August 12th: An Introduction to NHibernate
Description: The NHibernate mafia are unimpressed with Entity Framework, regarding it as a 'nice try' at an ORM at best. Want to find out why? In this session we will introduce you to NHibernate. We will show why you need never write a line of persistence code again, and how you will benefit from features like lazy loading and rich query language. We'll talk about using Castle's Active Record to make our life easier and maybe take a peek at Linq to NHibernate to see what the future could be too.
Bio: Ian Cooper is a passionate exponent of the benefits of OO and Agile. He is test-infected and contagious. When he is not writing C# code he is also the founder of the London .NET User Group
05/08/2008
Register
|
|
July 24th - Introduction to Domain Driven Design
Domain Driven Design (DDD) is an approach to OO software development that places the focus firmly on the business domain and logic and not technology. Within this presentation we will look at the key concepts of DDD, such as ubiquitous language, and the main patterns such as Aggregate and Repository that help us implement a domain focused design. We will look at implementations of these key ideas using .NET.
Ian Cooper has over 15 years of experience delivering Microsoft platform solutions in government, healthcare, and finance. During that time he has worked for the DTi, Reuters, Sungard, Misys and Beazley delivering everything from bespoke enterpise solutions to 'shrink-wrapped' products to thousands of customers. Ian is a passionate exponent of the benefits of OO and Agile. He is test-infected and contagious.
09/07/2008
Register
|
|
How to Write Crap Code in C# - Anti-Patterns for Performance
Most developers want the best possible performance from their code.
Inspired by the idea of "proof by contradiction" this talk looks at how
to write slow code and how the .NET platform, Windows and the processor
will try and sabotage your efforts. A variety of techniques for
inefficient coding will be covered including:
- Flow control with Exceptions
- Abusing Threads
- Misuse of the Heap
It's one man against some of the brightest minds in Redmond, seeking an
answer to the question "How Slow Can It Go?"
12/06/2008
Register
|
|
Put your webforms to REST - how to build rest-y architectures
with .net
With the raise of the web 2.0 meme, more and more web applications
claim to support REST architectures. We'll explore together what is
REST and what is not, and how we can write a testable web application that supports the REST concepts on the asp.net platform, with a code-intensive overview of current toolkits (asp.net MVC and others).
Speaker Bio:
Sebastien Lambla runs Caffeine IT, a .net consultancy, helping the
good people of London adopt new technologies, new processes, new
methodologies and in general anything that's new and shiny.
Specializing in cutting-edge tools, from REST architectures to
occasionally connected rich clients, Sebastien has been developing
with .net since 2000, and has a secret love affair with javascript.
14/05/2008
Register
|
|
April 23rd: VS 2008 and SQL Server 2008 launch
Yes, its that time again when we celebrate the release of the latest version of MS developer tools. Zi Makki will be hosting an evening of grok talks focusing on the new products. It is a great chance to join in with your own grok talk, or learn some more about the new features that come with 2008. As always, venue and time details on the news page.
11/04/2008
Register
|
|
March 12th: Fitnesse and Functional Programming in C#
On March 12th we will be hosted at Conchango's offices nr. London Bridge. We will have sessions on Fitnesse, Functional Programming in C# 3.0, and a demo of a Silverlight banking application
06/03/2008
Register
|
+
-
February 19th: Best Practices for TDD
Once you begin writing code test-first, you can quickly find it is more difficult on a real project than in a demo. Tests that helped you write the code can quickly become expensive to maintain. Legacy code can seem impossible to get under test. In this presentation we look at best practices that will help you get your code under test and keep the cost of ownership of those tests low.
30/01/2008
|
|
+
-
November 27th:All aboard the Monorail - Ian Cooper
WebForms have been to bedrock of ASP.NET development for the last four years, but the success of Ruby on Rails, and the growth of TDD, has created fresh interest in the MVC approach for building web sites. In this presentation we look at both the pattern and the open source project MonoRail which provides a new and popular way to build websites.
