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Pre-Conference Workshops, March 8th, 2010

• How to increase testability with a modular architecture By Mario Cardinal

  This workshop has been designed to give you a head start in modular architecture practice with abstractions such as the “layer”. You will acquire fundamental knowledge about how to partitions into layers the concerns of the application. We will teach you the best practices regarding application architecture and modularity. We will demonstrate how to apply “top-down” as well as “test-driven” design techniques. You will learn how to correctly design the “velcro”, the visible interface of a module. In the same way, you will learn how to conceive a “fake” implementation, an efficient practice to test a module in an autonomous way. Using a real case study, students will learn how to implement a layered architecture using C# language and Microsoft .NET framework. At the end of this workshop you will understand why architects require a unit of modularity that goes beyond object.

• Indexing for Performance with Kimberly L. Tripp and Paul Randal

  Primary presenter: Kimberly L. Tripp, Co-presenter: Paul S. Randal, Pre-conference workshop
  Indexing is by far the most important aspect to database performance and health. But, do you have the right indexes? Do you have too few, or too many? And, are the indexes the RIGHT indexes? In this workshop we'll cover what makes an index useful and how to create the RIGHT indexes for a variety of different problem scenarios. Primary topics covered: index internals, indexing strategies and lots of insight into whether or not your strategies are working! If you want better performance, better cache utilization, easier maintenance - you need the RIGHT indexes. To create a more effective indexing strategy, this is the place to be—even if you cannot change your schema!

• Silverlight 4.0 with Bruce Johnson and Barry Gervin

  Building Rich Internet Applications that combine data and media to deliver a great user experience is what Silverlight is all about. And while individual sessions can show you the features, what you can't get in an hour is the full, end-to-end development workflow. In this full-day pre-con, we'll walkthrough the building of a "Personal Conference Organizer" application that helps us discover, select and navigate our way around the available sessions in this conference. Along the way, we'll pay special attention to the features introduced in Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4.

Includes three days of training , Keynote, continental breakfasts, lunches, evening activities as well as the selected Pre-Con on Monday March 8th, 2010.

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How to increase testability with a modular architecture

Mario Cardinal, .Net Expertise      Mario Cardinal is an independent senior consultant specializing in software architecture. He has almost 20 years of experience in designing large-scale information systems. He speaks regularly at international conferences, including TechEd, Agile2008, DevTeach, and others. He leads the architecture user group for the Montreal .Net Community and is the architecture track tech chair for the DevTeach Conference. Since 2004, he has hosted the Visual Studio Talk Show, a podcast about software development. For the fourth year in a row, he has received from Microsoft the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. Mario holds Bachelor of Computer Engineering and Master of Technology Management degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Canada. He also holds the titles of Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (Team Foundation Server), and Microsoft Certified Solution Developer.

Monday March 8th, 2010, 9:00 - 17:00
Location: T/A
Room: T/A
Cost: 399.00$ CDN

This workshop has been designed to give you a head start in modular architecture practice with abstractions such as the “layer”. You will acquire fundamental knowledge about how to partitions into layers the concerns of the application. We will teach you the best practices regarding application architecture and modularity. We will demonstrate how to apply “top-down” as well as “test-driven” design techniques. You will learn how to correctly design the “velcro”, the visible interface of a module. In the same way, you will learn how to conceive a “fake” implementation, an efficient practice to test a module in an autonomous way. Using a real case study, students will learn how to implement a layered architecture using C# language and Microsoft .NET framework. At the end of this workshop you will understand why architects require a unit of modularity that goes beyond object.

Make it a priority to not let you or your organization get left behind.

Audience:

Software Architects, lead developers and anyone aspiring to be an architect

Prerequisite:

• Solid understanding of object-oriented programming with C# (Student should know what an interface is, what an abstract method is, what inheritance is).
• A minimal comprehension of Test-Driven Development (Student must understand the following paper: )

Course Outline:
This workshop explains how to partitions into layers the concerns of the application using recognized practices to reduce coupling and to increase testability. Using a real case study, students will learn how to implement a layered architecture using C# and Microsoft .NET framework. We will teach you the best practices regarding application architecture and modularity:

• Modularity: You will learn about the four attributes of a module and how it applies to layers.
• Visible Interface: The greatest leverage in architecting is at the interfaces. Partitioning the concerns of the application requires layers with a unique role and a contract well defined. To express not only the specifications but the dynamic behavior of the contract, we will teach you how to design the “velcro”, the visible interface of a module.
• Hidden implementation: You will learn how to efficiently implement the body of the layer, the hidden part which is not visible in other layers. We will teach you how to use “Dependency Injection” and “Service Locator” as a mediator to reduce coupling with sub-layers.
• Autonomous Testability: Testability at the layer level without having to assemble the whole system is the most important attribute of a module. Using “test-driven” design techniques to express dynamic behavior of a layer, you will learn how “velcro” and “fake” implementation enable to efficiently test a module in an autonomous way (in a test bed).
• Dependency Modeling: Using the upcoming Architecture Edition of Visual Studio Team System 2010, you will learn how to build models to express dependencies between layers. Using the very new “Layer” diagram, you will learn how to codify the dependencies and how to integrate them into daily build so that these constraints perpetuate across versions as an “executable” architecture specification.

