Henry Carter: Microsoft Tech-Ed 2007 (Friday)

First session was on the WCSF and building rich internet applications which was really interesting and while a lot of it I have seen and used previously, there were some really good extras which are now available and I think I will be using very shortly. In particular the ClientScriptCallExtender which will allow javascript to identify the client id of server controls without posting back, something which I have wanted to do many times and have always ended up with inelegant solutions. In all a good talk with a useful what’s coming next discussion at the end which identified some pretty nice VS integration features.

The next session I attended was discussion of an implementation of the service bus using Biztalk which is something I am really interested in but have no real understanding of what the implementation actually looks like so this was something I was really looking forward to it. The implementation was good to see and there was a lot of discussion around the new ways for implementing dynamic ports which is something apparently that has always been available but rarely used. Another fun point of this talk was that the ESB best practice guidelines had been released by the patterns and practices team this morning and so they were able to discuss these with us too. The demonstration broke however which was annoying but this led to a brief synopsis of how hard it is to actually set up initially and that the practice guidelines have a load of pre requisites which at the moment have to be guessed by the installing technician, hopefully this will change as discussion on codeplex continues and step by step guides emerge. Overall really interesting and definitely a technology I think we should spend some time looking in to for future projects.

They say always save the best to last and that is absolutely what transpired, Roy Osherove talking about deep reflection OMG!!!!

He gave us a brief overview of basic reflection which we have all seen before, then dived into some seriously cool stuff looking at generating code using reflection. Basically building methods and types generically, but not only that building generic methods using generic types generically! After my eyes had ceased to be crossed from that he gave us a 3 minute introduction to reading IL and then we were off on a magical mystery tour into building IL from inside a .NET the fast pace of the session was fantastic as we were able to cover a huge amount, including the different ways you can build IL inside your system as well as the performance benefits some methods have over others. He also touched on the security implications of exposing methods which use reflection and how the new methods in reflection 2.0 give you the ability to protect your code and therefore your system from the “EvilPlugin”. The icing on the cake of this session was however the trademark song which he performed as a finale. A rendition of “I don’t want to talk about it” by Rod Stewart with the lyrics changed to fit an experience of bad use of reflection. Very geeky but exactly the sort of thing that got him the only standing ovation I have seen this week. Great way to end the conference.

Henry Carter: Microsoft Tech-Ed 2007 (Thursday)

This morning was a struggle after the UK party last night and I think there were a lot of tired people in the theatres however the sessions were exactly the right blend of humour and technical depth to keep me awake and alert throughout.

First up was a look at the new Windows Live platform SDK which is being released this week. Basically speaking this means that it will now be much easier and in fact more secure to let applications use the data held within the Live system (Live Messenger/Hotmail contacts and Spaces). The Live platform will hold a list of domains which you allow to have your data and will maintain that list. An application can then simply request access to the data and so long as they are on your list then live will provide them with the data they have requested. This adds functionality to the already present RSS from Spaces as it will allow applications to access private spaces which is currently impossible. Another nice feature that this brings is that you will no longer need to give social networking sites your user credentials in order for them to look at your contacts list and therefore build your network dynamically. You can simply give them permission to see your data and they can ask Microsoft for it.

Next up was a very conceptual talk about the building of an SOA application and the pitfalls to look out for. This was very interesting and the two presenters (Clemens Vasters and Steve Swartz) were a really fantastic double act, very funny but also working together to give a really broad appreciation of the subject and really projecting the wealth of their experience. A pity that they were silenced by the marketing guys about project OSLO but these things happen.

After lunch was a discussion of the top ten things that developers always get wrong and although this was heavily focused towards windows applications it still brought up some good points like using the Windows event log instead of proprietary error logging and scripting changes to the database and including this script in the release of your system rather than forgetting about it and then wondering why your bug fixing release has just broken the world (These are things which we do atm). This was very nice as a proof that what we do is right and nice to see that so many people had turned up to find out how to make their code and procedures better. Reassuring in a world where the daily WTF has such a wealth of choice for content.

The next session was web application security which was a really interesting demonstration of some of the possible ways to exploit systems if they have been architected badly. There was then a discussion of methods and architectures which would avoid these exploits from being possible in our systems. This was certainly useful and really fun to see just how easy it is in some cases to access data, and elevate your permissions on a server. Most of these I am happy to see wouldn’t be possible in the systems which we have been producing but it is really nice to see the ways in which we need to think when designing systems and also the tools and techniques which are available to test our code for possible exploits will be really useful when preparing our systems for deployment.

Last session of the day was a continuation of the SOA talk which I had attended this morning. This time however it was a practical example and demo of the ideas and architecture discussed earlier in the day. This really helped me to see the implementation and in fact the true power of the concepts described. I can really see the benefit of writing systems in this way and feel that they will definitely play a huge part in the way system development evolves over the next few years. Really exciting stuff.

Henry Carter: Microsoft Tech-Ed 2007 (Wednesday)

What a start! Location aware database design and spatial data types. Having only heard of these things previously it was awesome to get shown the details and the true power of these types and their associated methods and functions by the guys who really have made it happen. The scope of the solution offered is immense and there was also a really fascinating discussion of the problems faced in indexing this spatial data. Including an in depth look at how they have gone about fixing this issue. Excellent talk, awesome technology.

Next up was a handy lab on tips and tricks for the C# IDE looking at new features for 2008 as well as little known features that have been in VS for the last few years. He started out making a promise that if anyone didn’t feel that they had learned anything that would make them more efficient in the talk then he would talk to them one on one till he could show them something that they felt was of use. To be honest if there was anyone who didn’t take 20 things away from that talk then they are spending way to much time reading the IDE manuals before getting down and coding. The session was full of really useful suggestions, keystroke combinations and development tips, as well as information on new features to VS 2005. I will take so much away from that session which will directly affect my productivity it’s scary.

