TechDays 2011: Developer Tools, Languages, Frameworks & awesomeness
I can’t believe that TechDays is already there. In 3 weeks, we will be in Toronto (October 25-26) to start the tour. After Toronto, we will go in Vancouver (November 15-16) and Montreal (November 29-30) to give you a full two days of awesoness around the technology you love.
This week, you’ll see one blog post per day around an area of TechDays. If you missed it, go read (after this one, for sure) about the announcement of the keynotes (Montreal is still a surprise at this time) and if you want to know more about mobile and Windows client, be sure to read Windows Client and Windows Phone Track Unleashed.
For me, TechDays is a really exciting moment, because it’s a great opportunity to learn around the technology you can use now. I promise you that you’ll have problem to choose where to go, because we have 8 amazing tracks at the same time:
- Cloud Computing and Online Services;
- Communication and Collaboration;
- Developer Tools, Frameworks and Languages;
- Development Practices and Architecture;
- Security, Identity and Management;
- SQL Server and Data Platform;
- Virtualization;
- Windows Client and Windows Phone.
Even if all the track worth the time to talk about, I’ll focus on the one I lead this year: Developer Tools, Frameworks and Languages. As a developer, what I wanted to see in this track was everything that will help me create better application with the right language or framework and any great tools that will help me do this faster with less bugs than ever.
Here is a sneak peek of the sessions you’ll be able to see in this track:
DEV201 - WebMatrix: See What the Matrix Can Do For You!!
WebMatrix is a free offering that provides everything you need to build Web sites using Windows. It streamlines Web site development and makes it easy to start Web sites from popular ASP.NET and PHP open-source apps. It includes IIS Express (a development Web server), ASP.NET Web Pages (a scripting friendly Web framework), and SQL Server Compact (an embedded database). Come to the session to learn about this awesome new tool.
DEV271 - LightSwich is Hot! Really Hot!!
Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 makes it really easy to create line-of-business (LOB) applications to the point you almost don't even need to write code. In this session Ahmed will create an application to manage a video store inventory and show you the steps to take the application from development to deployment.
DEV272 - Getting Started with Kinect
In this session you'll see how to get started with the Kinect SDK for desktop applications and games. You will see real life examples for implementing Kinect technology for desktop application to help improve the natural user interface and user experience. This session will be loaded with demos of Kinect for Desktop and XNA games to help you get started with incorporating Kinect within your applications.
DEV274 - Develop Websites with Orchard CMS
Orchard is a free, open source, community-focused project aimed at delivering applications and reusable components on the ASP.NET platform. The current version of Orchard, Orchard 1.2, has been written using ASP.NET MVC 3 and the Razor view engine. Much like other CMS solutions, modules can be used to extend the functionality of the system. Orchard is the 3rd most downloaded project on ASP.Net MVC 3 based projects on CodePlex. In this session we'll discuss why the East of Toronto .NET User Group selected Orchard to develop the new East of Toronto .NET User Group website. Demos in this session will take you through how to build the user group website from the ground-up using Orchard's admin panel and flexible module and theme system.
DEV302 - Application Development with HTML5
HTML5 is perhaps the biggest and most powerful HTML specification to ever come out of the W3C. Its roots come from a proposal to extend HTML4 to make it easier for web developers to create web applications. With more and more browsers supporting HTML5, ECMAScript 5 and other web standards, developers now have a strong web platform they can use to create a new class of application that is more powerful and interactive than ever before. What's in HTML5 that lets us take our applications to the next level?
DEV303 - A Lap around Microsoft Silverlight 5
Come see what's new and exciting with the Silverlight 5 beta. Learn about features for business application development, visualization and casual gaming. In this demo- and code-focused developer session, we hit the major new features in Silverlight 5, and get you well on your way to being productive with the latest release of Silverlight.
DEV373 - Testing with Microsoft Visual Studio Test Professional and the new Team Lab 2010
In this action-packed session on everything testing with Visual Studio, Test Professional and Team Lab 2010 Microsoft MVP Etienne Tremblay will take you through the finer points of application testing. He will cover Test Impact Analysis, Intellitrace, Microsoft Test Professional 2010, Microsoft Test Runner 2010, UI testing and how to deploy to the new Team Lab with each build. Attend this session to learn about the benefits of using Visual Studio 2010 testing tools to help you create better applications.
It’s a lot of great content, and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I’m exciting to see them delivered in TechDays. Oh, and by the way, don’t forget the Early Birds price for your city. It's a great way to save money and learn a lot for cheap:
Toronto = Tuesday October 11th, 2011 at Midnight EST
Vancouver = Tuesday October 25th, 2011 at Midnight PST
Montreal = Tuesday November 8th, 2011 at Midnight EST
After this, what can I say more? Register now and see you at TechDays in your city, and don’t forget to come say hi! One last thing, check the video I did about the track: