Here it is the Saturday after the PDC, and I think I'm finally ready to
reflect on what was one of the most intense learning weeks I've had in a really
long time. In my opinion this PDC represents some very sweeping changes that
will impact .Net developers for years to come.
We've been hearing about technologies such as Longhorn, Indigo and Avalon
since PDC03, but this time around the tools and models are nearly complete, add
in Windows Workflow Foundation, all of the .Net 2.0 technology, then sprinkle
with future technologies like Language Integrated Query (Linq) and you've got
quite a dose.
I'll be posting a series of blog entries to help organize my thoughts around
the different topics.
This first entry has to do with Day 1 technologies.
The Goods
Amy and I arrived at the Keynote Hall a tad early. We decided to arrive
around 7:00am so that we could register and get
"The Goods"
before the Keynote started. The Goods consisted of 5 DVD's containing Windows
Vista Beta 1 and the PDC:CTP, Visual Studio Team System Beta 2, WinFX, SQL
Server 2005 CTP's, LINQ Technology, and eventually VS2005 RC and Longhorn
Server.
Most of this can be downloaded online
Other technologies that were introduced over the course of the PDC can be
found here
That should be all you need to have your own little PDC in a box. What you
can't get is the Windows Vista PDC CTP, or VSTS versions. Now onto the summary.
We were treated with an opening video
"Change The
World", and then Bill Gates started
his
Keynote, in which he showed a video about
recruiting for Microsoft.
Bill and Chris Capossela talked about
Windows Vista
and Office 12,
RSS and IE7. After that
Jim
Allchin came out and discussed some enhancements to Windows Vista, including
SuperFetch
with aims to speed up application load times, as well as the ability for Vista
to utilize USB Flash Drives for extra memory (too cool!).
For me, the meat of the morning keynote was the demonstration of Indigo,
Avalon and
Atlas.
These are technologies that will have a release around mid/late 2006. The
Linq demo
while impressive, is still too far away for me to get too excited about.
After that some demo's were shown by
North Face
marketers (here's
a whitepaper on how it was built), and some information on a new Windows
Vista sample application Microsoft Max,
and the
DigitalLocker.
I was planning on attending the MS Build breakout session, but unfortunately
the Keynote went long and the session was cancelled. Also, I can't help but
mention the
Phone
Deal that Went Sour.
Instead I attended the session
PRS401 ASP.Net:
Developing an Advanced ASP.NET Server Control with Rich Design-Time. Eilon
Lipton presented ways to create ASP.Net server controls and at the same time
create a Designer for each. It was a good overview. I plan on experimenting with
this a little more in the future. (Incidentally you can download the ppt slides
from most of the sessions
here).
The next session was on
TLN303 Monad: Advanced Command Line Scripting. While it was interesting, it
wasn't what I was expecting. They gave an overview of Monad, and did a
compare/contrast with other scripting languages. I guess I was hoping for a more
detailed, getting things done sort of talk.
The final breakout session of the day was
PRS404 ASP.NET: Developing Advanced Custom Providers for Membership and Role
Manager. This was the best breakout session of the day, Stefan Shackow
covered the new 2.0 provider model and covered some limitations and gave
possible workarounds for certain situations. He has made the code available
here.
After that Amy and I headed to the big room to get our schwag! I think we
ended up with about 13 T-Shirts each, plus hats, plus a book and a bunch of
other little trinkets. It was kind of embarassing, hauling around our loot in
our arms. We finally ducked into the PDC Marketplace to ask for a bag. Amy's bag
lasted all of 5 minutes before it busted under the weight. :)
After a quick dinner on appetizers, we hopped a bus to head to the
www.pdcunderground.com talks at the
Westin. We got there just in time to catch the last 3 speakers. After that it
was back to the PDC where we caught a couple of
BOF's. Finally we headed back to the hotel around 11pm. It was time to get
some rest, for tomorrow we would be doing it all over again.