.net and other interesting dev stuff in PA : Tech Ed 2004

Tech Ed: Day 2 keynote with Andy Lees

sspotts — Wed, 26 May 2004 01:12:00 GMT

Great presentation and demos, especially for the IT pro and knowledge worker. Several announcements Best Practices Analyzer for SQL Server. This will scan your SQL Server to find holes or other problems that go against known best practices, and tell you what's good and what's bad. Data Encryption for SQL Server. Roles based encryption that doesn't take a developer to implement - no code changes to support it. I'll have to post follow-up later from paper notes...

Tech Ed 2004: General Session: VS 2005 Team System

sspotts — Wed, 26 May 2004 01:12:00 GMT

New VS 2005 Team System demos. Portfolio Explorer allows you to create a templates based project porfolio. Templates out of the box include MSF, Xtreme Programming, and more. Treacks work items, reports, and other documents. Borland CaliburRD tool integrates with VS Team System basically transparently. Cool to see opening task assignments in VSTS from Calibur. Private source code branches in VSTS are automatically created, and when merged back, automatically destroyed so the developer doesn't have to worry about it. Snippets lets you boilerplate code bits, and ships with lots of code for common tasks. Unit tests scan's code and autogenerated unit test code, and gives us a way to run tests and organize results from within VS .NET, either locally or remotely. Code that is actually tested is marked in green, code that isn't is highlighted in red so you can make sure that you can change the tests to hit all the code in your app. Check-in of code is assocuated with work items. Updted twork items are reflected into project plan. Automated build system gives tracking of bulds with build verification tests, build summary, test results. Load testing built into VS, much nicer interface than currently available with Application Center Test. Also includes recommended thresholds to compare against. "Whitehorse" tool Define Logical Datacenter Design (LDD) for the server infrastructure. First tool that implements DSI. Application Connection diagramming (ACD) to show connections between different applications and services. Map views of LDD and ACD to validate configuration of connections and data center model. Nuts, here goes the battery again...

First session - SO for Windows/.NET Developers

sspotts — Mon, 24 May 2004 23:53:00 GMT

Now I'm in Don Box' and Doug Purdy's CTS200 - Connected Systems: Servies Orientation and the Windows/.NET Developer. They started off the session in an interesting way - asking the audience for questions first, and tracking them, rather than waiting for the end. Quote: There is only one Program and it is still being written. This is the "fundamental truth" of SOA. Rats - running out of juice... have to save and post when I get to a power outlet.

TechEd 2004: Steve Ballmer's opening keynote

sspotts — Mon, 24 May 2004 23:52:00 GMT

As usual, Steve had an enthusiastic delivery and shared some great news. 1. General availability of Web Services Enhancements for Microsoft .NET (WSE). 2. Technology preview: Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework (IBF) 3. Visual Studio .NET Team tools Had I not be squished I would have tried to capture everthing here, but now I'm sneaking in this blog entry

Tech Ed 2004!

sspotts — Sun, 23 May 2004 20:37:00 GMT

Okay, I made it to San Diego in one piece, got registered - through LONG lines, and can't wait for the week to start. This is my first time in San Diego, and I'm impressed with how nice a city it is so far. I'm currently at the INETA User Group leader summit. Lots of people in attendence (50? 60?), lots of cool info. Brad McCabe, a Chief Technology Evangelist from Infragistics, is just finishing. Wireless access is cool... :)