PDC'05
Damir,
INETA President, collected his impressions of the "EMEA @ PDC" trip. For those of us who had not the opportunity to attend PDC, this is your chance to get an idea what you've missed. Collected in a
video. Thanks for sharing Damir!
Steven Wilssens attended the PDC05 pre-conference "Software Development with Visual Studio Team System" and has a great summary of what was covered during that day.
Richard Hundhausen - who delivered this pre-conf session at PDC - has a written a book on that same topic (Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System) and it's now available on Amazon for pre-order.
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Day 3 of the PDC05 was the day that some details on Atlas were unveiled. Check-out Scott Guthrie's lengthy posts on the topic: Atlas Unleashed and Atlas Keynote Walkthrough. In the breakout session PRS420 "ASP.NET: Future Directions for Developing Rich Web Applications with Atlas (Part 2)" Nikhil Kothari discussed the Atlas framework, how to package it into reusable blocks and how to use the server-side programming model (server controls) together with ASP.NET Atlas. The slides and demos are available for download from Nikhil's blog. Check also Dion Hinchcliffe's Blog for an excellent write-up on Atlas.
When looking at Microsoft's Virtual Earth site, Microsoft's Outlook Web Access e-mail client, and Start.com I think that Microsoft did a good job in packaging the different JavaScript libraries into ASP.NET Atlas. However all of this might be not be so easy to use given the amount of code to write and its complexity. This experience will probably be enhanced from now till RTM. Note that the version of ASP.NET Atlas that runs on top of beta 2 of the .NET Framework 2.0 is still a technology preview and won't RTM until next year.
On day 3 I also practiced a number of hands-on labs on the Windows Presentation Foundation and the Windows Workflow Foundation. The labs on WPF and especially the one using Sparkle showed very good the power of XAML and Sparkle for creating compelling user interfaces. Sparkle gives you access to buttons, menus and controls and lets you create animations through the timeline functionality. Sparkle isn't yet publicly available. The crashes experienced while using it (caused by Ctrl-Z or Undo functionality) explain why. But the proctors promised me that they're working on these knonw-issues.
The last day of PDC was a light one with the fun session "WCF + WPF = Magic" delivered by Doug Purdy & Chris Sells. The demo they did to show the power of both foundations normally wouldn't take any longer than 20 or 25 minutes. But these guys managed to get it cover the whole session. I never realized that showing DataBinding in Avalon through Indigo could be so funny ;-)!
Chris Sells has a new book out on "Programming the Windows Presentation Foundation". You can order it here.
PDC05 was just another great PDC. Lots and lots of new technology and deep technical content during all the week. Looking forward to Windows Vista and Office 12 (Server)!
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Rick LaPlante blogs about the VSTS client SKU's going RC and TFS Beta 3:
This Release Candidate already includes the client/role based portions of the new Visual Studio 2005 Team System, including Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite. We are also readying the availability of Beta 3 of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, the server component of Visual Studio 2005 Team System. Currently I think we're about 14 days out on those bits so we're very close.
Read more.
Since yesterday all PDC attendees were able to pick up the Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite, the September CTP of SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and the PDC05 CTP of Windows Server Codename "Longhorn".
This morning during the keynote on day 2 of PDC 05 Eric Rudder announced lots of new interesting technology:
Windows Workflow Foundation: is the programming model, engine and tools for quickly building workflow enabled applications on the Windows Platform. It consists of a WinFX namespace, an in-process workflow engine, and designers for Visual Studio 2005. It is not a product but a set of assemblies that soon will be a standard part of the operating system just as the Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Communictaion Foundation. Office 12, WSS 3.0 and even MBS will leverage the WWF to provide workflow capabilities in these products.
Microsoft Expression: is a set of professional design tools that give you greater flexibility to create sophisticated applications and content. Innovative technologies enable faster and richer interface development for Windows applications or the Web. Compatibility between products increases all levels of your personal productivity. Microsoft Expression consists of:
Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications: is an advanced environment for application customization built on the Microsoft .NET Framework. Visual Studio Tools for Applications fully supports the .NET Framework, and enables development in VB.NET and C#. A premium is placed on security, connected systems (ease of Web-services based development), high productivity and collaboration for both the technically-skilled professional developer and departmental developers involved in application customization. Visual Studio Tools for Applications allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to provide a unique user experience to their customers without having to modify their core product for each installation.
If you want to know more about this morning's keynote, make sure not to miss Jelle's post.
