Download ATLAS Toolkit for AJAX development on ASP.NET 2.0

The community preview site for ATLAS is now available as announced by Scott Guthrie at today's keynote during the PDC Conference in LA.

Now availalable is:

  • Documentation
  • Hands-On-Lab
  • Quickstart Tutorials
  • Project add-in for Visual Studio 2005 Beta2 (with it's own hands on labs)

UPDATE: Scott Guthrie has code snippets posted from the keynote demo.

DevTeach Conference in Montreal

I'm going to be heading out in a couple of weeks to DevTeach in Montreal. In addition to my regular session talk on Datasets, I'll also be participating in an architecture panel discussion as part of Groupe d’usagers Visual Studio Montréal, Software Architecture Special Interest Group's Special Software Architecture Meeting. The meeting is open to conference attendees, members of the user group, and anybody else for $5. Here's the details....

Speaker: Joel Semeniuk, Microsoft Regional Director, Winnipeg

Subject: Software architecture from the trenches

 

Architecture is the soul of our software. Software Architecture truly helps to define our success since if our architecture fails us, our software fails us. However, what makes a good architecture? What truly drives architectural decisions? Is one architecture better than another? In this session we will explore and discuss some of these questions while taking a close look at a few real-world examples. In each real-world scenario we will explore the resulting architecture and review the constraints the project faced both during design and during production and maintenance phases. We will also look retrospectively at each architecture presented and discuss ways that it could be improved upon with Microsoft .NET 2.0.

 

Joel Semeniuk is a founder and VP of Software Development at ImagiNET Resources Corp, a Manitoba based Microsoft Gold Partner in Ecommerce and Enterprise Systems. Joel is also the Microsoft Regional Director for Winnipeg, Manitoba. With a degree in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba, Joel has spent the last twelve years providing educational, development and infrastructure consulting services to clients throughout North America. Joel is the author of "Exchange and Outlook: Constructing Collaborative Solutions", from New Riders Publishing and contributing author of "Microsoft Visual Basic.NET 2003 KickStart" from SAMS. Joel has also acted as a technical reviewer on many other books and regularly writes articles for .NET Magazine and Exchange and Outlook Magazine on a variety of infrastructure and development related topics. Reach Joel by email at joels@imaginets.com.

 

Followed by a software architecture expert panel:

Beth Massi, Software Architecture MVP

Joel Semeniuk, Software Architecture MVP, Microsoft Regional Director Winnipeg

Barry Gervin, Software Architecture MVP, Microsoft Regional Director Toronto

Mario Cardinal, Software Architecture MVP

Carol Roy, Microsoft Canada .NET architecture specialist for the public sector

 

Well known Nick Landry (MVP .NET Compact Framework) will act as the moderator.

 

Come hear these experts talk about software architecture hot topics.  You'll also have the chance to ask questions and talk to the panelists.

 

Monday June 20th, 5:30PM to 9:30PM

Location: Sheraton Centre, 1201 Boulevard Rene-Levesque West

Cost: free for all the DevTeach attendees and the Groupe d’usagers Visual Studio Montréal members.  $5 for non members or non DevTeach attendees.

Note: this session will be held in English

More info: www.guvsm.net or http://www.devteach.com/BonusSession.asp

 

15% off of MCSD/MCAD Certification Exams @ Pearson/VUE

Use the following voucher number MSAU113E1020. Good until August 31, 2005.

Canadian Developer Community Radio

Mark Relph (MS Canada) posted his first blogcast as part of “Canadian Developer Community Radio“. It was recorded a few weeks ago at the ASP.NET 2.0 Deep Dive in Toronto. Lots of good discussion with the speakers, their favourite features, etc. etc. There is also a brief interview with me in which I don't say anything terribly interesting.

Click Here.

Whidbey, ObjectSpaces and Mexico, Oh My!

I'm just heading back home from Vancouver tonight on a red eye. When I get home, I have time for a load of laundry or two and then I'm flying to Mexico. Not just for some R&R, but I've also arranged to speak at the Mayan Riviera .NET User Group. (MR. Nug). I'm not sure what is better - going on vacation, or being able to write it off as a business expense. Unfortunately the only Spanish I know is “Dos cervasa por favor“ therefore this talk will be in English. My apologies.

