DevConnections - Day Two

The morning started with keynotes touting many of the new and improved features of Visual Studio 2005. You can find some good demos, as well as a sneak-peak at the new ad campaign at www.400plusdifferences.com. After that it was off to the individual sessions...

Session 1 - Creating Dynamic Web Sites with ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts
Web parts are a set of new controls in ASP.NET 2.0 that allow us to provide users with flexible display options and personalized content. The most common application of this interface would be for portal-type sites like MyYahoo and Google's personalized homepage but you can really leverage this technology for any kind of site.

The best part about web parts is that they work with existing ASP.NET controls and custom user controls with little or no effort. Just by dragging some controls onto the page you can quickly and easily give your users the ability to personalize the content. This could be a great feature for allowing your users to customize the homepage of any database-driven web application. By default the controls integrate seamlessly with Microsoft SQL server to persist data for authenticated users but that can also be modified to use any data store such as Oracle, MySQL, or XML.

Note: The drag and drop functionality to customize the display parts will only work in Internet Explorer at the moment but there are controls in the new Atlas framework that enable it for other browsers such as Firefox and Opera.

Session 2 - New Enhancements for Web Developers in Visual Studio 2005
This was an informative albeit sales-pitchy session about the improvements made to VS2005. My team has already been using VS2005 for a couple of months so a lot of the information I already had, but here's a quick breakdown of just a few of the cooler new features:

• Built in development server. No need to have IIS installed
• Better integration with SourceSafe for versioning and code control
• WYSIWYG DataSet designer
• Customizable tag formatting options
• Better Intellisense
• XHTML and 508/WCAG compliant code and built in validators

Another thing I should point out is that Microsoft has also released Visual Web Developer Express along with SQL Server 2005 Express. Both products are free to download and provide a great platform for developers to test-drive and learn ASP.NET 2.0 and the Visual Studio environment without having to plunk down hard-earned cash.

Lunch
I didn't plan on blogging about lunch but I had the pleasure of eating with Microsoft guru Joe Stagner who happens to be an exceptionally nice guy. We chatted a bit about Microsoft and general development stuff and he also pointed me to The Code Room, which is a "1/2 hour internet TV show that exposes technologists to the latest tools and technologies for tackling real-world software development issues". He wrote and produced an episode in Las Vegas last December that's worth checking out.

Session 3 - Using Visual Studio Team System to Build Enterprise ASP.NET Web Applications
Visual Studio Team System is a new version of VS that enables project management and collaboration functionality right within the developer environment. It also integrates directly with Excel, Project, and SharePoint to allow multiple developers and project managers to work together. While it seems useful for large teams working on an enterprise-sized project, I can't envision it being all that helpful for smaller web apps. They system is divided into parts for system architects, developers, and testers. Most of the developers I know (myself included) usually get stuck doing all three so this almost seems more bother than what it's worth.

One part I did find especially interesting however, was the testing features available for web applications. You're able to simulate any number of incrementally increasing users using multiple browsers to effectively stress test your applications before deployment.

Session 4 - An In-Depth Look at Building Enhanced Web Apps Using Atlas
By far the biggest draw so far, the Atlas session was packed with people standing and sitting in the aisles. For good reason it would appear. Atlas seems to be the most interesting surprise in Microsoft's bag of tricks.

Atlas is a cross-browser JavaScript library and server-side assembly that provides AJAX functionality on top of ASP.NET 2.0. The most impressive part about it is that it enables AJAX-style partial-page rendering without a lot of work and without having to write any complex JavaScript. The coolest part for me was the ability to extend existing controls within the framework such as adding drag and drop functionality or auto-complete for textbox controls.

Session 5 - Cool Tips & Tricks in ASP.NET 2.0
The day concluded with a session by keynote speaker Scott Guthrie who is not only brilliant but also a great presenter. It was designed to provide 10 tips and tricks to help increase overall productivity and it was exceptionally beneficial. I won't bother to recap the tips and tricks Mr. Guthrie provided since he's made them available on his blog. I highly recommend downloading this session.
ASP.NET Connections Tips and Tricks Slides+Demos Posted