The Strong Coders Community will be hosting its Ask An Expert Live chat on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 6:00 PM Pacific Time and I've been invited to sit in on the expert panel.

 

Get your tough development questions answered by Microsoft MVPs, Regional Directors, and other industry experts. Community experts will be on hand to answer your .NET- and Visual Studio-related questions. No off topic questions please.

 

Please note that questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs might not be answered.

 

 

MSDN Online Chats - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx
Chat Room - http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/chatrooms/msdn.aspx
ICS - http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/vcs/08_0501_msdn_DEV.ics

 

I just thought this was cute, geeky humor.

Image taken from here:

 

Since its inception in 2005, TECHbash has evolved into the premier technology conference in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Join an estimated 300 Developers, IT Professionals, CIO’s and Industry Experts from Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and host-state, Pennsylvania. This one day event brings together a broad spectrum of Technology Professionals to network, knowledge share and discuss existing technology solutions to business challenges, as well as preview prerelease products on the bleeding edge.
This year, we expanded to three tracks offering more presentations and providing you with more content choices representing a greater breadth of Industry insight. We will open the event with a keynote presentation from the unstoppable juggernaut, Joe Stagner, Program Manager for Microsoft’s Web Tools and Platform Division.Attendees will have the opportunity to:

• Enhance technical knowledge with comprehensive and relevant educational content
• Build experience on current and soon-to-be released technologies and products
• Engage with sponsors, presenters, and other technology professionals
• Learn how to get involved with .NET Valley, Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Technology User Group
• Leave with software and other swag

For more information and to register for the event, visit the TECHbash website at techbash.com
 

DDD Community Event.  May 3, 2008. More at Plip's.

 

.NET Valley Pre-Bash Party at Sidel's

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
5:30 PM - 8:30 PM

If you've never been to a Pub Night before, you don't know what your missing. It's time to roll up the sleeves and dig in to some great food from Sidel's. We'll have Bruschetta, Fried Mozzarella, Antipasta, Tortellini salad, Mini-beef Wellington’s, and Shrimp. It all begins at 5:30pm. We have limited seating available so if you're sure you'll be there, register today!

 

WOOT!

 

 

 

Philly.NET Meeting

Wednesday April 23

 

Brian Donahue, Vitreo Solutions The Evolution of TDD

 

Test Driven Development has been gaining prominence, and many developers recognize the value it provides. Still, TDD adoption can be a slow and painful process, and often results in early abandonment as challenges mount. Many believe the current body of TDD knowledge puts too much emphasis on testing implementation details, and not enough on testing behavior. Behavior Driven Development (BDD) takes a more focused approach to TDD that can help clarify the testing process, and create a meaningful, readable suite of tests that not only helps you and other developers understand your application, but can be used to show your client that the application is meeting their needs. When developers, customers, and managers can clearly see the value of writing tests, everyone wins.

 

ASP.NET AJAX in Action by Assesandro Gallo, David Barkol and Rama Vavilala

Paperback: 600 pages
Publisher: Manning Publications (August 24, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1933988142

This book gets 5 stars from me!

Review:

Whether you're a novice or you've already been writing ASP.NET Ajax apps for a while, you'll benefit from this book.  At times the flow of multi-author books can be choppy, but not this book.  ASP.NET Ajax in action reads like a novel de' geek the flow is so smooth.  So much so in fact, that I am convinced that Allesandro, David and Rama are really all the same person.   The topics in the book are placed in perfect order so anyone could follow them and the code examples in this book were clear, precise to the point and easy to follow, whether you were opening the downloadable solutions or just moving along step by step. 

The beginning of the book covers the basics of JavaScript and the AJAX library, how they fit together with the overall Ajax architecture as well as Ajax patterns such as partial page updates and asynchronous network calls.   This part of the book also discusses the ScriptManager component, its importance and how it interacts with the page, including the ever important page lifecycle - but not just the server lifecycle, the client page lifecycle is covered in depth. 

The latter half of the book digs deep into the UpdatePanel control, giving us extended insights, best practices and great coverage of this frequently abused and misused control.  The last part of the book covers advanced technical topics such as creating your own Ajax enabled controls, using the control toolkit, extenders, behaviors, animations and everything under the Ajax hood that you'll need as an ASP.NET Ajax developer.  If you read this book you'll enhance your skills and expand your tools by tenfold.  This latter section of the book also includes an intriguing segment on ASP.NET Ajax futures so we get a great look at the up and coming, soon to be hot new technologies like XML Script, Debugging and Drag & Drop Ajax style.  While some of these futures may change between the publish date and the next release from Microsoft, you'll still be ahead of the game and pointed in the right direction, as the authors made sure to keep this notion in mind.

If Gallo, Barkol or Vavilala write more books, you can be sure I'll buy them.

 

Thanks to everyone who came to the launch, especially those folks who stayed for the last session of the day when Lindsay and I presented. We were the last session in the afternoon and by then everyone is just darn tired after a full day of sessions and excitement!

Below I've compiled a list of some questions from attendees that I think were great questions worth sharing:

Question: What type of applications are best suited Sync Services

Answer: Here's some programs that would fit nicely - field service, CRM apps, anything for sales folks, trade show management & leads, or any desktop app where you do not or can not have constant connectivity. 

Question: Is it really that easy to share your project with designers, even a desktop app using xaml?

Answer: Why yes it is!  You saw the demo after all!

Question: Can you use Microsoft Access with Sync Services to create a local database cache?

Answer: No, you cannot.

Question: Is Sync Services available for file systems?

Answer: Yes (link below)

Question: Is it possible to add an amination to a xaml form in Visual Studio 2008 or must you use Expression Blend?

Answer: Yes, you can use VS2008 but I'll warn you - the storyboards are much easier w/Expression Blend, as you'd need to hand craft the XAML in VS08, there's no storyboard control. (see link below)

Resources:

Sync Services Whitepaper

Sync Services for File Systems

XAML for Storyboards

 

Yesterday I've received the MVP 2008 award for ASP.NET.  Woot!