From 11 February 13, stood at the Congress Palace of Paris, the Microsoft TechDays 2008.
This is the second edition of the event (for the record that of 2007: http://jl2tho.blogspot.com/2007/02/microsoft-techdays-2007-part-1.html ) and seems to be Microsoft's most important event in the world even if it is only for the French market.
format
He has not changed, I take much of my comments last year: This is a lecture series on three days, each day started with a plenary conference. The
sessions
conferences or sessions each lasting one hour. Many are held in parallel printer: there were twenty rooms plus three amphibian (the number of sessions, a marked increase over last year).
It is absolutely not possible to attend all lectures. But these are recorded and should be available by webcast on the Microsoft site.
When registering online (free), it was possible to register for different sessions. Note that these entries do Donnet no guarantee of a place. Spaces are provided on a first come. Unlike last year, room allocation should be more in tune with the near-inclusion and suddenly, it was rare to find themselves back at the entrance to a meeting. On the other hand, if too strong attendance, some sessions were replayed on Day 3.
Each conference lasts one hour. The technical level of players is very high. The speech is not polluted by marketting: that art brute. Anyway, the audience is very technical and do not miss the slightest deviation marketting.
An hour is short to make a technical presentation of a product: Every presentation is access on a technical aspect of a product. Do not expect training on this aspect of the product: however it is quite possible to know what the product is capable of, and limits and the work required to use it.
To me this opportunity to understand both the adaptation of a product is needed and necessary efforts to implement them techdays make an event extremely interesting. Given the success
persistent sessions (including even on the third day), I infer that this opinion was shared by many.
Stands
There was a large booth space (on two levels). The stands were more partners this year. I had nothing to do with individual. I have not tested the relevance of demonstrations and quality of technical contacts.
There was also an area that can handle different products. I have not tested this space.
Crowded
is undoubtedly an undeniable success for Microsoft: a world full of sessions and impressive. The second day, Microsoft announced that 5400 participants at the initial meeting pélinière (compared to 4500 from the previous year). In fact the lecture hall was full 3 days.
Microsoft claims 16,000 registered for Techdays.
The organization is clearly improving and taking advantage of Microsoft's experience last year was better calibrated rooms and sessions. So we had this impression of less clutter and too busy as last year. Topics
Topics covered are numerous: it ranges from R & D to production, through the methodology. We will develop products to the revenue.
The variety is great and does a session one aspect of the product. A product is usually covered by a series of several sessions.
products in vogue this year
- linq: the solution mapping object / relational Microsoft. This is equivalent to Hibernate or JPA in the Java world.
- Silverlight: Microsoft's Flash competitor
- The new suite Server: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server and IIS 7 which 20,008 were unveiled in a preview
These three products caught my attention because they almost always appear in each session. Of course, we talk about Visual Studio, SharePoint, Biztalk ... but these first three products seem to be ubiquitous.
R & D Microsoft
I have attended two presentations on this subject:
- MultiTouch interfaces
- The new OS Singularity
interfaces
Multitouch Surface After last year, it seems less surprising, especially as iPhone also been there.
points highlighted are: since the invention of the mouse 40 years ago has changed little equipment: a screen, keyboard and mouse. It is therefore natural that the GUI is little changed.
Today and Tomorrow with LCD screens OLED screen becomes more portable and easier to use (if screens flexible that already appear).
The screen goes mobile: it is more difficult to associate input mechanism as a keyboard and mouse.
Furthermore, the screen with greater flexibility and a larger number may be used (in the case of interfaces Surface). Again, the mechanisms of entry must be shared.
In short, Microsoft is considering new entry mechanisms can be used in mobile contexts and sharing. The solution of choice for Microsoft Labs is the hand holding a camera or an IR stereo camera.
solutions touch (like the iPhone) do not seem interested in the labs of Microsoft Research.
Singularity OS fundamentals have not changed in fifty years:
- Resources are scarce either power or memory
- The environment is benevolent: the network is closed and users Experts are
Today, machines are massively multi-core, memory is plentiful, but the environment is not benevolent and users not always experts.
Research abandons the Singularity old fundamental to try to build a new OS that is robust against intrusions.
axes techniques used are:
- the use of safe languages as an even more managed C #.
- programs must be sealed during installation: it is no longer possible to load the dll for example. It also helps to reduce program size because it is possible using an algorithm of "Shake tree" to remove unneeded modules including in the runtime.
- a bus inter-process communication is available for the exchange and communication: there is more sharing of memory but the message exchange.
- All processes must turn in the ring 0 of the processor. It no longer relies on hardware barriers to ensure safety.
Symposium DNG
DotNetGuru assured several conferences. I have attended two presentations:
- Domain Driven Design
- VOLTA by its founder
Domain Driven Design
The announcer said a small book free online: http://www.infoq.com/minibooks / domain-driven-design-Quickly for those who want to become familiar with the concept.
A summary of the session is available on the site DotNetGuru : http://www.insideit.fr/post/2008/02/11/DNG-Symposium-2008-Domain-Driven-Design-par-Sami-Jaber
My understanding of the subject: multi-tier approaches away from the design object: the object is actually stripped of his methods that are carried by the service. DDD seems to be a response to this finding.
