| 08:45-09:20 | Registration - Tea & Coffee with breakfast rolls |
| 09:25-09:30 | Welcome - Housekeeping |
09:30-10:30
| An introduction to Unit Testing with Mock Objects (Presentation) Colin Angus Mackay
| IIS7 For ASP.Net Developers (Presentation) Andrew Westgarth
| Evolutionary Algorithms and the Traveling Salesman (Presentation) Dan Taylor
| XSLT Extreme (Presentation) Dave McMahon
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| | Mock objects are stand-in dummy objects that don't have any functionality behind them, they just return the values to the application that the real object would have returned. Unit tests are supposed to test isolated bits of code. Mock objects ensure that if the code you are testing calls something external to the class being tested you don't have to worry about what the actaul real class does.
This talk expects the audience to be familiar with the concepts of Unit Testing and will introduce the concepts of Mock Objects. | With the launch of Windows Vista came Internet Information Server 7.0. IIS7 is the latest release of Microsofts Web Server which will form part of the forthcoming Windows Longhorn Server. With this release comes a new extensibility model which gives us more options than ever before. During the session we will investigate the new model, look at extending IIS7, configuring IIS 7, develop new modules for IIS and take a look at the new UI for managing IIS7. | Inspired by natural evolution, the evolutionary algorithm (also known as the genetic algorithm) is a very simple, yet extremely powerful problem solving technique which has been used in many application areas including the design of bridges, electronic circuits and wind turbines, scheduling and timetabling, data mining, stock market modeling and game playing. Solutions to problems which are seen as difficult are easy to find using evolution.
In this session we investigate the inner workings of the evolutionary algorithm and see how it can be implemented using a small suite of simple C# classes. We then use well-known problems like Sudoku puzzles and the famous Traveling Salesman Problem to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the algorithm.
It is hoped that those who attend the session will leave with both the knowledge and the motivation to use an evolutionary algorithm in the real world. | If you've used XSLT before and know a bit about it and love it, you'll love this session! Take a tour of the more 'advanced' features of XSLT. Custom Extensions, Custom XPath Navigators, XSLT 2.0 Features as implemented by Saxon. The session will show you some of the real hidden power which is available to you when combining XSLT and .NET. At the end you'll know that XSLT is much much more than just XML and xsl:value-of! |
| 10:30-10:40 | Changeover - Water & snacks |
10:40-11:40
| Bluffers guide to C# 3.0 and 10 cool things to do with C# 3.0 (Double Presentation) Ian Cooper and Oliver Sturm
| Visual Studio 2005 IDE Tips and Tricks (Presentation) Guy Smith-Ferrier
| Team Foundation Server - the answer to all project management problems? (Presentation) Richard Fennell
| Being lazy is an art form (or: Making your computer work for you) (Presentation) Zi Makki
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| | Oliver Sturm and Ian Cooper present a pair of sessions on the new language elements in Orcas. You can attend these as a pair, or just the one you like:
Bluffers guide to C# 3.0
Damn if C# 3.0 doesn't go and introduce a whole new set of keywords into the language that you will have to learn. Fear not! If you want to impress your colleagues with your mastery of new terms like lambda and LINQ expressions, type inference, unspeakable names and extension methods, then come along to Ian and Oliver's session. They will endeavour to make you masters of the new language in only an hour and allow you to speak C# 3.0 with confidence. If you want to see cool techniques you can impress your colleagues with in '10 cool things to do with C# 3.0 ', this session will give you the introduction to C# 3.0 you need.
10 cool things to do with C# 3.0
Want to impress your friends with your programming skills? Get all the girls (guys?) for yourself? Be better than all those 1337 j4V4 h4X0r5 you meet at work? Be the guy with the biggest sch^H^H^H... ah, that was a different talk. Sign up for this session NOW to make it happen! Ian and Oliver will show you how to win fame and adulation among your fellow programmers with the new features they discussed in their previous session the Bluffers guide to C# 3.0.
| Visual Studio is a treasure trove of functionality and productivity. The problem is that many developers don’t know what’s there. In this session we will cover some simple and not so simple tips and tricks and improve your productivity and enjoyment of Visual Studio 2005. | Sick of SourceSafe? Is Microsoft's Team Foundation Server the answer to all your problems?
In this session I will cover the key components and usage of TFS, installation issues, the range of third party tools available and how to write your own tools using the API.
The session will include demos of cool addins and tips drawn from bitter experience. | Do you crave being lazy? Having others do the work for you? Well, your computer at least... if you have just barely avoided damaging your neck muscles with your enthusiastic nodding, you should definitely come to this session. Ah well, we'll take less fanatic nodders as well. Come to think of it, just come along and we'll see what we can do.
Seriously: this session will show you how to take the pain out of everyday repetitive mind-numbingly boring tasks, or just to automate things for your geeky programming pleasure, by creating Visual Studio extensions using the DXCore extensibility layer. Zi will show you live how he's trying to become one of those admirable lazy people who never do anything themselves.
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| 11:40-12:00 | Refreshment break - Tea & Coffee with cookies |
12:00-13:00
| Bluffers guide to C# 3.0 and 10 cool things to do with C# 3.0 (Double Presentation) Ian Cooper and Oliver Sturm
| Making Phones Ring in One Line Of Code (Presentation) Tim Stevens
| An Appraisal of "Object Thinking" (Presentation) Alan Dean
| Ten Important Tips for Securing Your Web Application (Presentation) Chris Seary
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| | Oliver Sturm and Ian Cooper present a pair of sessions on the new language elements in Orcas. You can attend these as a pair, or just the one you like:
Bluffers guide to C# 3.0
Damn if C# 3.0 doesn't go and introduce a whole new set of keywords into the language that you will have to learn. Fear not! If you want to impress your colleagues with your mastery of new terms like lambda and LINQ expressions, type inference, unspeakable names and extension methods, then come along to Ian and Oliver's session. They will endeavour to make you masters of the new language in only an hour and allow you to speak C# 3.0 with confidence. If you want to see cool techniques you can impress your colleagues with in '10 cool things to do with C# 3.0 ', this session will give you the introduction to C# 3.0 you need.
