.NET General
.NET Framework, Languages and Best Practices
VP2Order from Chaos: Leveraging .NET 2.0 to 3.5
Rockford Lhotka
Pre-Conference Workshop: Sunday, September 7
At a time when many people are just moving to .NET 2.0, Microsoft has released .NET 3.0 and 3.5. The rate of technology change is outstripping our ability to keep up. How do you find order in all this chaos?
Join author and .NET expert Rockford Lhotka for answers. In this workshop you will learn how all the parts fit together, and how you can leverage them as you are ready over time. Whether you are using .NET 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5 today, this workshop will help you be more productive and create better applications in .NET.
Learn how to achieve high levels of reuse and maintainability for Windows Forms, Web Forms, WPF and Silverlight applications. Find out how to leverage SOA and Workflow, without abandoning the performance and simplicity of n-tier or client/server concepts. This workshop will give you an architecture and design model, along with programming techniques, that will make order out of chaos.
VW5Microsoft’s Patterns and Practices – More Than Just Good Advice
Michael S. Jones
Wednesday, September 10, 8:30 a.m.
Are you plugged into Microsoft’s Patterns and Practices group? If not, you are probably writing more plumbing (non business logic) code than you should be. Not only does Microsoft’s P&Ps group provide great advice on how to build robust applications, they also publish ‘application blocks’ containing source code and libraries tackling all manner of plumbing code any application development project requires. Come get a hands-on look at how to employ the most widely adopted of Microsoft’s application blocks: caching, data access, exception handling, logging, validation, and more. If you have ever heard that the application blocks will not ‘quite’ fit into your process, come see why you are probably wrong.
VW4Understanding the Framework Design Guidelines
Richard Hale Shaw
Wednesday, September 10, 8:30 a.m.
The book, "Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries" is a must-read for all serious .NET developers. Written by members of the Framework team, it incorporates naming conventions, implementation patterns, design patterns and other useful practices into a single, cohesive volume.
Does the book hold up today in light of .NET 3.5? How effective are the naming conventions that are recommended -- and when should you ignore them? How do you get your team to buy into the use of the patterns and practices it describes -- and how do you prioritize them?
In this talk, Richard will describe and lay out for you a cohesive subset of the key ideas gleaned from the Design Guidelines, but tempered by his own experience with consulting clients in the field. He'll show you which practices to take to heart, which ones you should avoid -- and why. He'll also show how to get the most buy-in from team members who are looking for a comprehensive, cohesive way to organize and design their own framework library extensions, and how to deal with those who're trying to sabotage you.
VW1Fall in Love with Visual Basic All Over Again - Visual Basic 9
Michael S. Jones
Wednesday, September 10, 9:45 a.m.
Throughout its history, Visual Basic has been engineered to be a easy-to-use language built for productivity and ease-of-use. More than a mere upgrade, VB9 promises to (again) transform the way software is written. 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 Implicitly Typed Variables. Did someone say LINQ? See how many of the new features are built around LINQ support. Come see why VB9 will be your new favorite programming language all over again. Come enjoy an all-code presentation.
VW9Tricks, Traps, and Techniques in Migrating VB6 Applications to .NET
Francesco Balena
Wednesday, September 10, 1:45 p.m.
Six years after Microsoft launched the .NET Framework there are just too many VB6 business applications waiting to be ported to the .NET world. Given the limitations of the Upgrade Wizard, not surprisingly many software shops decided to go through the long and costly process of rewriting their applications from scratch or – much more frequently – just to stay with VB6. Unfortunately, some 3rd party ActiveX controls don’t work well under Microsoft Vista and Microsoft has officially discontinued tech support for VB6 in March 2008. This has made upgrading to .NET the only option for VB6 legacy apps.
In this session we’ll briefly list the most important issues you have to face when migrating your VB6 code to VB.NET and how you can solve them. We’ll briefly cover all the most evident differences between the two languages – data types, arrays, structures, error handling, and so forth – and then dig under the surface to reveal many undocumented details, for example how string immutability and orphaned delegates can make your converted VB.NET code fail. We will also illustrate many examples of how you can use a support library to shorten the distance between VB6 and VB.NET and reduce the time you spend testing the converted code, how to work with arrays with non-zero lower bound, how to simulate control arrays, how to use regexes to fix common problems in the migration process, and much more. Attendees will receive the source code of a support library that implements all the techniques discussed in the session (a trimmed down version of a commercial support library used in real-world migration projects).
VW13Creating a Simple 2D Game Using XNA Game Studio to Run on a PC, Xbox 360 or Microsoft Zune
Brian Peek
Wednesday, September 10, 3:15 p.m.
This session will demonstrate how to build a very simple 2D game engine and game using the latest version of XNA Game Studio. Attendees will learn how to effectively use the content pipeline, import 2D sprites into XNA, manage input from the keyboard, mouse, Xbox 360 controller and Zune, manage game state, and debug the resulting game. The sample code will be built on a PC and run on the PC, Xbox 360, and Zune platforms when complete.
Hardware Interface Programming
VW17Interfacing External Hardware Using Managed Code
Brian Peek
Wednesday, September 10, 4:45 p.m.
While developers write code to build software every day, not often are they exposed to code that drives and interfaces hardware. This session will attempt to bridge that gap and show how .NET can be used to effectively interface several hardware devices, including an RFID reader and tags, Phidget control boards with a variety of sensors, and a servo controller. Finally, the Nintendo Wiimote will be introduced along with my .NET Wiimote Library, demonstrating how to connect to a USB or Bluetooth HID device and use it from .NET, with examples showing what the Wiimote itself is capable of.
VW16A Tour of Powershell for the .NET Developer
Allan Da Costa Pinto
Wednesday, September 10, 3:15 p.m.
One shell to rule them all! Windows PowerShell is an extensible systems scripting environment built on .NET and available on Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista and Server 2008. If you like to tinker, live at the command line, dabble in systems programming/administration or just want some cool new tricks for your tool box, then this session is for you. In this demo intensive session, we will review the anatomy of Windows PowerShell and explore how you can extend the environment with your .NET development skills.