After the keynote most people I spoke to were super-excited about the Windows Workflow Foundation. This platform technology will indeed change the way we develop applications today: over all logical layers of an application, from the datalayer over the businesslayer to the UI. You could even imagine implementing an MVC model by using WWF. Besides that WWF is a huge present for a lot of smaller ISV's who think about building or have build workflow based applications. Only coolness!
Next on the schedule was the "OFF405 - Windows SharePoint Services: Using ASP.NET 2.0 Technology to Extend Pages, Sites, and Server Farms" session. This session was the first one to unveil some of the new Windows SharePoint Services v 3.0 features. The session covered in depth the areas of Web Parts, master pages, pluggable providers and authentication. Huge was my suprise when Mike Ammerlaan introduced the "Son of the SmartPart" aka SmartPart version 2. If you are wondering what this is all about check the Son of the SmartPart's post with details at http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2005/09/14/425192.aspx. I am amazed to see that a community tool driven by a very smart Belgian guy is picked by the Microsoft WSS teams at Microsoft Corp. and is considered as "the way" to make it possible to host APS.NET 2.0 Web Parts or user controls in the current version of Windows SharePoint Services. So congrats Jan and keep up the great community work or as Mike Fitzmaurice blogs it "Rock on, guys!".
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This morning PDC 05 was officially kicked off with the keynote of Bill Gates and Jim Allchin. [Watch it here].
Bill Gates started with a fun video on his recruiting efforts and talked about the industry trends and how they influence the Microsoft platform investments. Next talking point was the enhanced user experience: from HTML and the ATLAS framework to a smart client application illustrated by Office 12, Windows Vista and the Windows Presentation Foundation.
After that Chris Caposella, Vice President Information Worker product management group, started demoing Windows Vista. Some of the cool new features like virtual folders, the sidebar, etc that are present in the Windows Vista build being handed-out at PDC, were shown.
Chris also talked about the IE7 parental control and anti-phishing efforts. IE7 cool features shown were:
- quick tabs: tabbed browsing taken to the next level
- easy printing of web pages: shrink the page to the paper format
- RSS support: auto-detect all rss-feeds being present on the page and subscription
Next was an exciting overview of the new Office 12 features and how the Office System has evolved to become a real server system. The best example of this is the Office 12 and SharePoint integration.
Some killing Outlook features were also demoed:
- creating tasks from a message; a uniform task type for all applications.
- play and view PowerPoint slide decks from within the Outlook message preview window
- rss integration in Outlook; subscribe to an rss feed in IE7 and it shows up in Outlook.
- search box integration
- and many more!
Next on stage was Jim Allchin talking about and showing the next step for the Windows Platform. Jim went through the major building blocks that compose Windows Vista:
- UI:
- ATLAS: the Atlas Client Script Framework is an extensible, object-oriented 100% JavaScript client framework that allows you to easily build AJAX-style browser applications with rich UI and connectivity to web services.
- WPF/E (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere)
- DATA:
- the LINQ Project, .NET integrated query language
- COMMUNICATION:
- Infocard: is the code name for a WinFX component that provides the consistent user experience required by the identity metasystem
- WCF or the Windows Communication Foundation: a Web services technology and unified API that helps developers and organizations overcome the challenges of building connected systems both within and beyond the enterprise
All this brand new stuff was turned into reality by Don Box, Chris Anderson, Scott Guthrie and Anders Hejlsberg. They integrated all of this new technology into an end-to-end scenario. They even leveraged VirtualEarth. Amazing!
All in all I very much liked the keynote and I'm pretty excited on these new technologies. The keynote very well illustrated the deep investments in Windows Vista, Office 12, and other technologies that developers can use to build great applications and solutions that enable “The Next Step” of computing. It should be clear to everyone that the Office developer story becomes very important and that it will remain important in the next years. I know some people who will be very happy with this! ;-)
After the keynote I picked up "the goods" which include the Windows Vista build 5219. This pre-beta2 build was used during the keynote for all demos and I'm being told that it runs pretty stable for being a pre-beta 2 build. Peter is currently installing it ...:-)
After lunch I attended the session "VSTS: Behind the scenes of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server" which provided an overview of the TFS capabilities. An often requested demo - how to achieve continuous integration in VSTS? - was shown to illustrate the capabilities of TFS.
Second session of the day was the most interesting: "Choosing the right presentation technology: Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Forms, ASP.NET, IE and more.
The session covered all the existing and upcoming technologies - ASP.NET Atlas, WPF, Windows Forms - that could be used to show something on the screen and how they integrate with eachother. Amazing demos too!
Tonight there's the PDC reception and afterwards there's a party at the White Lotus. See you there!
