribution that includes a library of image and icon files that you can use when creating your own applications.
Get the details in her post.
There’s a new developer group forming in the Boston area, focusing on cross-platform development for mobile devices. Topics will include mobile devices (iPhone, Windows Phone 7, Android, etc.) and development, .NET, Mono, and frameworks like MonoTouch and beyond.
First meeting:
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group August 24th, 6PM Microsoft NERD Cambridge, MA
The group is organized by Mike Bluestein, who has spoken at area events like Code Camps and is author of Learning MonoTouch.
See you there!
P.S. Focusing on Windows Phone development, there’s also the Boston / New England Windows Phone User and Developer Group, meeting monthly in Waltham, hosted by Don Sorcinelli and Steve Hughes. (Next meeting, August 17th.)
Visual Studio 2008 & .NET 3.5
We've just announced the RTM (release to manufacturing) of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5! MSDN subscribers can download the English versions now, plus there are trial editions and the Express editions available as well.
Where to get it? Visit the Visual Studio Developer Center.
It's going to be a big blogging day. Check out some detail posts:
Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit
We've also released a fantastic resource (that was formerly only available within Microsoft) for developers to learn about Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5. Download the Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit, which contains many presentations, hands-on labs, and demos covering a variety of topics (including LINQ, C# 3.0, VB 9, and much more.)
Videos from the presentations are also working their way onto Channel 9. David Aiken has a helpful post with more details.
Learn More at the Roadshow!
If you live the in the northeastern U.S., you can also learn about Visual Studio 2008, LINQ, and more by coming to one of our Roadshow events in December.
Enjoy!-Chris
Fantastic news for northeast developers - a Code Camp is now coming to the Hartford, Connecticut area! SB Chatterjeee (who runs the CT .NET User Group), sends word that a venue has been secured and that Code Camp Hartford will be on Saturday, August 16th!
Details and the Call for Speakers will be coming soon, so stay tuned to CT .NET User Group site or to this blog.