See, normally, someone who’s not a developer and is presenting at the PDC takes the technology they’re going to demo, works with it, figures out what works and what doesn’t work, and then writes their demo around that. But since I’ve been actually building a bunch of the technology that I’m going to show, as I work through my demo I keep getting ideas along the lines of “hey, it’s be really cool if this worked.” So here I am, Sunday morning, still adding tweak-level features in the vain hope that I can demo them during my talk. Instead of working on the talk as I really should be doing. No worries, it’s actually all pretty solid and I’ve still got plenty of time for the last bit of polish, but still. Geez…

Tag: PDC05

Update: I’ll also be at the Tools and Languages track lounge on Tuesday and Wednesday @ 6:30pm for the “Meet the VB team” events. Hope to see you there!

Well, folks, we’re getting close… Did my second session dry run yesterday and we’re headed in to the home stretch! Looking forward to seeing everyone at the PDC. For those of you who’d like to chat about VB, I’m definitely going to be in the Tools and Languages lounge Thursday afternoon after my talk, and I’ll also be at the Ask the Experts that night. I’m also listing the sessions I’m participating in below. Hope to see you all there! 

TLN308  Visual Basic: Future Directions in Language Innovation

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 10:00 AM- 11:15 AM Room: 411
Session Level(s): 300
Session Type(s): Breakout
Track(s): Tools & Languages

Visual Basic 9.0 will offer radical improvements in its ability to work with data in all its forms: as objects, as XML, as relational data. Join the language architects for a detailed discussion of features such as query comprehensions, object initializers and anonymous types that enable querying data in a more flexible, natural way than ever before. Also, get a glimpse into the future of dynamic programming in VB with coverage of new features intended to radically simplify working with dynamically typed data on the .NET platform.

PNL03  Scripting and Dynamic Languages on the CLR

Day/Time: Friday, September 16 8:30 AM- 10:00 AM Room: 515 AB
Speaker(s): Jim Hugunin, Erik Meijer, Jim Miller, Bruce Payette, Dave Thomas, Paul Vick
Session Level(s): 300
Session Type(s): Panel
Track(s): Tools & Languages

With the recent rise in popularity of dynamic languages as a first class tool for software development, there are new questions around how to effectively use these tools, and how well they play in the .NET ecosystem. Join members of the CLR team, Microsoft languages teams, and external language implementers in a panel to answer questions around when and where dynamic languages should be used, the futures of these languages, and open discussion on the challenges and opportunities of implementing dynamic languages on the CLR.

PNL11  .NET Language Integrated Query End-to-End

Day/Time: Friday, September 16 1:00 PM- 2:30 PM Room: 152/153 (Hall F)
Speaker(s): Luca Bolognese, Don Box, Anders Hejlsberg, Erik Meijer, Dave Remy, Paul Vick
Session Type(s): Panel
Track(s): Tools & Languages

.NET Language Integrated Query promises to extend the .NET platform in new an exciting ways. Join Anders Hejlsberg and other key Architects and designers responsible for creating this new advance in data access on the .NET platform. The panelist will be able to comment on the history leading up to the advent of NET Language Integrated Query, its immediate usages in C#, VB and the .NET Platform generally as well as some thoughts on future directions.

Tag: PDC05

Infoworld doesn’t have much more than what’s in the abstracts themselves (nice to see the punching up worked), but I did particuarly like the “hail” part. I sort of have images of Roman legionaires marching into the PDC bearing VB banners… At least we’ll be a long way from the Ides of March…

Tag: PDC05

Despite my name making an appearance in the session title (it appears to be gone now), several people have observed that our current session abstract for our PDC05 talk is a bit, uh, bland, especially when compared to some of the other sessions. Here’s what we originally submitted:

Visual Basic is designed to be the most productive language for writing data-centric, solution-focused applications. Meet with the designers of VB and learn about upcoming language features that will improve developer productivity, including new features that enable optimized queries over objects, XML, and databases in a consistent way.

I proposed punching up the abstract in the hopes of making it a little more enticing, and it looks like that’s now live. Here’s the new abstract, which you can find in the session list:

Visual Basic 9.0 will offer radical improvements in its ability to work with data in all its forms: as objects, as XML, as relational data. Join the language architects for a detailed discussion of features such as query comprehensions, object initializers and anonymous types that enable querying data in a more flexible, natural way than ever before. Also, get a glimpse into the future of dynamic programming in VB with coverage of new features intended to radically simplify working with dynamically typed data on the .NET platform.

Hmmm… What are some of those things?

Tag: PDC05

Some of the early session preferences are rolling in for the PDC and, as expected, I’m getting spanked by Anders and Raymond. I guess that’s just what you get when you go up against a Distinguished Engineer and the most popular Microsoft blogger…

Seriously, though, if you’re going to the PDC, do take a moment and respond to the Session Preference Survey and help us make good planning decisions for the conference. After all, when you show up to my session and find that there’s no space to sit because you didn’t say you were interested in coming, you’ll only have yourself to blame…

Tag: PDC05

Now that I know that Brad added Anders and Raymond’s names to their talk titles to pique people’s interest in their talks, I am shocked, shocked, that he didn’t do the same to my session. Doesn’t he know who I am?!? Doesn’t he know that the mere mention of my name would cause thousands of people to flock to the PDC to hear whatever I might have to say about VB? I mean, c’mon — I’m sure that Don Box would also have rearranged his schedule to make sure that he can attend my talk, if only he had known it was me giving it. But now, who knows? And how will Don be able to live with himself if he misses it?

Wait, what’s that you say? I’m not a Distinguished Engineer? I don’t have the single most popular Microsoft blog on the face of the planet? Joel Spolsky hasn’t even coined some cute phrase that includes my name?

Sigh.

Oh, well, I guess people will just have to come to hear about the technology after all…

(I should add that I give lots of kudos to Brad for his work on organizing the PDC. It’s a tough job, and I’m glad he’s the one doing it!)

Tag: PDC05