Full Day Workshops
Choose from a broad range of content and topics by expert presenters. VSLive!’s pre- and post-conference workshops give you more technical content than most development conferences’ entire programs.
Pre-Conference Workshops:
Monday, May 12, 2008
VPR1WPF and Silverlight: A Pragmatic Introduction, Introductory
Billy Hollis
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
The industry is beginning a transition to better user interfaces for all kinds of applications. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight are the base technologies for a whole new generation of richer, more intuitive, and more productive interfaces. But you may be confused about their impact. Are they ready for prime time? How do you decide if and when to make the move? How do you go about learning to use these technologies effectively? This workshop can give you the perspective to answer those questions. Created for those who have little or no experience in these technologies, you'll see a structured, pragmatic introduction to WPF core concepts, including XAML, the control set, layout, visual designers, and such interactive technologies as animation and styling. Silverlight will be compared and contrasted with WPF, and examples of both technologies will be presented to help you see how you might use them in your own projects.
VPR2Windows Workflow: A Gentle Introduction, Introductory
Ken Getz & Robert Green
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Windows Workflow makes it possible to incorporate workflow behaviors into your own applications, without needing to provide your own infrastructure and "plumbing". This workshop introduces the basics of Windows Workflow, and demonstrates how to create, debug, and host workflows within your applications. Using the workflow extensions for Visual Studio 2005, you’ll learn how to take advantage of Windows Workflow, create new workflow activities, react to events, and host the workflows. If you’re interested in adopting this powerful new technology, you need to attend this workshop.
VPR3Making the Tough Choices: Selecting the Right Techniques, Intermediate
Deborah Kurata
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Visual Studio and the .NET Framework allow you to do so many things in so many different ways. The question you frequently face is: “Which way do I do it in my application?” The common answer of “It depends” just does not cut it. You don’t have time to make the wrong choice. You need to know which technique is right for you and for your application.
This workshop will cover many of the tough choices you face and provide clear criteria on selecting the right tools and techniques for your application. It will provide guidance on selecting the appropriate set of classes for your application.
It will look at inheritance-based, interface-based, and attribute-based techniques to clearly delineate the best time to use each—and much, much more. You will leave with a good sense of how to make the tough choices and develop applications that are easier to build, test, and maintain.
Post-Conference Workshops:
Friday, May 16, 2008
VPO1SQL Server 2008 for Developers, Intermediate
Andrew Brust & Leonard Lobel
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
This full-day workshop will get you ready for SQL Server 2008, whether you’ve already been using SQL Server 2005 or you’re still on SQL Server 2000. We’ll pull no punches as we rip through the most important features in SQL Server for developers, including the newest capabilities on the horizon for SQL Server 2008. We’ll cover enhancements to the core database engine including new features such as table-valued parameters, new date and time data types, and grouping sets. We’ll learn how to leverage new features for going “beyond relational”, with the hierarchyid, FILESTREAM and spatial data types. We’ll also study the latest data access and modeling strategies provided by the new ADO.NET Entity Framework, Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and the new data binding model for WPF. We’ll finish with an overview of SQL Server 2008’s new BI, data warehousing and reporting features. You’ll learn a ton of new SQL Server features in this information-packed day!
VPO2Order from Chaos: Leveraging .NET 2.0 to 3.5, Intermediate
Rockford Lhotka
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
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.
VPO3VSTS 2008 for the Busy Developer, Intermediate
Brian Randell
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
For what was going to be a minor release, Visual Studio Team System 2008 and Team Foundation Server 2008 turned out to be much more. In this workshop you’ll learn how to upgrade your clients and server to the new 2008 release. More importantly, you’ll learn why you should upgrade as well as the possible issues you might have. You’ll learn about all the new VSTS specific enhancements by designing and building a simple solution that highlights the best practices for using Team System. You’ll learn about server changes like the totally revamped Build Server, enhanced version control features, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 integration. You’ll see how new profiling features, integrated AJAX recording, and top-down system design can help you build better distributed solutions. By the end of the feature packed day you’ll be ready to return to work and get busy with Team System 2008.