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[Updated] Some more links on the technologies mentioned above: Atlas, LINQ and the New user interface for Office 12 core applications
Yesterday and today were the pre-conference days at PDC 05.
Yesterday we did some LA sightseeing but today I attended the ASP.NET 2.0 pre-conference. This was a day fully packed with ASP.NET 2.0 tips and tricks, do's and don'ts, in's and out's. Fritz Onion and Ted Pattison did a very good job by bringing this content in an entertaining way. The Pluralsight-guys started by giving an overview of the new ASP.NET 2.0 features. After this overview they left the "classic" ASP.NET 2.0 demos - that we've already seen a number of times - alone for some more exciting and in-depth demos.
In the "Architecture and Compilation" section they highlighted the new code behind model, partial classes, the new compilation model and its directory structure and how to do localization with resources. In this last topic they showed two diffrerent ways on how to achieve localization with resources in ASP.NET 2.0. The first technique consists of
- generate a local resource file for a page: create resource keys for each localizable property and mark these properties with meta:resourcekey=...
- add UICulture = "auto" to the @Page directive
- create additional .resx files with culture name
The second technique consists of:
- create your own .resx files either under /App_LocalReousrces or /App_GlobalResources
- add UICulture = "auto" to the @Page directive
- explicit resource evaluation syntax:
Next topic to be covered were master pages, navigation, controls and themes.Fritz went through the concepts of master pages and control generation, how to efficiently work with themes and explained the navigation control architecture.
In the declarative data sources and data binding chapter of the presentation the data source controls were used; they showed how to achieve databinding with no code and the use of DataSource Parameters with the new data-bound controls.
The fifth part consisted of membership and roles which showed the membership and role providers, the security controls and how they rely on the provider. Ted Pattison covered the web parts and portal components in gread depth by explaining the differences of ASP.NET 2.0 web parts and SharePoint web parts, the use of the WebPartManager Class and Web Part Zones. He also mentioned the SmartPart and showed how to build web parts with user controls.
Finally cross-page posting and how to access personalization information were covered.
This session gave a very good overview of what one can expect from the new features of ASP.NET 2.0 and how they should be used to build manageable and scalable applications in an efficient way. Despite the power outage this was a great start of PDC 05!
Tomorrow is the official kick-off of PDC 05 with the keynote at 8.30 AM. For those of you not attending PDC make sure to watch Bill Gates' keynote which is broadcasted live and available on-demand.Watch it here!
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The Visual Studio 2005 Release Candidate (RC) is live on MSDN today, right on time for all the geeks present at PDC!
The best news however is that the bits of Visual Studio 2005 RC are compatible with the SQL Server 2005 September CTP bits. SQL Server Express September CTP bits are already integrated into the RC build.
Right from MSDN Subscriber Downloads: This Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite offers significant enhancements and greater quality over previous Beta releases. This software is unsupported pre-release software and upgrading to or from this RC is not supported. This RC is NOT covered by the Beta 2 Go-Live license and cannot be used for production deployments of customer applications.
Microsoft just published a first version of the Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines.
The goals for these official Microsoft Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines (or “UX Guide” for short) are to:
- Establish a high quality and consistency baseline for all Windows Vista applications.
- Answer your specific user experience questions.
- Make your job easier!
This set of html pages cover:
- What's new in Windows Vista. These articles summarize the new Windows Vista core UI features that you should use in your Windows Vista UI designs, and how they differ from Windows XP.
- The Top Rules, which summarizes the rules that the MSX Design team wants you to follow to create a high quality, consistent Windows Vista UI.
- The Top Guidelines Violations, which lists the most common guidelines violations that the MSX Design team is finding during Windows Vista design reviews.
- And finally, Designing with Windows Presentation Foundation, which gives you an overview of how to take advantage of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF, codename “Avalon”).
Looking at the PDC sessions I know there's lots and lots of this stuff to be announced and shown the upcoming days.
Finally ... just arrived in Los Angeles for the PDC 05. After a long, but enjoyable, flight from Amsterdam to LA we arrived in the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel. On the flight a lot of geeks and familiar faces from all over EMEA. We're currently 10 Belgians in this hotel and - if I'm not mistaken - we'll add a couple of others as from tomorrow.
These guys flew in today: Grégory Renard, Bart De Smet, Jelle Druyts, Patrick Verbruggen, Jan Tielens, Peter Himschoot, Wilfried Jansoone, Joris Poelmans and Patrick Bernard. Two other Belgian community people Patrick Tisseghem & Steven Wilssens are arriving later today! Wow ... that's a nice community, don't you think so?