The interesting point, in my opinion, the approach is its concept of DDD Aggregate: a functional point of view, objects are effectively combined, there actually is often a master object.
I subscribe also in agreement with DDD when it considers the layers of traditional DAO little use: whether Microsoft or Linq JPA and Hibernate in Java, these solutions relational mapping and object are powerful enough to liberate themselves from the DAO layer.
I also find it interesting to make visible the business objects and not to make them disappear behind the service layer. However, this does not solve two other problems:
- A lack of consistency in development: some methods will be worn by the subject, others (those who handle multiple objects in particular) will be carried by a Factory class.
- Some operations do not need and should not publish all properties a business object: the service approach solves this problem simply, DDD not the only solution proposed by the speaker leads to a proliferation of business objects.
Still, if the DDD does not respond to any issues, it provides interesting answers.
VOLTA
It is an approach using annotations in VB to change the behavior of development (like the annotations in EJB 3.0). The main objective is to support some aspects of the problem Asynchronous:
- response is not immediate
- order responses is not guaranteed: a response of an issue next oldest little crush a response later.
VOLTA provides a partial answer with the use of TimeStamp.
Personally, I do not quite understand the enthusiasm of DNG respect to this presentation.
SOA by MicroSoft MicroSoft
highlights three workflow solutions and SOA
- Windows Commmunication Fundation: This is a set of APIs for building almost everything. But it will also build the server and all infrastrcuture.
- SharePoint: Microsoft seems to distinguish SharePoint Server and MOSS. I do not always make the difference. For me it is a portal to provide document workflow. BizTalk
- : This is orchestrating several applications
Oddly, while BizTalk does not seem to have changed since last year, it appears in the presentations as more mature and coherent. But I am less interested in BizTalk and I am not down in the details. This may explain that? Microsoft
3 types of WorkFlow:
- the sequential state machines driven
- Rules (less important to Microsoft)
Microsoft distinguishes WorkFlow more human and adhoc (SharePoint) Workflow of more mechanical and procedural (BizTalk).
MicroSoft seemed much further back on the SOA as the previous year. It discusses approaches to trade AdHoc call REST services and left side of type approaches Organization business and SOAP.
S + S and Internet 4
Several sessions were titled S + S Software and Service. This is the workhorse of MicroSoft: mixing traditional Windows applications (software) applications available through the Web (Services).
personally I have no worries about using software that installs on my desktop as Word or Windows Live Writer that I use to write this post. But I feel that this concept S + S is a pure object marketing. The examples were often refers to both a Windows application. Net and traditional Web application, but I've never really seen what compelled me to make a Windows application: My impression is that if the development tools MicroSoft are good, I should not have reason to develop traditional Windows. Unfortunately, it seems that there remains a significant productivity gap between development and Windows development Web.
In theory, SilverLight should further reduce this gap which makes it even more surprising message S + S.
The session focused on the fact that the Web prefer a lightweight protocol for RSS and REST service protocols as the most comprehensive web services and SOAP. The need and rationale for the users so push to publish its business data format REST making access easy for everyone.
In practice, companies do not want to change and such access as easy and favor a stronger contracting. But it is certainly responsible for missed opportunities. The announcer offers interesting architecture for storing in a buffer such requests until a human validation.
In practice it is as if the service charge was triggering a stub sends a message to a validation process human. The human validation aimed to initiate the service call.
SQL Server 2008 and IIS 7
Being far from the administration I have only attended two sessions on these two products, however, very honored.
Items that have me arrested for SQL Server 2008:
- the concept of location-based coordinates in SQL Server: there appears a field capable of storing information on a point or even a zone. Through the presentation we had the impression that SQL Server 2008 is able to search fairly sophisticated as intersections or adjacent areas ...
- Full Text Search is improved: the system is returned in SQL Server (previously it was shared with IIS). This allows efficient use of complex queries. Clearly, in previous versions using a Full Text search resulted in a complete scan of the table. In 2008 version, if the rest of the application reduces the number Record the scan is limited to that subset. There are other improvements on the Full Text search in the administration as an opportunity to better understand how an expression is parsed.
- the Input Stream: it's acting in a solution which allows for streaming on a binary file. This file is stored in a directory on the file system, but his administration is handled automatically by the server. A request to retrieve a database handle is a GUID generated automatically. This solution of particular interest to video enthusiasts.
For IIS 7 and Microsoft Server 2008 innovations resident especially in the administration area. Not the game, I was surprised to learn that all these things were not possible before. In short, the administration web server pool becomes extremely easy to 2008/IIS 7.
other hand, the server and IIS 7 became very modular: there is even a version of MicroSoft Core Server 2008 without a GUI. MicroSoft compares this approach with that of Apache and highlights the possibility of limited what they call the attack surface: the number of activated modules may have a flaw. Conclusion
The TechDays 2008 were at the height my expectations. I feel that Microsoft has leveraged its organization of the 2007 edition to make this session more enjoyable.
The information it can get very technical and cover both Microsoft technologies but also other areas.
confess find very interesting sessions made by teams of R & D Microsoft.
