With only a week left till Microsoft PDC 2008, I’ve started to focus on which sessions I’m going to attend.
At the moment my list of sessions looks like this:
Day 1:
Microsoft Visual C# IDE: Tips and Tricks
Learn tips and tricks that will make C# code editing faster and more fun using Microsoft Visual Studio.
Microsoft Visual Studio: Bringing out the Best in Multicore Systems
Learn how to prepare for the new challenges in developing and tuning concurrent applications. Hear about important steps in the creation of or conversion to parallel applications with demonstrations of the parallel performance analysis and optimization tools in the next release of Microsoft Visual Studio. See how to identify opportunities for parallelism and how to exploit those opportunities by choosing applicable coding patterns using existing or future programming models. Finally, watch a demonstration that shows how to optimize parallel code by focusing on common sources of inefficiency such as I/O and synchronization.
Agile Development with Microsoft Visual Studio
Visual Studio has built-in tool support for agile practices such as Scrum, XP, and others. The next version adds practices like test-driven development, continuous integration, and single product backlog. See how these can be applied at scale and across geographies.
Day 2:
Coding4Fun: Windows Presentation Foundation Animation, YouTube, iTunes, Twitter, and Nintendo’s Wiimote
Spend time with Coding4Fun authors as they walk through some DIY Development projects: TwitterVote, Wiimote, InnerTube, and BabySmash.
Developing Applications Using Data Services
In the near future, applications will be developed using a combination of custom application code and online building block services, including data-centric services. In this session we discuss advancements in the Microsoft development platform and online service interfaces to enable seamless interaction with data services both on-premises (e.g., ADO.NET Data Services Framework over on-premises SQL Server) and in the cloud (e.g., SQL Server Data Services). Learn how you can leverage existing know-how related to LINQ (Language Integrated Query), data access APIs, data-binding, and more when building applications using online data.
Research: BAM, AjaxScope, and Doloto
See Microsoft Research present new technologies for developing, debugging, and deploying web applications. Hear how BAM can turn a simple specification into a web-based cloud application with the click of a button. Learn how AjaxScope and Doloto automatically instrument and rewrite your web applications’ JavaScript code for end-to-end monitoring and optimization.
Day 3:
Parallel Programming for Managed Developers with the Next Version of Microsoft Visual Studio
Come learn how the next version of Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework can help you write better performing and more scalable applications. We take a tour of new .NET APIs, including the Task Parallel Library (TPL) and Parallel LINQ (PLINQ). We also introduce new features in the debugger that help you quickly identify concurrency issues and visualize the internal state of your application.
Improving Code Quality with Code Analysis
Learn how to catch critical bugs earlier in the development cycle by identifying issues such as buffer overruns and SQL injection attacks before they actually cause a security exploit. The Code Analysis features in Visual Studio help you tune application security, robustness, performance, and more. Learn about Code Analysis (for native and managed) and how to apply it effectively within your team’s development lifecycle. Also hear about new features in Visual Studio 2010, including the new Rule Sets feature that makes it easy to manage, configure, and maintain rules.
Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability
Performance must be considered in each step of the development lifecycle. See how to integrate performance in design, development, testing, tuning, and production. Work with tools and technologies like: static analysis, managed memory profiling, data population, load testing, and performance reports. Learn best practices to avoid the performance pitfalls of poor CPU utilization, memory allocation bugs, and improper data sizing.
The Future of C#
In this talk Microsoft Technical fellow and C# Chief Architect Anders Hejlsberg outlines the future of C#. He describes the many forces that influence and shape the future of programming languages and explain how they fit into C#.
Mono and .NET
See how Mono, the open source implementation of the .NET Framework, offers a platform for developers to leverage .NET in new and unconventional scenarios. Explore many of these innovations: the C# shell and the embeddable, C# runtime “eval”; how and why developers are choosing to embed Mono in applications and games on Windows and other platforms; static compilation with Mono enables .NET to be supported on more devices.
Day 4:
Microsoft .NET Framework: Declarative Programming Using XAML
If you’re using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), or Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), then XAML is your new best friend! Learn how an entire application-from presentation to data to services to workflow–can be authored using simple, declarative XAML notations introduced in the next version of the .NET Framework. Learn about XAML additions like: support for generics, object references, non-default constructors, and more.
Microsoft Visual Studio: Customizing and Extending the Development Environment
The next version of Visual Studio moves beyond add-ins and packages to unleash powerful new ways to customize and extend the environment. Learn about the Visual Studio extension model-built on a common Microsoft .NET extensibility framework–that makes it easy to customize Visual Studio in new ways. See how to create extensions for the new code editor and project system, and hear how to build your own graphical designers and specialized development environments.
Managed and Native Code Interoperability: Best Practices
Learn when, where, and how to use the various managed to native interoperability technologies. See upcoming features and tools and how they make interoperability even easier.
Live Services: Deep Dive on Microsoft Virtual Earth
Learn about the next major release of Virtual Earth. See the improvements to our parsing and geo-coding engines, clustering, localization, and routing. Hear how the new Virtual Earth Web Services provide server-side support for building location-based applications on desktops and mobile devices.
This list is still due to changes, I’ll notify you as soon as the come. As you can read from the above it looks like an intensive week. My experience tells me that I’ll be busted when I come back to the hotel in the evening. Besides all the sessions, Microsoft has arranged a number of social activities. The main social event of the weeks is the Universal Studio visit on Wednesday. The park will be open exclusively to PDC attendees.