Next for me was a session focussing on the server communication options in Silverlight and Microsoft AJAX. This was a very good presentation on a topic which I have been wondering about since my first session on Silver light on Monday. We saw how to connect not only to traditional webservice (asmx) endpoints using javascript and the Silverlight / AJAX libraries but also how to integrate with code-behind files as well as the MCF, looking into the depths of JSON too was a really interesting experience. These two technologies are definitely the way forward in so many ways and I’m really looking forward to playing with them and exploring how we can use them within Compsoft real soon.

My penultimate session was a ‘deep dive’, their phrase not mine ;-), into Virtual Earth, Microsoft’s offering to the online mapping genre. I have previously used Google maps extensively and was keen to see just how good VE was in comparison. To my absolute astonishment I came out thinking who the hell would use Google when you could use that!!!! Although the programming interface seems to be very similar and there is huge scope for doing more with the VE system

Last up was the most astonishing session I have been to, Building intelligent applications using data mining. This is a concept which I have previously only heard of and certainly never seen in any concrete or real world situations however this talk brought the concept of an application which can learn through data mining techniques to the forefront of my mind and I actually think that from what I’ve seen this could be something that gets out of the research academies and into applications very soon. Certainly I can see the benefit in learning much more about the tools which SQL server and .NET have for implementing models. I really didn’t know what to expect when I went into this lecture but I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

Henry Carter: Microsoft Tech-Ed 2007 (Tuesday)

Much better today. This mornings session on SharePoint was an honest appraisal of a solution which I had heard mixed reviews of. The discussion showed much of the power of the existing framework but acknowledged that there was much work needed to make sharepoint a slick development platform, it seemed to be a very capable system from a users point of view however deployment issues seemed to rain supreme. I think I will leave it till the angry face has been placated.

The second session on LINQ to SQL was the best so far. A really well presented and awesomely interesting presentation given by a true fanatic which was really good to see. The content was great with lots of code demos giving a real insight into the power of the LINQ framework. Definitely need to GIV in that.

During lunch Neil Tim and I watched the presentation on “Why Software Sucks” which was a humorous look at HCI and made some really valid points about the user experience and will certainly make me think twice about my users in the future.
First after lunch was an introduction to Open XML which is a standard which I have always hoped would live up to the hype. It seems that it has and there were some very informative demos in here to show the structure of ‘docx ‘ file types and the xml (as well as xml standards) which form their structure. The discussion was informative and there is the promise of more practical examples to come later in the week which will be good to see.

Next up was an under the covers look at C#, how excited was I!!!!!!! The whole thing was exciting, packed auditorium, Truly awesome presenter in Luke Hoban and a really exciting subject matter. This is the stuff I am actually going to be using from day one of VS2008 usage. He covered the stuff we all knew he was going to be covering, like Lambda expressions and anonymous types but in a really good way. Basically he used these new features among the many others to derive a solution for LINQ, itself a new feature of the language. He brought us through a world of factorisation and syntax optimisation to the point where most languages would have been happy then described why the c# team decided to take the language that little bit further to make LINQ a reality. Truly the best discussion and presentation I have seen, properly excited about getting in and trying this now.

Who could follow that? AJAX steps up to the plate and hits the ball out of the park and into the neighbouring state!!!!! Rarely have I walked out of a session thinking how much of what I have just seen I could have used in a practical environment in the last 6 months. Everything was relevant, everything was neat and cool and all the other Americanisms I have been picking up over the last few days, including a very Bostonian ‘wicked’. Basically AJAX rocks harder than Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica could ever, even if they both teamed up with Iron Maiden. The session was based on the page life cycle from the javascript point of view, and a lot of emphasis wa splaced on the ability of a savvy Javascript developer being able to extend and utilise the Microsoft AJAX framework without a whole lot of hassle, something which I have been trying to avoid since my first forays into AJAX development. Really enjoyable and a perfect end to a pretty damn good day.

Henry Carter: Microsoft Tech-Ed 2007 (Monday)

My first impressions on arriving at TechEd were that it was very well organised registration was a doddle and no queues whatsoever. Once we had got ourselves registered and orientated it was time to watch the keynote. This was presented very well and was (at points) really interesting. This was the point where we were told that Visual Studio 2008 is going to be released later this month. OMG it’s early!!!!! They then went on to show some of its features like javascript debugging and intelli-sense, as well as new and improved support for CSS (which was desperately needed).

Having listened to the keynote I was psyched for the first session. Whats the Future of .NET? This was a discussion about the way Microsoft think application development is going and I think on this point I totally agree. There was much talk of SOA and BizTalk as well as SharePoint, federalisation of identity (among other things) using AD. They also looked at the future plans for workflow and modelling technologies, which seem to be a core focus of the .NET plan. In all a really good start to the sessions, and a really nice introduction to the direction Microsoft think we are all headed.

The second session however was not quite what I had hoped for. SilverLight is a technology framework which has always impressed and fascinated me and so I figured I would go along and let Microsoft show me how I should be using it. However this was not the case. Whilst the presenter was totally enthused by the technology, this session simply showed us what XAML is, what it looks like and how to code very basic javascript to handle SilverLight objects. This was not what I was expecting or hoping for. I think I was not alone in this disappointment as a full auditorium became half full before the halfway stage. The one redeeming feature of this session was that it did underline the fact that when SilverLight 1.1 makes it into the really real world it will make this framework much more usable and easy to manage.

A disappointing end to the first day but I guess these things happen. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.