I'm going to be speaking about the new DataSet that is coming in Whidbey. By the time I get there, beta 2 should be available for download and it should be public knowledge that ObjectSpaces will finally be shipping as part of the whidbey release. I just got a preliminary build last night, so I'm going to try to do a demo of using a dataset with O/R mapping via ObjectSpaces.

As you may have also heard, bundled into 2.0 Typed Datasets are Typed DataAdapters, also known as TableAdapters. In addition to TableAdapters, beta 2 will introduce typed forms, known as TypedForms. These will be precanned forms for both Web and Windows access that couples an easily painted form right on top of a dataset...with zero code. The cool thing about this is that you can simply add a column to your database table, and this will automatically change your data access layer, your middle tier entity and data entry forms. Likewise, you'll be able to simply drag a text box onto your TypedForms and this will automatically modify your database schema to add a new column to the table.

There is also some discussion going on about also adding a TypedReport into the dataset that couples Sql Reporting Services Reports directly into your typed dataset class. This stuff is going to be so easy to use, that it is likely going to make it's way into InfoPath as part of the Office product so that end users can create their own data entry forms and reports in InfoPath. This new edition of InfoPath is going to be named “InfoMaker“. More information on this is available here. This new collection of classes in the dataset are now going to be collectively known as a "DataWindow". Again, more details here. No, it's not a snowy day hell. Hard to believe isn't it. This is surely a day to mark on your calendar.

Modeling as a Productivity Enhancer in Visual Studio Team System

It's been a theme for me over the past couple of weeks where people have mentioned that they can't afford the time to do modeling. If you've done a lot of UML modeling, you know what I'm talking about. But it doesn't have to be that way. Now just to ward of the UML flames, even when UML modeling seems like a waste of time, it may actual pay for itself if you uncover a requirement or a design flaw that you wouldn't have otherwise. Certainly catching this kind of thing early than later pays for itself. But that's not what I'm talking about.

In my days as an ERwin/ERX user, doing data modeling was done in this tool not only because it was good to visualize something quickly before committing to code. Using ERwin/ERX was just plain faster than cutting DDL code manually - or heck, even using the Database diagramming in SQL Server. One simple feature was foreign key migration - you drew a relationship from parent to child and bam - it copied down the pk from the parent table and set it up as a fk on the child table.

For the VSTS class designer to be successful (or any of the designers for that matter) MS needs to make using them just plain faster than stubbing out the code manually. Visual Studio has a great editor so they have their work cut out for them. It gets even better with things like code snippets. Why not enable some of the code snippets in the class designer? I can still create a single field wrapped up by a public property faster in the code editor using a snippet (in C# “prop“) than using the class designer - but I don't see why they couldn't add support for that in the class designer too.

A feature I stumbled upon last week was the ability to override a member. Simply right click on the descended class, and select “Override Member“ and you'll see a list of members from the ancestor that are overridable. Select the member to override and bam - you have the code stub. This reminds me a bit of the Inherited Class Skeleton Generator. This represents the kinds of productivity features that can make models/designers more usable, even if just for productivity sake.

There are obviously some types of edits that are better performed in the code editor, such as actually editing code fragments. Other types of edits can be performed more appropriately in the model such as stubbing out the api/members of a class, overriding members, etc. Let's not forget the other types of edits which are much better done in a WYSIWYG designer such as the windows or web forms designer.

One thing I'd like to see come in the Class Designer is a flattened out view of a class that collapses all inherited members into one layer. I'll call this the consumer or intellisense view of a class. It's helpful for viewing the entire interface to a class so I can see how the whole thing makes sense to a user. I would propose a greyed out notation or perhaps a lock icon or something similar to the online help view of a class.

DevTeach June 18-22, Montreal and a $50.00 Rebate Code!

DevTeach is a really nice conference. I went to it for the first time last year and it's a very intimate and interactive conference. While smaller than your TechEd's and PDC's, it manages to attract a very good set of speakers....Kevin McNeish, Brian Noyes, Julia Lerman, Don Kiely, Patrick Hynds, Carl Franklins, Mario Cardinal, Ted Neward, Nick Landry, Etienne Tremblay, Sam Gentile, Jim Duffy, Guy Barrette, Eric Cote, Markus Egger, Kate Gregory and me too. I'll be doing a DataSet tips and tricks talk - but mostly just so I can get a free pass to go and see all the other great talks. This year it is being held once again in Montreal which is a beautiful city with a great night life.

