.net and other interesting dev stuff in PA : Visual Basic

Big turnout for DotNetNuke SIG in Malvern, PA

sspotts — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 02:23:00 GMT

We had about 50 people attending the DotNetNuke SIG meeting tonight at the Microsoft office in Malvern, PA. There were three talks tonight - one by Bill Wolff, the PhillyDotNet User Group leader, one by Hal Dell, the DotNetNuke SIG leader, and the final talk by Todd Davis, from Seabury Design.

Bills talk was about database tricks: We saw the database structure in DNN 3.x including tables, stored procedures, and views. Sample code that automates page and module creation will be reviewed. This technique can saves lots of time when you have many pages with similar content.

Hal's presentation was on how to develop a Scheduled Task within the DotNetNuke Framework. While DNN tasks are similar in concept to Services; DNN Scheduled Tasks have some limitations were discussed.

Finally, Todd presented on SqlDataProviders. Packing a DotNetNuke module from distribution requires the creation of the 01.00.00.SqlDataProvider file, which installs the tables and stored procedures required by the module. This process requires some careful finesse and fine tweaking to be successful. Todd demonstrated how to create this file by hand, and how to edit it properly so that DotNetNuke can consume it during installation. Afterwards, he showed how to automate the process using ScriptBuilder. Todd, BTW, is very much involved at the DNN training site.

Exploring the Integrated Environment Power Session

sspotts — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 04:32:00 GMT

Thanks to all who attended today’s Power Session on Exploring the Integrated Environment that I presented this morning. Please find the session video here and the slides here.

Language Enhangements mini-session today

sspotts — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 04:08:00 GMT

Thanks to all that attended the mini-session webcast that I presented today on Language Enhancements. As promised here is a link to the recording and the slides/demos.

Refactor! for Visual Basic 2005 Beta 2

sspotts — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:35:00 GMT

This is definitely a great thing for VB.NET developers, and highlights how our strong developer partner community helps to improve the developer experience. Per the download page:

Refactor! for Visual Basic 2005 Beta 2 is a free plug-in from Developer Express Inc., in partnership with Microsoft, that enables Visual Basic developers to simplify and re-structure source code inside of Visual Studio 2005, making it easier to read and less costly to maintain. Refactor! supports more than 15 individual refactoring features, including operations like Reorder Parameters, Extract Method, Encapsulate Field and Create Overload.

Why Developer Express?

At Microsoft we heard your feedback when we announced that refactoring support would be cut from Visual Basic before the 2005 release. This was a difficult choice to make but it was not possible to finish work on refactoring along with the numerous other goals and projects for the 2005 release. Because of this Microsoft choose to partner with Developer Express Inc., a Visual Studio Integration Partner, to ensure that a refactoring tool would be available for Visual Basic developers and would have the features and functionality that we felt would most benefit you.

We feel that Refactor! is a product that integrates very well with Visual Studio and provides an experience that will be intuitive and powerful for Visual Basic users.

For more information about this partnership be sure and read Rob Copeland's blog.

Code Camp: Greater PA

sspotts — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 07:35:00 GMT

There was some great stuff done by Thom Robbins, one of my teammates in the East Region (up in Waltham, MA), with Code Camp II (http://weblogs.asp.net/trobbins/archive/2004/10/21/246018.aspx). Forty people presented over 60 sessions over 20 hours in two days.

The goal of the Code Camps series is to provide an intensive developer to developer learning experience that is fun and technically stimulating.

Tonight I brought this up to the PhillyDotNet user group as an event to bring to the Greater PA area, and the whole group was psyched, and so am I. The primary focus for our event will be on delivering programming information and sample code for Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 as well as Microsoft's other platform servers. The event is free and all slides, manuals and demo code will be provided. I'm planning to do this over a weekend in April 2005.

If you're interested, I'm be looking for speakers. RD's, INETA speakers, Microsoft Partners, authors, MVP's, user group leaders, or developers that just want to show how to do cool coding are all welcome. Any speakers at the Code Camp in Waltham will be most welcome to replicate his/her presentations down here!

I like the idea of the following tracks:

ASP.NET 2.0 Development (including WSS web parts)
Smart Client development (Winforms, mobile apps, tablet PC)
Patterns and Best Practices (focus on Enterprise Library)
SOA (think WSE, BizTalk 2004)
Data Access (SQL Server 2005, ADO.NET, etc.)
Dev Lifecycle (all about VSTS)

Presentations will all be aligned to these tracks. Event planning is work in progress, but it's too cool not to do.

There will be three types of scheduled 90 minute sessions.

Presentations. 200 level (50% code/50% Powerpoint), 300 level (75% code/25% PPT), and 400 level (90%+ code)
Roundtables. 3-4 subject matter experts discussing specific topics.
Chalk Talk. No presentation, just attendee-guided discussions and whiteboarding with a subject matter expert.

If you'd like to present at this event, please send me the following info prior to February 1:

Name, title, company
e-mail address
Phone
Which track (see above)
What level (200/300/400)
Name of session
Format of session (Presentation/Roundtable/Chalk Talk)
Description of session

I'm asking for speakers early so I can resource the best venue for the event. I'll want slides (including speaker notes) and demos by March 15th so we can review them and get them ready for distribution for the event.

There are a few other things I'm trying to connect with this Code Camp, so stay tuned.