Thanks to Sorpex I had a great pleasure to visit this year TechEd held in Atlanta. I got a chance to attend many interesting talks and also meet the people from Microsoft that build the tools I have been using for years. In the focus of the conference were the Cloud, Windows Phone and Application Lifecycle Management.
Here are the most interesting sessions available online that I recommend:
· The Future of Microsoft Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management
Exciting introduction to new VS and TFS capabilities. I especially liked:
- Analyzing code for Code Clones / Find Matching Code feature – tries to discover code clones that are usually result of code Copy/Paste.
- Support for Code Review workflow through work items and code commenting like in Word.
· Deep Dive into Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Reporting
What reports are waiting for you in TFS and how you can add custom reports.
· Branching and Merging for Parallel Development
Excellent introduction to Branching strategies (by Release/Stability/Feature). Here are some of advices I found most useful:
- Avoid branching when possible. If it gets complicated, you will need full time release manager.
- Avoid cherry pick merge (partial merge).
- Always merge on branch that changes more (Merge down copy up pattern).
- Use branches to store releases instead of labels because labels can change and there is no version history support.
- Each branch is expensive because each has to have its own test environment and continues integration support.
· Test Automation with Microsoft VS 2010: Coded UI Tests and Lab Management
This testing tool looks very impressive. The time will show how it will fit real life needs.
· NuGet: Microsoft .NET Package Management for the Enterprise
Great simplification of libraries distribution on the internet and inside companies.
· Microsoft Visual Studio IDE Futures
New VS is faster, simpler and more user friendly (parallel builds, less memory usage, async GUI, pinned tabs, enhanced search and navigation…)
· Busy Microsoft .NET Developer’s Guide to the Microsoft Cloud
You are thinking about the cloud? Listen to this scary real life stories and think again.
· Introducing Microsoft SQL Server Developer Tools, Code-Named "Juneau"
Impressive capabilities added to SQL server tools that could greatly simplify developer lives when it comes to database maintenance (DB compare/sync, Local DB runtime, Find All References on DB objects and Refactoring tools).
· AppFabric Caching: How It Works and When You Should Use It
Great introduction to MS distributed cache.
· Efficient T-SQL Querying with Itzik Ben-Gan
· Creating and Consuming Open Data Protocol (OData) Services