't IsGoud

My TechEd day started with Carl Franklin a speaker I knew only from the podcasts, .NET Rocks and Hanselminutes. He talked about RSS, podcasts, IE7 and IE7's powerful RSS API.

One of the online tools Carl used was shrinkster.com. I heard about shrinkster.com in Scott Hanselman's podcasts but now I finally saw the light.
While I was making notes he would refer to a URL by mentioning just the three characters to use on shrinkster.com . For example the shortcut for all the URL's in this presentation is F47.
Now if you go to http://www.shrinkster.com/F47 shrinkster redirects you to the right page, et voila, all the session links appear in your browser.

At the end of the session there was still time to ask some questions. On the question "what to expect from the Microsoft's Zune" he gave this answer: "Microsoft is not hip. Microsoft is like your grandmother. While Apple is more like Elvis". Since I'm writing this post on my Mac Book I can only agree .

After Carl it was time again for the clowns of the TechEd 2006, Clemens Vasters and Steve Schwartz. This time the talk was about security. In the first half they explained the common patterns. In the second half they showed where these patters applied in applications you use daily. I must say this is a very clever approach. During the second half I had several "aha" moments.

The second session from the "guys" was about the futures:

• Vista
• Orcas the new version of Visual Studio
• Longhorn the next version of Windows Server
• BizTalkServer 2006 R2
  

The new .NET Framework wasn't mentioned here since it was already released.

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 is based on the WCF Channel Architecture. WCF is message based. This combination gives you a very powerful Service/Message bus. Watch out Tibco, BizTalk is on the move!
The next version of Orcas will have support for ASP.NET AJAX and CardSpace. WF and WCF fully integrated. The mentioned that Orcas was just a small release between big ones. I wonder what they are not telling us with that ...

Longhorn will bring us transactions:

• Transacted File System
• Transacted Registry 
• TRANSACTION command in cmd.exe
  

They ended the session with looking into their crystal ball. Interesting but still a bit to vague for me.

The last real session of this day was with Scott Hanselman. A great session, I read his blog and listen to his podcasts for quit a while now so it was not a real surprise. Nevertheless a very useful session. The takeaways of this session:

• I you have a problem add a layer.
• A dataset is just a bowl, you still don't know what is inside. 
• Don't store interface contracts in Word files. 
• Automate as much as possible; code generation, check code on coverage, metrics and duplicate code.
  

After the TechEd we went to a special session with Miguel Icasa. Mr MONO himself. MONO lets you run .NET applications on Linux and Mac OSX. It is open source but sponsored by Novell.

The weather is great here it's a shame we see so little of it. Outside it's close to 20 degrees Celsius and inside you almost need a sweater, a real TechEd day .

No boring speakers today only very inspiring ones.

Today's highlights:

BizTalk Server 2006 R2:

• BTF + WCF = BTF R2. The R2 release is built on top of the new Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).
• With WCF there will be new Adapters; BasicHTTP, WsHTTP, NetTCP, NetMsMQ, NetNamedPipes and a very powerful Custom Adapter.
• The possibility of having web services without using IIS (NetTCP adapter), although just a demo it does show some of the new possibilities.
• Full WS* support.
  

Two sessions with the comical duo Clemens Vasters and Steve Schwartz. These guys are constantly making fun of each other but between the jokes these guys have a very clear and analytical view on software architecture.

Takeaways on Data:

• Not all data is equal.
• Like logic, data access can be broken up into simple patterns.
• Correct Data Architecture is the Ultimate Performance Optimization.
  

Takeaways on Presentation:

• Connected Client Technologies open new opportunities.
• You have more options that you possibly take advantage of.
• Choose the right option for each task.
  

For both Data and Presentation the complex things were broken down to simple patterns. Very refreshing!

Then there was this session with Chad Hower (aka Kudzu). He talked about Mobile Agents. Mobile Agents are pieces of software that can move between machines. Huh?
At first it seemed a bit Academic but on second thought the are situation where this could be very useful.
One (working) demo showed a validation of a telephone number. The actual validation code was not present in the local application. At runtime the agent-code was fetched - from a so called hive - and included in the program.
For his demo he used the Indy Mobile Agents (http://www.indyproject.org).