Register for this one day Pre-conference on March 8th, 2010
Includes the Pre-conferences presented on Monday March 8th, 2010.

Note: Registration for the main conference is not required to attend the sessions. You can register for the pre-conference and post-conference workshop individually from the registration page.

Indexing for Performance

Monday March 8th, 2010, 09:00 - 17:00
Location:
Room:
Cost: 399.00$ CDN

Kimberly L. Tripp, SQLskill.com    "Paul and Kimberly are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor. Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly. They have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft. In their spare time they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world. "

Paul Randal, SQLskills.com    "Paul and Kimberly are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor. Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly. They have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft. In their spare time they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world. "

Indexing for Performance with Kimberly L. Tripp and Paul Randal

Primary presenter: Kimberly L. Tripp, Co-presenter: Paul S. Randal, Pre-conference workshop
Indexing is by far the most important aspect to database performance and health. But, do you have the right indexes? Do you have too few, or too many? And, are the indexes the RIGHT indexes? In this workshop we'll cover what makes an index useful and how to create the RIGHT indexes for a variety of different problem scenarios. Primary topics covered: index internals, indexing strategies and lots of insight into whether or not your strategies are working! If you want better performance, better cache utilization, easier maintenance - you need the RIGHT indexes. To create a more effective indexing strategy, this is the place to be—even if you cannot change your schema!

Register for this one day Pre-conference on March 8th, 2010
Includes the Pre-conferences presented on Monday March 8th, 2010.

Friday March 12th, 2010, 09:00 - 17:00
Location: T/A
Room: T/A
Cost: 399.00$ CDN

Building Rich Internet Applications that combine data and media to deliver a great user experience is what Silverlight is all about. And while individual sessions can show you the features, what you can't get in an hour is the full, end-to-end development workflow. In this full-day pre-con, we'll walkthrough the building of a "Personal Conference Organizer" application that helps us discover, select and navigate our way around the available sessions in this conference. Along the way, we'll pay special attention to the features introduced in Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4.

We’ll begin by experimenting with multiple designs by using Expression Blend and SketchFlow to create prototypes using sample data. Then, we'll transition from our prototype into working code and will structure our shell to support extensibility and a composable layout of independently developed components. An important element of keeping designers and developers working collaboratively together is to ensure our projects are "Blendable", both editable in Visual Studio and Expression Blend. We'll explore the patterns and features such as Model-View-View-Model (MVVM) and Behaviours to support this workflow.

Next comes the all important data. We'll discover how WCF RIA Services allows us to quickly build line of business applications, integrating data retrieval and validation into a single logical flow. We'll also learn how Silverlight supports advanced data binding scenarios. And integral to the data experience, we'll learn how to customize layout and controls with Control Templates and Data Templates.

As anybody knows, WIFI hardly ever works correctly at technical conferences. With this in mind, we'll examine the offline and out of browser support introduced in Silverlight 3. We'll also learn how to access local files and isolated storage. Finally, to allow ourselves to print our personal schedule, we'll examine how printing is now enabled in Silverlight 4.

Register for one day workshop on March 12th, 2010 with Barry Gervin
Includes the post-conferences Security on Friday March 12th, 2010.

Barry Gervin, Objectsharp Consulting       Barry Gervin is a Principal Consultant with ObjectSharp Consulting. Barry, a technical leader with over 15 years experience, has helped many development teams architect and build large-scale mission critical applications. Barry is skilled in the Architecture and Development of Distributed Applications and Databases. Some of his notable recent work is aimed at establishing best practices for .NET development. He has been deeply involved with Microsoft's .NET platform and is a convert from the PowerBuilder development community. In addition to consulting, Barry has been a Software Development Instructor for over 10 years and currently holds a MS Certified Trainer designation in addition to .NET MS Certified Solution Developer and MS Solution Framework Practitioner designations.

Bruce Johnson, ObjectSharp Consulting    Bruce Johnson is a Principal Consultant with ObjectSharp and a 25-year veteran of the computer industry. He spent half of that time working in the MultiValue database and UNIX marketplace, but the past 14 years have been spent on projects at the leading edge of Windows technology, including using .NET since the introduction of version 1.0. His experience includes the creation of commercial web applications using AJAX, the implementation of Web Services in a financial institution and the building of various Windows-based applications for software vendors. As well as his experience in system design and development, he has also given over 200 presentations at user conferences all over North America and is the co-author of three Microsoft Press Pro Certification Training Kit books (Windows Forms, Web Development and Distributed Applications)

Note: Registration for the main conference is not required to attend the sessions. You can register for the pre-conference and post-conference workshop individually from the registration page.