Keynote
In the keynote, there was a ton of talk about Windows Azure, which wasn’t really very new from last year. Microsoft is going live with Azure starting at the beginning of this year, followed by the start of billing in February. Again, not really new stuff, but I think everything will eventually end up in the cloud. If Microsoft can continue to separate the implementation of this so I don’t have to think about which platform to target as a developer, it’s going to be a nice win.
Sessions
Future Directions of C# and Visual Basic
First, Luca is a great guy to listen to talk. I heard him once before talking about F# at a code camp and he is a fun guy to listen to. Good stuff here about languages. Really enjoyed the talk about dynamic stuff. I have to admit I have been a bit of a pessimist about the general use of var, and dynamic only took that further. This really helped me understand how the dynamic type works, was well as how the compiler treats the dynamic type. Good stuff also about how the DLR caches the use of run time binding. Also, Microsoft is toying with the notion of not only writing the compiler in their native languages, but opening up the compilers for use by you and me!
SQL Azure Database: Present and Future
One word to describe this: overwhelming. The SQL Azure team has done a great job of abstracting the implementation of this service. There is still some stuff left to be desired, but this is getting really nice. Lots of talking about low level implementations and how the SQL Azure encrypts and blocks out hacks. Kind of confusing and this pretty much fried my brain.
Sketchflow: Prototyping to the rescue
I am now a huge fan of SketchFlow. Great tool. If you are prototyping anything XAMLy, this is for you. Great new font that purposefully dumbs down the look of the application so users can focus on functionality, not why the button font isn’t Arial Bold with a Green to Blue radial gradient. Check out this session. Definitely my surprise favorite session of the day.
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