If you're curious what's the view from our hotel check Rédo's blog at http://blogs.developpeur.org/redo/archive/2005/09/11/11103.aspx. He even posted a first set of pictures. More to come!
Talk to you tomorrow!
Just as many many others I'm ready to leave for PDC 05. In a couple of hours - together with a number of other Belgian geeks - I'm leaving for Los Angeles. We're flying from Amsterdam to Los Angeles.
Sunday and Monday the pre-conferences and some sightseeing are scheduled. On Sunday I will attend the "Software Development with Visual Studio Team System " pre-conference. Monday the pre-conference "NET Framework 2.0 — The Web Perspective" is scheduled.
I'm convinced that this PDC - just as in 2003 - will be a PDC to remember. Looking forward to some great content on IIS 7.0, Windows Communication Foundation, Infocard, WinFs, Windows Vista, Windows Presentation Foundation ,Office 12, Visual Studio Tools for Office 'v3', .... and many more! Looking at "the goods" I already cleaned my hard disk! I'm pretty much convinced Microsoft will be able - once again - to suprise the geeks with lots and lots of cool stuff!
See you in LA!
Today, Windows Vista Beta 1 is being delivered to select Beta testers via the Windows Vista Technical Beta Program, MSDN developer program and Microsoft TechNet.
Software developers can start start building applications for Windows Vista with this release. All developer-related information for Windows Vista can be found on the newly launched MSDN Windows Vista homepage.
The focus of Windows Vista Beta 1 is on the “fundamentals”: security, deployment, manageability and reliability & diagnostics. Windows Vista Beta 1 is primarily an infrastructure release and as it's a beta release it does not contain all of the end-user features. These end-user features will be included in Beta 2.
Developers will be able to leverage their Win32 and .NET Framework development skills to build applications using the full beta 1 of the WinFX Runtime Components, formerly code-named the "Microsoft Pre-Release Software Code Named “Avalon” and “Indigo” Beta1 RC".
With the arrival of beta 1 of the WinFX Runtime Components the codenames "Avalon" and "Indigo" have received their final names: Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly “Avalon”), Windows Communication Foundation (formerly “Indigo”), and “InfoCard” for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
As the homepage states, Windows Vista will bring clarity to the world of the developers:
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Create The Experience: Today, users want software that is faster, easier, and visually exciting. With Microsoft Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," developers can differentiate their applications by the user experience and provide new ways to help users be productive and make applications more relevant and just plain fun to use. Microsoft is offering new technologies and a set of user experience (UX) guidelines that show how to use the innovations in Windows Vista environment to build graphically rich user experiences that take advantage of the power of the end user's personal computer.
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Secure It: The ubiquity of network connectivity has caused a nightmare for computer security. In addition to improvements in the security of the underlying operating system, Microsoft Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," provides advances that enable developers to create more secure applications and to ease the burden on system administrators and end users when it comes to securing systems.
In particular, Windows Vista tackles the problem of privilege. Malicious software, or malware, typically runs under the privilege level of the user currently operating the computer and most users run with elevated privileges by default. When you put these together, malware often runs with Administrator privileges. Having all operations take place with the least possible privilege necessary is a primary focus of Windows Vista. In addition, Windows Vista provides tools for assessing and reporting on vulnerabilities in your applications and mechanisms for fully integrating firewall and anti-malware tools with the operating system and the Security Center.
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Make It Reliable: Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," provides a new set of APIs that help you make applications more predictable and manageable. Enhanced portal services help you understand how your applications behave in real-world deployments.
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Get Connected: New features in Windows Vista™, formerly code name "Longhorn," make it easy to develop applications that communicate across the enterprise, around the world, as well as with nearby devices and machines. The Windows Communication Foundation (formerly code name "Indigo") Web service APIs make it easy to build and consume secure, reliable, and transacted Web services. New peer-to-peer capabilities enable the discovery and sharing of data between computers and nearby devices. Performance improvements have made communications faster than ever before and improved support for standards like IPv6, WS-*, and RSS makes Windows Visa a great way to write applications that communicate with each other.
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Integrate Data: The Windows Vista™ (formerly Windows code name "Longhorn") platform introduces new data storage and search technologies that enable developers to build applications that are searchable and that integrate disparate data formats-applications that find and share the data that users want to see.
New features oriented around finding, organizing, and sharing data are accessible to developers through both Win32 and WinFX APIs. In particular, Windows Vista introduces a new XML Paper Specification (XPS) that is accessible through the Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly Windows code name "