Tuesday, November 13, 2007

LINQ, DLINQ, XLINQ: What’s It All About?
Ken Getz
10:30 a.m.
The .NET Framework 3.5 provides support for a new way of querying data, whether it comes from a database, from a collection, or from XML. This session introduces the concepts involved in creating and using LINQ queries. If you've heard about LINQ, but really don't know what it is or how you might use it, this session is for you!

Investigating LINQ over XML
Ken Getz
11:45 p.m.
In this session, we will enter the exciting new world of working with XML using XLINQ. After exploring the new programming model overview, we will learn the how-to. We will discover creating, writing, reading, modifying and searching XML with the new XLINQ technology.

VS2008 Deep Dive
Jeffrey Palermo
2:00 p.m.
This is an all-demo session showing off the cool new features of Visual Studio 2008. Jeffrey will highlight CLR multi-targeting, WPF designer and projects, WCF projects and autohoster, WF projects, LINQ support and many new ASP.NET IDE features.  Attendees of this session will not only see what the new features of the IDE are, but they will learn advanced techniques to enable them to build .Net software with greater ease.

Introduction to C#3.0, Introductory
Tim Rayburn
3:15 p.m.
This session will cover all the changes to the language of C# that have been introduced in the .NET Framework 3.5. Focusing on actual code demonstrations, Tim will walk through each feature so you can see it in action, step-by-step.

Introduction to the Entity Data Model, Introductory
Chris Franz
4:30 p.m.
ADO.NET 3.0 introduces the Entity Data Model (EDM) which is based on the
Entity-Relationship data model. This session introduces you to this new data-access method used in the next version of Visual Studio. We will discuss how to use the EDM in your future applications along with its features and benefits. The session will also include a discussion of integrating this new data-access strategy.

Wednesday, November 14

C#3.0 and LINQ Under-the-Hood
Richard Hale Shaw
11:45 a.m.
Do you really think that LINQ (Language Integrated Query) features – or other new features in C#3.0 – are really that novel? Have you thought about how LINQ expressions really work? Want to know what’s going on with them under-the-hood?

It turns out that there’s very little that’s fundamentally new in C# 3.0: instead, new features such as lambda expressions are really a better way of creating anonymous methods (from C#2.0), and 3.0 query statements are really chains of calls to Iterator methods (the same custom iterators we got in C# 2.0). Coupled with other new 3.0 features –  extension methods, implicitly typed local variables, anonymous types and initialization efficiencies –  and by standardizing on IEnumerable<T> as a means of expressing sequences of objects, C# 3.0 appears to be an entirely new language –  but it isn’t.

In this talk, Richard will show you (a) how features of C# 2.0 can be leveraged and (b) how these features are specifically leveraged in 3.0. In addition, this talk will be considered an introduction –  and pre-requisite for his Advanced C# workshop later in the week.

Generate an Entire Web Site with Dynamic Data Controls (BLINQ) , Intermediate
Mark Michaelis
11:45 a.m.
Microsoft offers best-of-bread development tools for robust, well architected, enterprise ready, business-critical websites and applications—but each of these qualities comes at some cost, in terms of complexity, time to market, and expertise. These are costs which are frequently overkill for what is really needed in the short term. To address the need to create simple applications in a lightning fast manner, Microsoft has created BLINQ. Developers can point BLINQ at an SQL Server database and—at virtually the click of a button—have BLINQ generate websites that perform CRUD operations on the database.  Attend this session to learn how to start websites with BLINQ, what it creates, and how to customize them for your needs.

Worshipping LINQ to SQL (DLINQ): Is It Wrong?
Benjamin Day and Richard Hale Shaw
2:00 p.m.
When should you use LINQ to SQL (formerly known as DLINQ)? Does it supercede ADO.NET? Does this mean you don't use strongly typed DataSets anymore? (Didn't we just figure out how to really use them?) What about ORMs like NHibernate -- how do they fit in? And then there's that whole Entity Data Model thingy...what's that about?

In this lively -- and possibly quite irreverent -- session, Ben and Richard will set to putting the record straight: what you can -- and can't do -- with each of these technologies, when and where you should use them, and why you should bother at all. You'll get two different perspectives as well, with a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each technology from a SQL guy (Ben) and a middle-tier guy (Richard). Along the way, we won't hesitate to get politically incorrect as needed: you might even be entertained while you learn the strategies for leveraging these technologies.

LINQ Provider Internals
Mark Michaelis
3:00 p.m.
How does a LINQ provider work under the covers. This is an important question if you are looking to peel off the covers of the LINQ API and fully understand the capabilities of a LINQ Provider - whether you are using or creating one.  In this session we dive into how to implement IQueryable and IQueryProvider, demonstrating how to implement your own LINQ Provider over a custom data source. In so doing we will traverse the details of expression trees, and explain how a LINQ Provider works internally.

What Every Developer Should Know: Visual Basic 9.0, Introductory
Michael S. Jones
4:30 p.m.
Visual Basic 9.0 is projected to release this year. More than a mere upgrade, VB9 promises (again) to transform the way software is written. In this session, we will review the most important features in VB9, and dive into several of the biggest features more deeply, including Nullable Types, Anonymous Types, New Variable Initializer syntax, and Implicity Typed Variables. Come see why VB9 will be your new favorite VB all over again.