31/10/2007
|
|
+
-
November 27th: Office as a development platform with Visual Studio 2008 - Daniel Moth
The 2007 Microsoft Office System is extensible like never before. In this session we'll look at the numerous ways to extend the various Office applications such as Word, Excel, Outlook and others. Customisations demonstrated will include the new designers and templates for the Ribbon, Actions Pane, Task Pane, Content Controls and Form Regions. This will all be done in managed code from within Visual Studio 2008 and we will also see how to interop in both directions with VBA code.
26/10/2007
|
|
+
-
October 25th: An overview of WPF - the end of Windows Forms? by Oliver Sturm
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is an important pillar of Microsoft's new and upcoming development platform. It's available today as part of .NET 3, but its importance will grow considerably with the release of Visual Studio 2008 very close. Other tools like Expression Blend complete the picture, providing functionality but at the same time adding complexity to the development environment. This session shows what the framework contains and how to use it in your applications, as well as shedding some light on Microsoft's ideas of software development tomorrow.
13/10/2007
|
|
+
-
October 25th: The Importance of Application Security by Chris Seary
Why is application security so important now? Chris will discuss why the onus is on developers to produce secure systems.
We'll look at what hackers can do with a system improperly secured, and how to protect it.
Many organisations have raised their security baseline over the last few years, and developers need to be aware of this. Chris will guide you through the most common pitfalls of commercially produced applications so you don't make the same mistakes.
13/10/2007
|
|
+
-
Partial Rendering for AJAX Purists and AJAX Real Programmers
Noted .NET author and speaker Dino Esposito will be joining us to dig under the hood on partial rendering in AJAX ASP.NET
The advent of AJAX is radically modifying the user’s perception of a Web application and it is subsequently forcing developers to apply newer and richer models to build modern Web applications. In ASP.NET AJAX Extensions, we find two approaches to AJAX : partial rendering and script services. As dramatic as it may seem, only the second approach is pure AJAX . Partial rendering has little to do with AJAX , but it's an incredibly smart trick that brings with it flicker-free pages. In this talk, I'll give an architectural perspective of partial rendering and unveil some of its inner secrets
10/09/2007
|
|
+
-
July 19th: Paypal and Skype
Our Thursday the 19th session will be from Paypal and Skype, and take place at Skype's offices at: 2 Stephen Street, London W1T 1AN Map
The planned presentations are:
PayPal
Demonstrate new .NET SDKs
Demonstrate Express Checkout API calls.
Other useful API features and interfaces.
Skype
Platform overview
Extras - Live coding examples
Mashups – time permitting
05/07/2007
|
|
+
-
June 14th: Silveright and WPF
The Microsoft Client Platform Silverlight is Microsoft’s solution for delivering rich, cross-platform interactive experiences for the Web and beyond. Silverlight enables the creation of rich, visually stunning and interactive content and applications that run on multiple browsers and operating systems. In this session, we'll look at the benefits of Silverlight from a developer perspective and get an introduction to building Silverlight applications using JavaScript, .NET languages like C#, and dynamic languages like Python and Ruby. We'll also discuss Windows Presentation Foundation (the "big brother" to Silverlight) and look at the roadmap for both technologies as part of a client platform continuum based on XAML.
I'm about to hop on a plane, so forgive my haste. Here's a bio:
?Tim Sneath is the group manager for the Silverlight and WPF technical evangelism team, based out of Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, WA. His mission is to see developers create stunning applications built on the Microsoft platform, and to persuade his mother that computers aren’t out to get her. Amongst other strange obsessions, Tim collects vintage releases of Windows, and has a near-complete set of shrink-wrapped copies that date back to the late 80s, as well as a “museum” of Virtual PC images from Windows 1.0 to the present. Tim spent the first thirty years of his life in the UK, and his occasional attempts to speak English with an American accent for ease of comprehension cause much hilarity amongst his colleagues. His popular blog covers client platform technologies, and can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/tims.
