Join us for an overview of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, the next generation of SQL Server. "Katmai" provides an enterprise data platform for your mission-critical applications, while providing a dynamic development environment and comprehensive business intelligence (BI) platform. We will discuss the key features available in the next version of SQL Server including exciting new additions like Change Data Capture, Table Valued Parameters, Declarative Management Framework, MERGE tsql statements, the new FILESTREAM attribute, Data compression (both for data and backups), Database Mirroring enhancements, Performance Studio, Spatial enhancements, Extended Event Tracing and handling, Entity Framework Model discussions, and much more.

During our careers as developers, we will work on code that is neither greenfield nor legacy. At some point you will start on projects that have been under development for some time, probably have sizable codebases, are working with newer technologies and may, or may not, have been released to testers and production. Starting on projects like this has its own set of technical and professional problems. What is the most efficient way to get up to speed with the code? How do you approach trying to move the project to implement industry best practice without causing too big of a stir?This workshop will look at things that you, as “Joe Developer”, can do to make your transition smoother. We will discuss how you can make incremental movement to improve the project’s ecosystem and practices. With a focus on implementing and working in existing codebases, the topics will include Continuous Integration, Automated Testing, OO Fundamentals, Design Patterns and more.

Those of us programming on the .NET framework have come to realize the power and increased productivity that comes with it. Like any development, however, there are things that one should pay attention to while programming on .NET. Are there things in .NET that, if we do not pay attention to, may result in more trouble than it is worth? This session presents Gotchas that a developer needs to know to be productive in the .NET framework. The issues addressed include framework, language, language interoperability, COM interoperability. Most Gotchas are language independent while a few are C# or VB.NET specific.

Come join the Infragistics experts for this work shop if you want to learn how to build top class user interfaces for your application quickly. This session will include a brief overview of Infragistics offerings and then we will deep dive into different products writing applications in Windows Forms, WPF, ASP.Net and SilverLight. For each platform we will demo component offerings for that platform that can help you fulfill all sorts of UI needs that you may have for your applications and then write an application to show you how. After this workshop, attendees will have a fair understanding of Infragistics and its toolsets offerings. You will also learn how you can build world-class user interfaces using Infragistics products.

Do you want to truly understand Silverlight? If so, do not miss this 3-hour workshop that will cover everything from Silverlight basics to advanced topics like cross-site XHR. During the first hour, we'll examine the history of Silverlight, study its importance as a technology, and look at the tools available for building Silverlight applications. In the second hour, we'll dive deeper and begin building simple Silverlight applications that show-off key features like .NET support and DOM manipulation. Finally, in the third hour, we'll look at more advanced Silverlight topics like building custom UI controls and managing security. You'll leave this workshop with a complete understanding of Silverlight and how you can use it to build real applications.

This is a hands-on workshop that will introduce you to the basics of Adobe Flex. We'll write code illustrating how you can quickly perform a face lift of your existing Java Web applications. You'll see how you can easily connect Flex UI with your JSP or Java Servlet via HTTP protocol and how to create better performing applications that utilize fast binary protocols that automatically serialize your Java DTO into ActionScript and back. You'll also get introduced to Eclipse plugins that will increase your productivity while working on Flex/Java projects. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptops. Software installation instructions will be provided prior to the workshop.

Even the most sophisticated and robust systems can fail if users can't -- or won't -- use them. Companies often see the time and money invested in development go to waste because the final result doesn't accurately reflect the needs and expectations of the people who have to use the system. Avoiding this kind of disaster requires grounding your development process in an understanding of user behavior. In this master class, Jesse James Garrett looks at tools and techniques for analyzing, understanding, and solving user experience problems.

Collaboration, feedback, and shared understanding are some of the core values of agile practices. In addition, many agile projects need executable specifications created with your customers’ participation. Unfortunately, many agile teams struggle with building automated acceptance tests to implement executable specifications. Naresh Jain explains this practice and provides a demonstration of how to perform Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD) on real projects using FitNesse and the FitLibrary. Naresh shares his recipe for getting customers involved on agile projects that use automated acceptance tests. Learn how to start this practice in your team and how managers can track the team's progress using these acceptance tests. To participate in the exercises during the tutorial, bring your laptop loaded with your favorite IDE and FitNesse [Java or .NET] available at www.fitnesse.org. Have your battery fully charged and be ready to go.

Domain Specific Languages are targeted towards a specific problem area or domain. They have the advantage of fluency and context. Their scope is narrow, and they're highly expressive. They are quite common and chances are you've used at least a few of them without realizing. In this presentation you'll learn what makes a DSL, how it is different from other languages, and how to create them, including the design issues, tool support, and the approach. At the end of this presentation, you'll be all set to create your own DSLs and to take advantage of those already present in your projects.

The release of the EJB 3.0 and Java Persistence API (JPA) specifications have brought industry standards towards the current state-of-the-art in Java development. They define significantly simplified models for business components and Java persistence, particularly when mapping entities to object-relational data models. This talk will introduce the concepts and principles of EJB 3.0 components, both from the developer and user perspectives. The use of annotations and XML metadata will be described and the notions of interception and dependency injection will be explained. The integration of EJB with the Java Persistence API will also be discussed, with an overview of the JPA programming model. JPA topics will include an overview of entity operations, entity managers, metadata and queries.

Starting from scratch, this session will walk you through the process of building a simple application using nothing but Open Source Java development tools and frameworks. You will get to create a real web-application based on the latest and greatest frameworks like Wicket, Spring and Hibernate. Just bring your laptop and all the software - including development tools - will be provided as a simple ready-to-use package. This session will be useful for even those totally new to Wicket, Spring and Hibernate. Knowledge of Java fundamentals, and Servlet basics are recommended. And knowing your way around either Eclipse or NetBeans would help. At the end of the session participants would have gained the knowledge as to what these frameworks are all about, how to get started, basics about how to use them to create a simple application and as a bonus - knowledge about some key development tools and techniques such as test-driven development using JUnit as well.