The last session today was a raging Ted Pattison on the redesign of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.   
One of the big improvements is that everything is handled by ASP.NET.
Bye bye ISAPI filter, hello ASP.NET.
The concept of masterpages is implemented. So it's reasonable easy to change the look and feel of a complete (sub)site. There are still some caveats but overall it is a big improvement.

The TechEd 2006 is different this year. This year it's split up in TechEd  Developers and TechEd IT Forum. I don't think that is a good thing. I liked the combination as it was. Software development mixed with the server technology.
On the other hand there are some advantages as well. Due to the size there are less sessions to choose making life easier

Highlights of the day:

• An 11 year old girl from Pakistan who was already Microsoft certified.
• All native servers are going to offer web services. Exchange 2007 web service is already implemented.
• ATLAS is dead, long live ASP.NET AJAX check http://ajax.asp.net/ it's a hot topic here. Beta 2 is recently released the RTM is expected to ship around the end of the year.
• LINQ, Language Integrated Query, new functionality implemented in C# 3.0. "If Ienumerable is implemented then you can query it"
• Vista and Office 2007 are RTM (Release To Manufacturer) meaning the bits are ready no more changes before launch.
• Vista only: PeopleNearMe API.
• WCF, Windows Communication Foundation is a part of .NET 3.0 the next step in the Application Services Evolution. WCF also the next evolutionary step in Communication Technology. First MSMQ then DCOM and the SOAP Toolkit and now WCF.   
• WF, Windows Workflow Foundation is lightweight BizTalk like technology. Really powerful stuff.
• WCF was built with interoperability in mind.
• Expression WebDesigner, the bridge between web designer and developer.
  

I realize that for non developers this stuff is a bit abracadabra and even for the developers it’s a bit cryptic but it’s kind of impossible to put all stuff I’ve seen today in this post. I hope I have time to examine and write about the separate technologies in more detail later.

TechEd day 0, Pre-Conference day, today four sessions:

WCF, Windows Communication Foundation

Aaron Skonnard talked about the WCF.
My notes:

• WCF: it's all about messages
• representation on the wire is not pre-defined
• definition in contracts:
• data contracts
• behavioral contract
• code sample where the definition of the communication layer was in a configuration file
• configuration wizard in WCF
• duplex contract was only mentioned briefly but it did raise my eyebrows so I have to check his weblog on that subject
• nice detail of the presentation: Aaron was running the presentation from a virtual machine on a Mac-book Pro
  

WF, Windows Workflow Foundation

It took Keith Brown about half an hour to get to a point where it became interesting. But despite his presentation skills I picked up the following:

• the WCF and WF teams are working together on "Silver". Silver combines WCF and WF
• State management in WF is cool:
• Long running session- or "idle" session states can be stored a database.
• After a certain event the session is restored and the session continues.
  

WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation

Ian Griffiths explained the need of this new extra layer on top of DirectX. Resolutions are changing, dots per inch the dpi value of the screens is rapidly changing it used to be 72 dpi for a CRT monitor it's now possible to have LCD displays with a dpi of 200.
There were some demo's of rotating buttons with changing text. Not really usable but nevertheless very entertaining.
Oh and not to forget XAML. The demo's were written in his XML language. Really powerful stuff.
  

Running projects using SCRUM in Visual Studio 2005 Team System

Roy Osherove talked about agile development. The most striking thing he said was not to use the term "XP-programming". The "X" stands for extreme the "P" for programming. So what's wrong with the "X"? It gives managers the creeps. So instead we talk about SCRUM.
SCRUM is stand-up team meetings in the morning. It's about leaving the developers alone when the specs are frozen. Specs are frozen for blocks of two to four weeks.
One other important thing: the method has to be adjusted to the people who have to work with it.


 

Barcelona, getting ready for TechEd 2006. A day of travelling and waiting, we arrived in the afternoon. So we still had some time to spend in town.
While enjoying our tapas there were artists and acrobats performing. I didn't expect much of the photo I took but the result is great!



Have you guessed what the photo is about?
What you see are two giant soap bubbles and some tourists admiring them.