30/05/2007
|
|
+
-
10 May: AJAX Development
Web sites are getting richer and user's expectations around the level of interaction that they can have with a web site are growing.
In this session Mike Ormond of Microsoft take a look at the Microsoft AJAX Library as well as enhancements in Visual Studio "Orcas" for the JavaScript developer such as IntelliSense and debugging.
We'll then move on to talk about the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions and finish up by looking at the sample controls in the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit that make the building of your rich site easier than ever.
Ever since he can remember, Mike's been interested in 'how stuff works', so an engineering career was a natural progression. After completing his degree at Strathclyde University, he toyed with transforms in imaging systems, played with hoppers in payment systems, scheduled headless clients in automated test solutions and helped real customers in product support! Nowadays he spends his time thinking about web and Office development and worrying about how to keep pace with change and whether or not he locked the back door.
03/05/2007
|
|
+
-
May 10th: Have we got object-orientation all wrong?
Have we got object-orientation all wrong? "Object Thinking" (ISBN 0-7356-1965-4) by David West asserts that we have. Alan Dean explores this assertion, and demonstrates self-describing objects / self-evaluating rules with code examples.
http://thoughtpad.net/alan-dean/object-thinking.html
03/05/2007
|
|
+
-
April
26th: Go With the Flow - An
Introduction to Windows Workflow
Changing business requirements are the bugbear of the application
developer. The Windows Workflow Foundation is a new component of .NET 3.0 designed to ease the pain by providing an easier way of modelling long-running business processes in code.
The engine provides in-built support for transactions, business rules, and persistence. Extensions to Visual Studio provide a graphical environment for modelling workflows. All of this can be incorporated into your applications to make them more adaptable, reliable and reduce your development time.
This talk is aimed at existing .NET developers who want to understand Windows Workflow and have enough knowledge to decide whether it will be useful in their projects. The talk introduces workflows, the workflow engine and its design tools, looks at compensation and fault handling, the rules engine, transactions and communicating with external services.
Bio:
Ben Lamb has been writing business applications since the days of Visual Basic 2.0. During the dot-com era he had a brief foray into web development helping to write the UK's first online hotel reservation system, LeisureHunt, and developed geo-location services for a 3G mobile phone company. Realising that .NET was his platform of choice he now writes financial trading systems for investment banks in the City with occasional diversions into Python, Open Source and other interesting technologies.
17/04/2007
|
|
+
-
March
28th: Next generation data access
It seems that MS like to change how we access our data on a regular basis. This presentation will look at the forthecoming changes in LINQ for SQL and LINQ for entities and how the new data access approach build on but are radically different from the old world of SqlCommand. We will also look at how you should be using these new technologies and how they fit with practices like domain driven design and test-driven development.
Ian Cooper has over 15 years of experience delivering Microsoft platform solutions in government, healthcare, and finance. During that time he has worked for the DTi, Reuters, Sungard, Misys and Beazley delivering everything from bespoke enterpise solutions to 'shrink-wrapped' products to thousands of customers. Ian is a passionate exponent of the benefits of OO and Agile. He is test-infected and contagious. When he is not writing C# code he is also the and founder of the London .NET user group. http://www.dnug.org.uk
07/03/2007
|
|
+
-
March 28th: LINQ will change how you write queries for ever
In this presentation we show you how you can use LINQ to query data in a type safe and elegant manner. We will look both at in-memory query expressions and LINQ for SQL and LINQ for XML. We will not be covering the new language features of C# 3.0 in depth, but will have brief explanation where they help explain what we are doing. The focus instead is on writing query expressions.
07/03/2007
|
|
+
-
22nd
February: Let's Grok Vista and Office
In this month's presentation we present a real smorgasbord of grok talks taking you through features from speech server, through bitlocker to sidebar. Something for everyone this time.