And last but not least, here is a rebate code for $50.00 "TO000OBJSHARP". You can register at http://www.devteach.com

Dog Food .NET

Here is a list of MS products that either include or are built using the .NET Framework. I was surprised to see how big it is. Thanks to Dan Fernandez @ MS for this list.

  • Windows Server 2003 includes 1.1
  • Sharepoint Team Services requires the .NET Framework
  • Sharepoint Portal Server 2.0 requires 1.1 and written in managed code.
  • Small Business Server 2003 - Remote Web Workplace and the Backup Snap-in use .NET
  • Windows XP Tablet PC Edition - 1.1 is included, and the Tablet API is written in managed code.
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition includes 1.1 and some of the applications are written in managed code.
  • Outlook Business Contact Manager - majority written in .NET
  • SQL Reporting Services - majority written in managed code.
  • Exchange 2003 Outlook Mobile Access is written in managed code using ASP.NET mobile controls
  • BizTalk 2004 - parts are written in managed code
  • Commerce Server 2002 - parts are written in managed code
  • Content Management Server 2002 - parts are written in managed code
  • MSN Messenger Server (Presence server and admin/config tools)
  • Microsoft Business Network written in managed code, requires .NET Framework 1.1
  • MS-CRM – parts are written in managed code
  • SharePoint Portal Server 2003 – Parts written in managed code
  • Speech Server 2004 – Parts written in managed code
  • ASP.NET Web Matrix – Fully written in managed code
  • Visual Studio .NET 2002/3 - parts are written in managed code
  • This one seems obvious......NET Framework 1.0/1.1 - parts are written in managed code.

 

What are you doing for your summer job?

We have a very exciting internship project coming up this summer for a university student, perhaps co-op - but not mandatory.

This high-profile project is to develop a software system to monitor the various systems in a “green” home that is completely off of the power grid. The house is fed by batteries charged by solar and wind (and a backup generator). There are many other systems in place to optimize power usage throughout the house. Although this home is off the grid, it's not off the internet, so the software will have to publish it's information and allow remote access via it's 2-way satellite system. The software will also be developed in .NET, likely using the current whidbey beta.

You are a university student with some combination of electrical engineering and computer science. You are strong “quality-oriented” programmer. You have strong design skills and are good at listening and capturing requirement. The position will be located in southern ontario.

If you are interested, please send your resume to bgervin@Objectsharp.com .

Bidding on .NET Celebrities

So today our company ObjectSharp placed a bid for 5 of the individuals on the .NET Celebrity Auction. Firstly, it sucks that max bids are not shown for a charitable auction. I would encourage any winners who didn't get to their max bid, to still donate the full amount to ACEH.

Now having said that, what would *we* do with 5 .NET Celebrities? Hmmm

  • Scott Hanselman, I'm going to ask you to give a 1 hour MSDN webcast about how easy it is to build a Smart Client Application using datasets and marshal them across web services.
  • Clemens Vasters, I'm going to ask you to give a talk on rapidly building data driven applications with Windows Forms using SqlDataAdapters and dynamic SQL. (No stored procs allowed).
  • Kimberly L. Tripp, how about a MSDN webcast on building mission critical, enterprise scale applications with MS Access.
  • Joel Semeniuk, you're going to give a talk about building rich user interfaces with ASP.NET and client side javascript.
  • Stephen Forte, Essential C++ Managed Extensions
  • Richard Campbell. Creating a Business Intelligence Solutions using the ODBC driver for CSV files.
  • John Lam, a 1 hour talk on Understanding the Unexpected Reactions of Hyrdoxybenzylthiamin. Ok, so he would actually enjoy this, but for my 1 hour of time, I'll watch it and try to learn something.
  • Kate Gregory has also said she would willingly join me in a head shaving.
  • And of course there is the thought of the .NET Celebrity Winter Car Wash!

Thoughts? Any of you feel like outbidding me?