Monday, September 17
WPF - The Beauty of the Beast, Introductory
Josh Smith
10:30 a.m.
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is the powerful new user interface subsystem of the .NET 3.0 Framework. Its architecture requires you to rethink how to design and develop in the presentation layer. In this presentation we will explore the exciting new UI framework, learn what capabilities it has, and examine some tools used in WPF development. By the end of the presentation you will have enough general knowledge of the platform to know which features you want to explore next.
XAML Design for Developers, Intermediate
Bill Wolff
11:45 a.m.
XAML is the core markup language for a new wave of interactive applications enabled by the Windows Presentation Foundation. We start with a deep dive into the XAML schema and explore the core elements that provide containers, graphic objects, media control, and event triggers. We then explore the new Microsoft tools that enable rich graphical development. Expression Design is used to create vector graphic designs and import bitmap images. Expression Blend is used to orchestrate transitions and transformations as users interact with the XAML elements. Visual Studio “Orcas” is used to enhance XAML entry points with detailed .NET framework code. The results can be deployed as Windows executables or XBAP and WPF/e web applications.
Build an App with both WinForms and WPF UIs, Intermediate
Rocky Lhotka
2:00 p.m.
With planning and foresight you can build a Windows Forms application today, and preserve your business logic when you move to WPF in the future. Learn how to apply layered software architecture, apply object-oriented design patterns and leverage key .NET technologies like data binding to make this possible. Using these techniques today can save you a lot of time and effort in the future!
Introduction to Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation, Introductory
Michael Stiefel
3:15 p.m.
What do email, meeting planning, document approval, budgeting, manufacturing processes, resource planning, and product lifecycle management have in common? Work flow: long running, complex business processes that interact with human decision making. But traditional, conventional programming techniques require you to spend an enormous amount of time building your workflow infrastructure before you write a line of application code. Fortunately, there’s a solution: Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) arrived with .NET Framework 3.0, and offers a programming solution that lets you focus on writing business workflows immediately, without having to solve the difficult problems of workflow plumbing. In this session, I will introduce the fundamentals of building workflow applications.
Using an example of a simple business process, I will show you how to build a simple workflow application. I will also explain the fundamental parts of WF such as hosts, workflow, the activities and the basic workflow patterns.
Creating Custom Workflow Activities, Intermediate
Ken Getz
4:30 p.m.
Windows Workflow Foundation provides a rich model and infrastructure for building workflow applications, but real use of the foundation requires you to create your own activities. Creating custom activities requires a bit of expertise, and this session introduces the concepts you’ll need to get started creating your own custom Workflow activities. You’ll learn how to create simple and composite activities, how to set the display name, how to set the custom icon, how to create a custom designer, and more.
Tuesday, September 18
Persistence Services and Windows Workflow Foundation, Intermediate
Ken Getz
10:30 a.m.
Windows Workflow foundation provides a pluggable service model, making it easy to extend the standard behavior of a workflow. Microsoft provides an “in the box” service for persistence, and in this session, you’ll learn how to use persistence services in order to both save and restore the state of a workflow at runtime. The built-in service uses SQL Server for storage, but they don’t have to—you’ll also see how to get started creating your own persistence service.
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) for .ASMX and Remoting Developers, Intermediate
Richard Hale Shaw
11:45 a.m.
NET Web Services (.ASMX) are great -- so long as you don't mind that they lack high fidelity to .NET data types, have no built-in support for security or transactions, and only offer HTTP/SOAP endpoints. Oh, yeah, they can be kind of slow. .NET Remoting, on the other hand, can service binary protocols, offers greater fidelity to .NET data types, and is relatively performant. But Remoting isn't cross-platform where .ASMX services are, and still doesn't directly address security or transactions. And neither .ASMX services nor Remoting objects are compatible: each has its own, distinct programming model.
Enter WCF: while "packaged" into Windows Vista, WCF is a .NET 3.0 technology that runs on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. And what .ASMX and Remoting lack, WCF delivers: it directly addresses security and transaction issues, and offers a single programming model while supporting both binary and SOAP endpoints. In this session, Richard will introduce key WCF concepts geared to .ASMX and Remoting programmers who're ready to begin migrating to .NET 3.0.
Using C# 2.0 to Grok C# 3.0 and LINQ, Intermediate
Richard Hale Shaw
2:00 p.m.
The root of Language Integrated Query (LINQ) features such as lamda expressions and query features being added to C# 3.0 are already here: you'll find them already implemented as C# 2.0 anonymous methods and custom Iterators. You can use the former as building blocks: small, useful pieces of code as found in functional programming languages. And you an use the latter to generate complete implementations of IEnumerator/IEnumerable
In this talk, Richard will start with these two features of C# 2.0. He'll show how anonymous methods work, and how C# 3.0 lamda expressions are a more powerful and elegant means of creating them. Then he'll turn to custom iterators, and show how their compiler-generated classes are the basis for the powerful search features of found in C# 3.0. Finally, he'll show how using pipelining patterns let you wire-together custom iterators to filter, order and otherwise manipulate collections -- the basis for Sequence.Where and Sequence.OrderBy in LINQ!
VB 9.0 - Introduction to LINQ for VB Developers
Don Demsak
3:15 p.m.
Object-oriented programming has evolved to a level where developers virtually take for granted features like classes, objects and methods. The promise of LINQ is that these OO features can be brought to the world of relational databases, XML and information in general. In this session, you will learn about Visual Basic 9, the upcoming extensions to the .NET Framework (known as LINQ) and a taste of what's to come in VBx (Visual Basic 10).
Building MMC 3.0 Snap-Ins that work with PowerShell, Intermediate
Keith Pleas
4:30 p.m.
This session integrates new platform features, focusing on creating MMC 3.0 snap-ins with Visual Studio .NET. You will also learn how to build a Task model using PowerShell, which can then be driven from MMC 3.0. We will also cover the new capabilities of WMI.NET 2.0, which enable applications to automatically expose and consume application configuration settings.