06/02/2007
|
|
+
-
What can WS-Security do
that IPSec or SSL can't? Chris
Seary
Why use it at all? Chris will give a high level view of when, how and why it should be used, and what advantages it can offer. He will then dive into code samples demonstrating message level security using both WSE and WCF. There'll be lots of boiler plate code made available that you can add to your projects.
10/01/2007
|
|
+
-
January
25th: Validity checking? Business
Rules? Oliver
Sturm
Not all data is equal, as everybody will tell you who's been
developing business applications. There are rules for the validity of information, and these have to be checked and the end user must be provided with helpful information through the UI. But exactly when do you do this? And how? And what about the next customer who wants everything to work just a little bit differently? This presentation introduces a framework for validity checking and answers all these questions.
10/01/2007
|
|
+
-
November 15th: A walk inside BizTalk
After three iterations, BizTalk reinvented itself, with even further improvements in the 2006 product. But what exactly is it, and what problems does it solve? This talk aims to provide insight into not just BizTalk's impressive and extensive feature set but also its purpose. If you've ever looked at BizTalk before or just want to know more about what it can do, this talk is for you.
Jon Fancey is an MVP in BizTalk Server with many years experience in software integration. He currently works as a Microsoft partner and independent consultant in implementing BizTalk solutions and enjoys writing for both MSDN and MSDN magazine on enterprise computing topics.
31/10/2006
|
|
+
-
November 15th: Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation
The Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) (previously codenamed "Indigo") is Microsoft's unified framework for building secure, reliable, transacted, and interoperable distributed applications. As a result designing and developing SOA solutions has never been easier (and cheaper), and will finally bring systems integration to the masses!
This presentation will start with an introduction to WCF and it's features, before moving onto code examples and explanations of some of it's more advanced concepts. The presentation will conclude with demonstrations on how WCF can be used to implement common integration design patterns, and an open-floor conversation about how it can be put to use within your organisation.
Dean Robertson works as a Senior Software Consultant for Cassium Technologies (part of the Netstore Group), delivering complex integration solutions to the UK financial industry. He has several years experience with Microsoft technologies, but has recently specialised in Microsoft BizTalk, .NET and WinFX.
31/10/2006
|
|
+
-
18th October: Introduction to Test-Driven Development
Test-Driven Development (TDD) is a programming approach in which developers begin by writing a test case, implementing the code to pass the test, refactor the code, and then repeat. The technique was publicised as part of the Extreme Programming approach, but is actually a technique that exists in its own right. In this presentation we will look at the how of TDD - red, green, refactor - as well looking at the design benefits it can bring. We will also touch on advanced topics like stubs and mocks.
08/10/2006
|
|
+
-
Object/Relational Mapping with XPO
Everybody talks about object/relational mapping these days, but (why) is it a good idea, and what problems does it solve? Many ORM tools are available today, with certain very relevant differences making decisions difficult.
This presentation tries to answer some of the common questions. eXpress Persistent Objects (XPO) is the popular commercial ORM tool by Developer Express, and the largest part of the session is a live presentation of using XPO to persist and handle object data.
-- Oliver Sturm
06/10/2006
|
|
+
-
September 20th: The Rules - 10 best practices for OO
OO is more than just being familiar with the keyword class, it is a whole approach to how you write your code. In this presentation we use a grok talk approach to look at 10 guidelines to help you write better OO code including SRP, OCP, ISP, LSP, and more...
- Ian Cooper
28/08/2006
|
|
+
-
September 20th: 10 Things You Must Know Before Internationalizing Your Application
The global market place is creating an ever increasing demand for
internationalized Web and Windows applications. The basics of .NET
internationalization are easily acquired in a short timeframe. However, the
gotchas and best practices of internationalization demand specialised
knowledge and experience. This session tells you the top 10 nuggets of .NET
internationalization facts and tips for Web and Windows applications that
you should know before you start your next internationalized application.
- Guy Smith-Ferrier
28/08/2006
|