TechEd2006

Blogging and TechEd 2006

Stefan Barrett — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:54:00 GMT

When I went to TechEd, I though I would do a bit of blogging every day, but I had forgotten just how busy you can get here. There's just so much to see. While you do get the DVD's containing all the sessions (except Chalk-Talk ones), it takes at least 8 weeks and nothing beats being there.

Have got a copy of Visual Studio for Database professionals, which will be installed as soon as possible. While I'm not sure about using in production environment yet (if nothing else, it's not the finished version), the assistance it can give in development and testing means its worth looking at now.

Micorsoft needs to tidy up it's marketing regarding WCF, WPF, Link, WF, etc. when it coming to what versions it will be released in (first time I've heard of .Net 3.5). It seems that .Net 3.0 will come out with Vista, but actually .Net 3.0 is more .Net 2.0 + WCF, WPF, WF. So you still use Visual Studio 2005 to work it. Then in 2007 we get Orcas/Visual Studio 2007 with .Net 3.5 which includes Linq. But at the end of the day, apart from bug fixes, we are still talking about .Net 2.0 with extras.

Microsoft seems to have a small problem in classifying the level of some of the sessions, typically rating them slight higher than they warrent.

End of the first day

Stefan Barrett — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 04:48:00 GMT

No major announcements in this TechEd, through there are new products such Visual Studio for Database. Went to a number of sessions today ; First one was about business reporting which was interesting through not sure if it end user extensible enough for the system I'm currently working on, but I guess that's one of the advantages of TechEd, is that I can grap somebody and ask them.

The next session covered the architecture version of visual studio. Nothing really new, but it was the first time I had seen it all in one go, with such a coherent explaination.

The next one covered wcf and how you don't need to use it with soap. In otherwords, you can use in cases where performance is important and you don't want to through all of the soap xml around.

Then a session covering dlink which didn't really cover anything new.

The last session covered new features in VC++ 2005. Most of it is common with the other visual studio languages. It was a interesting presentation particularly the focus on keystrokes. The most interesting feature was what you could do in the in the find window. E.g. To shell out, put in >shell cmd

Siteseeing Boston

Stefan Barrett — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 06:33:00 GMT

The TechEd bus driver, driving back to the hotel this evening, had a problem getting to the hotel (lots of 1 way roads plus some instructions about what roads he could driver on), so saw a bit of Boston. It looks like quite a facinating place, and on Saturday, before I go home, I've got to go out and a good look at the place.

I had a wander around yesterday, and found a interesting food court which I shall have to return to. The only problem I have at TechEd, is that I usually snack so much doing the day that come the evening, I'm not hungry. There's just to much interesting food, through I wish they had something other than orange and cranberry to drink (non-fizzy). Ever since my first TechEd in 2004, I don't drink that much fizzy drinks.

Ahhh well.. The only think I've seen so far which worries me a little bit about the conference center is the number of toilets. Perhaps they are hidden away, but there does not seem to be that many of them. Shall be interesting tomorrow when everybody else is around.

PreCon over

Stefan Barrett — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 06:21:00 GMT

Well, that's the precon over. Went to a session about using WSE 3.0/ASMX now, which had some interesting points in it. If you use the WSE 3.0 way of definition services, they move across to WCF very easily. In fact there was very little coding change, and that was mostly in the address part of the service.

Basically what you should do, is to to define your contract through a interface:

[WebServiceBinding(....)]
public interface ICommunicate
{
[WebMethod]
void DoSomething();
}

That way you almost don't need attributes on the class itself, and you can remove the contract into a seperate dll.

Funny enough, this is exactly how WCF does things.

The main eye openner for me, was that while they can't be represented in the schema, you can still use generic objects on the server side which simply translate into arrays on the wire and client side.

Registration

Stefan Barrett — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 16:15:00 GMT

Got my bag, which looks nice. Got Vista and Office in it, and a detachable bit for the laptop. Looks nice and sturdy this year.

But it's a over the shoulder one again.. Personally I think backpacks are better once you start putting weight into it.

Time to get some munchies and have a look around.

Arrived

Stefan Barrett — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 00:35:00 GMT

Finally arrived (minor issue with airspace congestion and somebodys mislead bag), only 1 hour late. It's raining.

Going to go out and have a look at Boston, and later wander over to check out a party. As usual with TechEd there's a number of parties going on in the background, and it's not always the easiest to find out about them (or register in time).

Minor irratation, had to pay extra for WiFi connect at hotel, but that's life.

Tomorrow should be fun.

The next two TechEd's are:

New Orleans, LA June 3 - 8, 2007
Orlando, FL June 8 - 13, 2008

Which, I guess, shows the type of planning which is required to run such a event.