10 cool things to do with C# 3.0
Want to impress your friends with your programming skills? Get all the girls (guys?) for yourself? Be better than all those 1337 j4V4 h4X0r5 you meet at work? Be the guy with the biggest sch^H^H^H... ah, that was a different talk. Sign up for this session NOW to make it happen! Ian and Oliver will show you how to win fame and adulation among your fellow programmers with the new features they discussed in their previous session the Bluffers guide to C# 3.0.
| Towards the end of last year BT quietly opened it's network to developers. As well as providing secure Web Service access, it has taken an extra step by wrapping those services in their Web21C SDKs for .Net, Java, Python and PHP.
You will see exactly how you can make phones ring, or send text messages with one line of code, and you'll learn about some of the patterns and techniques BT has used to expose their global infrastructure in a secure, scalable, and yet simple way. | Have we got object-orientation all wrong? "Object Thinking" (ISBN 0-7356-1965-4) by David West asserts that we have. Alan Dean explores this assertion, and demonstrates self-describing objects / self-evaluating rules with code examples.
More details...
| These ten secutiy tips are hard won knowledge, but so simple to explain. Let Chris's mistakes save you time and embarrassment! Some of the tips include:
How does PKI work?
Why can't the database authenticate me when IIS was happy with my credentials?
What's the absolute best advice for implementing crytpography (or even spelling it!)?
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| 13:00-14:30 | Lunch - LUNCH & GROK TALKS | LUNCH & GROK TALKS | LUNCH & GROK TALKS | LUNCH & GROK TALKS | LUNCH & GROK TALKS |
14:30-15:30
| Do Design Patterns Make Sense in ASP.NET? (Presentation) Alex Homer
| Agile Methods for ISVs (Presentation) Gary Short
| .NET 3 - The Game Challenge (Presentation) Oliver Sturm
| An Introduction to Card Space (Presentation) Barry Dorrans
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| | Developers and architects are making more and more use of standard design patterns as they build ever more complex applications. However, many patterns are hard to implement, or difficult to justify, in the stateless postback environment of ASP.NET. Yet, ASP.NET itself implements many widely-used patterns, and some of the other common patterns can help to modularize and simplify development of ASP.NET applications. This session looks at how ASP.NET uses design patterns, and how you can implement some of the patterns such as Model-View-Presenter, Page and Front Controller, Publish/Subscribe, Repository, and Service Agent in your ASP.NET applications. | We've all heard of agile methods but when they are spoken of it is mostly in the context of the enterprise. Being an ISV and being agile is a different kettle of fish.
In this talk I'll explain the differences between life as an ISV and life in the enterprise and then I'll show you how to adapt agile methods for use in the ISV world. | Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) are two important pillars of Microsoft's next generation development platform. Newly christened as .NET 3, these technologies are available today, but they will get much more important as Visual Studio Orcas comes closer. This session provides an overview of both technologies by demonstrating their combined use in a network enabled Connect Four game.
| Windows CardSpace is a framework developed by Microsoft which securely stores digital identities of a person, and provides a unified interface for choosing the identity for a particular transaction, such as logging in to a website.
This talk will cover how CardSpace works, how it can be used within your own ASP.NET applications and how you can implement your own trusted cards and the security token service behind them. |
| 15:30-15:40 | Changeover - Water & snacks |
15:40-16:40
| Next Generation Data Access with LINQ (Presentation) Ian Cooper
| Multithreading patterns (Presentation) Cristian Nicola
| CSS 101 – Moving away from table based layout (Presentation) Dave Sussman
| Windows Workflow Foundation for Your Automated Build (Presentation) Abid Quereshi
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| | It seems that MS like to change how we access our data on a regular basis. This presentation will look at the forthecoming changes in LINQ for SQL and LINQ to entities and how the new data access approach build on but are radically different from the old world of SqlCommand. We will also look at how you should be using these new technologies and how they fit with practices like domain driven design and test-driven development.
| As multi-core CPU computers are becoming standard, it is more important than ever to use parallel processing in applications. Multithreading is not an easy business, and this session is intended to look at the patterns used in multithreaded applications. We start by exploring the basic concepts and structures and some of the pitfalls of parallel execution. The rest of the session is going to focus on four kinds of patterns. The most important,
from an execution point of view are flow patterns, and then data patterns, resource allocation patterns and finally exception/error patterns. The entire session is from a conceptual point of view, without actually being tied to a particular programming language. | Table based layout has been a staple of the Web for many years; they are simple to understand and implement and provide a great way to provide the structure for a site. However tables were never intended to be used as a layout tool and while simple, their rigidity doesn't allow for easy design changes, as well as providing accessibility problems. This session will examine how to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for layout of a site, showing that even without being a CSS expert you can have flexible designs with headers, footers, multiple columns, and even different layouts simply by changing the style sheet. It will cover the basics of style sheet design as well as examining the issues of cross-browser compatibility. | Why not? Your build process is after all a sequential flow - from checkout to final notification. In this presentation we will show you how to enhance existing build technologies using Windows Workflow Foundation. We will show you how to leverage XAML to design your build
process declaratively and how to host the workflow designer in your build application to allow you to configure your build graphically. |
| 16:40-17:00 | Final wrap-up and close |
