Only Passionate People Win : Visual Studio

Webcast: Live From Redmond - VB9, Building N-Tier Applications

youngjoo — Tue, 22 May 2007 02:52:00 GMT

My second webcast which was a part of the webcast series done by Visual Basic Team called "Live From Redmond" webcasts on Visual Studio "Orcas" was on building N-Tier application using Visual Studio "Orcas". I gave this webcast a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't until today that on-demand version became available. Sorry to those who have been waiting for the on-demand link and a copy of my slide.

During this webcast, I described new "Orcas" data features at high-level and built a simple multi-tiered application as a demonstration. Specific topics that I covered include:

Hierarchical Update Support in Typed Dataset

TableAdapterManager class and TableAdapterManager.UpdateAll() method

N-Tier Support in Typed Dataset

Dataset Designer support to make Typed Dataset N-Tier friendly
How to add custom validation logic to Typed Dataset and apply them through multiple tiers

How to create and consume basic WCF service

LINQ to Typed Dataset

You can watch this webcast on-demand by visiting following Microsoft Events page. Also, a link to my slide deck below.

Webcast: Live From Redmond - LINQ to SQL & O/R Designer Deep Dive

youngjoo — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:12:00 GMT

Visual Basic team is hosting a series of "Live From Redmond" webcasts on Visual Studio "Orcas" and I gave one on LINQ to SQL and the O/R Designer a couple of days ago. Thanks to all who tuned in.

I covered following topics in my webcast:

Mapping database objects to .NET objects via attributes
Using the O/R Designer to visually create mapping between database objects and .NET objects
Writing LINQ to SQL queries

Basic LINQ to SQL queries
Relationship navigation
Join / Group Join
Deferred Execution
Identity Mapping

Data binding with LINQ to SQL
Updating data via LINQ to SQL
Stored procedures

Using stored procedures to override default runtime Insert, Update and Deleve behavior
Using stored procedures to retrieve result-set mapped to existing types

You can watch this webcast on-demand by visiting following Microsoft Events page. Also, a link to my slide deck below.

Conference: VS Connections 2007 Slides, LINQ to SQL & Orcas

youngjoo — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:56:00 GMT

Last week I gave two talks during http://www.devconnections.com/shows/SP2007VS/default.asp?s=93. Below are descriptions and links to slides for both sessions. Thanks to everyone who attended. I had a great time!

VMS305: LINQ to SQL: Bringing SQL Code into Visual Studio

Database-centric applications have traditionally had to rely on two distinct programming languages: one for the database and one for the application. LINQ to SQL is a component of the LINQ project designed to help integrate relational data and queries with C# and Visual Basic. With this advancement, database queries that previously were stored as opaque strings now benefit from static type checking, CLR metadata, design-time type inference, and of course IntelliSense. LINQ to SQL also supports a rich update capability that lets you save changes to an object graph back to the database using optimistic concurrency or transactions. This session will cover an introduction to common SQL queries that can be done natively in the language, a discussion around how LINQ to SQL optimizes performance and execution on the server, and how Visual Studio enhancements like the Object-Relational Designer and IntelliSense give developers the power and productivity to leverage LINQ to SQL entities.

Slides

VMS309: Sneak Peak at Visual Studio "Orcas"

Come see how Visual Studio Codename "Orcas" will provide support for building applications for Windows Vista, the .NET Framework 3.0, the 2007 Microsoft Office System, ASP.NET and mobile devices. This session will look at new features like LINQ, and designers for the .NET Framework 3.0 and the 2007 Office system.

Slides

It’s almost done…

youngjoo — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 12:18:55 GMT

Been 7 months since my latest post. Why? Orcas. It's been a great ride and I can't wait to tell you all the great features my team worked on. March CTP is finally out and Beta 1 is coming soon. My team is putting final touches to the last feature we have left. After it's done, it will be all about getting feedback from the community and improving the quality of the final product.

It's almost done… and I am back to blogging again.

How much RAD would annoy you?

youngjoo — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 10:08:00 GMT

Peter van Ooijen @ Codebetter.com talked about RAD experience in Visual Studio 2005. He does a great job of highlighting useful features and also provide gotchas that developers should be aware of. By the way, if your job involves writing software and if you are not subscribed to Codebetter.com's RSS feed, now is a great time to do it. It's full of great tips and discussions that every software developers should read.

My team is currently in a final planning phase for Orcas (next version of Visual Studio). Since Orcas is no different from other software projects, there have been a lot of hard decisions being made. We would like to make sure that we ship the right stuff with right quality and not miss the date. Anyway, one question I am trying to answer is "How much RAD experience should we provide?" Visual Studio 2005 has made a giant leap in terms of enabling developers focus on solving real business problems without being bothered by all the mundane tasks. You can literally create a data-driven application with master-detail view without writing a single line of code. Although it's hard to believe why anyone would ship applications created this way, it's a great starting point for developers creating data-centric applications. Naturally, people would expect this RAD experience to improve in next release. Think about the history of Visual Studio from RAD point of view. Every release has provided better RAD experience.

But how far should we go? One of Visual Studio's goals is to help developers boost their productivity. But another critical goal of Visual Studio is to help developers create right software in right ways. It's a goal for all developer tools. That's why Visual Studio has features like Refactoring and Unit Testing. I agree that we can do a lot better in these areas. But at least we acknowledge that we need to help developers create right software in right ways. The problem is that balancing between RAD experience and helping developers do the right thing is always hard. Good developers spend a lot of time learning new techniques and studying best practicies. Design Patterns, security, performance, reusability, etc. And if these developers have to fight with the tool to apply what they have learned since the tool keeps trying to act like it knows what the developer is trying to do and how to do it best, then these developers will eventually abandon the tool. That's exactly why I am thinking about "How much RAD would annoy you" question.

It's a hard quesiton and it will take sometime for me to answer it (or maybe I will just keep asking and never come to a conclusion). Maybe we will try different approaches in each version. And if we see people like Peter van Ooijen keep writing article about how to work around our RAD features to do the right thing, we would know that we are not really helping developers.

Update: Forgot to mention that I agree with Peter on how bad it is for us to embed SQL statements in markup code. I am sure folks over at ASP.NET Tools have heard it many times already. This is a great example of RAD focused approach invading developer's pride.

Learn about Visual Basic and get FREE Visual 2005 Discovery Pack

youngjoo — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:17:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005: The Difference is Obvious
Expand your skill set and increase your value in the job market. Check out the new Visual Basic 2005 Webcasts and find out how to receive a complimentary Visual Studio 2005 Discovery Pack.

Great chance to learn Visual Basic 2005 and add good resources to your bookshelf. There are 7 sessions planned, two of them already ran (replay available). Here's the list of sessions.

New Language Features in Visual Basic 2005
Data Access with Visual Basic 2005
RAD for Visual Basic Developer
Deploying Visual Basic 2005 Applications Using ClickOnce
Tools and Techniques for Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications
Creating Best-of-Both-Worlds Hybrid Applications with Visual Basic Fusion
Tools and Add-ins for Visual Basic Migration

Click on the link above to see more information.

By the way, "Data Access with Visual Basic 2005" is all about what my team is working on! :)