Another great MSDN session in PA. As usual Lindsay Rutter gave 3 great courses. The theme this time was the web.

Session 1 was a great example of Visual Studio 2008. I hadn't seen it yet. I was very happy to see we can now pick which framework we are coding to. But even more impressive is managed JavaScript!   The idea of being able to walk through JavaScript instead of testing live is going to bring scripting to an entire new level!

Session 2 was a lesson in using LinQ and what MS is coining as A New Paradigm for Data Development with Web Based Data Services. Basically the new paradigm is the way DBA's have done it for years. I guess it's new for developers - lol. Don't get me wrong there are some new cool features but I'm not sure if this method is meant to work with 10,000 lines of data from 5 different data sources. Time will tell...

Session 3 was an example of web development with Silverlight, C# and AJAX. MS is going all out with Silverlight. I program action script files. One of the biggest complaints I have had is there is no efficient way to integrate flash with any other systems. MS is allowing Silverlight to be 100% dynamic. We can program output and input  with C# and JavaScript.

I've recently met a developer that programs in classic ASP. His ASP skills are great. He keeps saying Ajax, why? "I can do it in VB script/ASP."  The funny thing is after watching how Silverlight gets data from JavaScript which gets it dataset from C# and seeing the classic <% var %> symbols, I can't help to think even though he is behind the times, he is partially right... Argh!

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