I just got home of DevDays 2007 (and now already I'm typing a report...), and man, it was a fun ride! If you weren't there, you did miss out on great sessions and great fun (and great little pies... still don't know what was in them, but they tasted great). In my DevDays report, I want to highlight some of my personal 'fav-moments', some nice little tools I learned about and show some of my pics I took (maybe you're on them somewhere...).
(I wasn't at the pre-conference, so no report on March 27th...)
Day 1
6.00 am. Very early... Must get up to avoid traffic jams.
7.30 am. Breakfast at ICC Gent, avoided all traffic jams (jeej).
The day began like usual with an opening keynote, given this year by David Chappell. He went over what he thought would be the most important Microsoft-related innovations for 2007. These included the .net 3.0 framework, Forefront, Security Center and Longhorn Server.
After that, I went to the Blend demo, given by Carrie Longson. She showed some XAML effects created easily using Expression Blend. After that, she showed some impressive applications created with WPF. One of these was an application created by Microsoft UK for the Londen Underground (the tube). It was able to give an overview of the trains, where they were, all rendered in real time. It was even possible to rotate the viewport, completely in 3D. The application, while very impressive, took only 3 weeks to create with WPF.
Jeff Prosise is the speaker I saw the most sessions of (you'll find him again later in this article). The first one on Asynchronous ASP.net was impressive. He showed how to (and how not to) program threaded ASP.net. Doing this correctly can create a vast scalability for your web application. I hope to find some time to blog on some of his thoughts on this subject (hold your breath).
Up next was the first of 2 sessions of Raj Pai. This first one on Linq (.net Language Intergrated Query framework) explained in depth the possibilities of this extension of C# that will be included in C# 3.0. While the syntax on some moments still feels weird (it's odd to see Select and From in your C# code sometimes, even if you've been playing with it for some time), the session was very clear.
Like I said, Jeff Prosise would come back in this article. The next session I attended, Optimizing and Extending ASP.net Ajax, was very helpful for me. I've doing quite a lot of Ajax in the last months, but 1 thing I didn't use a lot yet, is the Ajax Client Script Library (the javascript). This library is not documented very well at this moment, so it's sometimes hard to figure out what you can do with it, and even harder how to do it. Luckily, this 
session cleared some clouds in my brain, so I think I'm on my way with it now!
The last session of the day, Hardcore debugging of .net applications given by "Mr Type Fast" Ingo Rammer was easily the one where I learned the most. I didn't know what to expect from it, but the demo's of this session literally blew me away.
He started by showing how to use WinDbg (WinDebug). While this is not a .net debugger, it can be used (loading in some DLLs) to debug running (production) .net applications. I actually never knew this was possible. This program is not the most user friendly, but it can be a real time saver. It does however use a lot of commands, and so I hope this session will certainly be included with the DVD.
He went on showing some other interesting tools. ADPlus is another tool (command line) that can be used to create a memory dump on any PC, that can afterwards be analyzed using WinDbg. Using these 2 can give you insight on why an application crashes or hangs.
The last shown tool was HawkEye. The free version can be used to inspect any .net forms application: you can see all properties of any control (name, color...) on a forms application.
After that, Visug, the Belgian Visug Studio User Group (of which I'm the webmaster), organised a bowling in Gent. We started playing at 9 pm, but due to a blackout in a large part of Gent, we were forced to stop playing around 10 pm.
1 am: in bed 
Day 2
6.00 am... you know the story...
The day started with the second session of Raj Pai, that closely intergrated with the session of day 1. In this session, he explained the new features of C# 3.0 (of which I'll be blogging in the coming weeks): extension methods, automatic properties, how LINQ works internally...
I was lucky enough to be able to attend 2 "sidemeetings" with 2 speakers, namely Raj Pai and Jeff Prosise.
At 11am, I met in person with Raj on the top floor, and together with some collegues of Ordina, we got to ask him questions on LINQ and C# 3.0 .
He explained in detail what went on behind the scenes when you run a LINQ statement. Seeing this more or less eased me! On my question on how you could debug a LINQ statement, he advised me to break the statement into pieces, and add a ToList() to each part. That way, you can easily see what each part of the statement actually returns.
Another question we asked was the following: how do you see LINQ in a DAL? Sadly, on this topic, they're actually still working themselves, and he promised that some white papers will be available soon.
I also asked his vision on the "over-use" of extension methods in C# 3.0. Using these methods, you can for example write your own System.String.In() method. Personally, I think this will make code review very hard. Raj agreed with me, and said there will be some patterns and practices available later on when to use these methods.
Due to this private session, I was unable to attend the session given by my collegue Kurt Claeys. I did hear nothing but positive comments afterwards, so Kurt: congrats!
The next session I attended was again one given by Jeff Prosise, this time on WPF/E.
This session was closely followed by my second private session, this time with Jeff. During this session, we talked on the future of the 3 web technologies Microsoft is currently using/developing: ASP.net 2.0, WPF/E and ASP.net Ajax. He thinks that all these will intergrate more in the future, certainly WPF/E and ASP.net Ajax.
He said that what we have seen so far of WPF/E is only a fraction of what it will really become. He believes that on some aspects, the final version will be better that it's competitor, Adobe Flash. He seemed very excited on some features that will be announced at Mix '07, including the final name. This session was not only fun, it gave a great insight in what web technology is evolving too.
In the last session of the day, Ingo Rammer explained some more of on profiling .net applications using CLR profiler and SQL profiler.
After this session, I went home, tired, but happy!
Great job guys!
The Ordina booth
My company Ordina was Platinum Sponsor of this event, and so we had a very large booth. On the following pics, you can see more of this.
All my DevDays 2007 pics can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gillcleeren/sets/72157600035030532/
What I brought home...
Het Computerwinkeltje, Belgium's largest computer book store, was also here, and they organised some book signing sessions. I just bought the new book on Powershell, Manning's Windows Powershell In Action , writte by Bruce Payette. I got my copy signed!
I also brought home the new book from Apress on LINQ.