My Slides/Samples from MIX:UK - Building Silverlight Apps with .NET and Building ASP.NET Apps with VS 2008

The last two days I've been speaking at the the MIX:UK conference that was held this week in London.  We had a sold out crowd of 500 people come to learn more about some of the new Microsoft web technologies.

I gave 5 talks at the conference, including the Keynote and 4 breakout talks: Building Silverlight Applications with .NET (Part 1 and 2), and Building ASP.NET 3.5 Applications with VS 2008 (Part 1 and 2).  I also had the chance to participate on 2 panels (including a really fun one where we sat around and drank tea, ate biscuits, and discussed technology trends).

Below are the slides + demos from my talks if you are interested in downloading them.

Building Silverlight Applications with .NET (Part 1 and 2)

This two part session drilled into how to build Silverlight 1.1 applications using .NET.  I really like the slide + sample approach of this talk (I first gave it at MIX:Hungary in June), and think it provides a really good way to learn the programming concepts of Silverlight 1.1 using .NET.

  • Click here to download the slides from the talk. 
  • Click here to download the samples from the talk.

Note: All samples are built using the current Silverlight 1.1 Alpha and VS 2008 Beta2 with the Silverlight Tools Alpha Installed. 

Building ASP.NET Applications using VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 (Part 1 and 2)

This two part session was primarily a demo driven talk that shows off many of the new improvements for ASP.NET with .NET 3.5 and VS 2008. 

  • Click here to download the slides from the talk.
  • Click here to download the samples from the talk (these require VS 2008 Beta2).

To learn more about VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 Beta2 for web development, please also check out these recent blog articles of mine that cover some of its features in more detail:

General:

VS 2008:

ASP.NET in .NET 3.5:

LINQ to SQL:

New Language Features:

One last note...

I usually get at least 4-5 emails a week from people asking whether they can re-use some of my slides/samples for their own presentations (or books).  My answer to this is always "absolutely!"  Please do not worry about asking for permission on this - you can always re-use any of the content from my talks and blog postings (and feel free to re-use slides and decks wholesale).  I write this content to help people learn how to use .NET - so you helping spread the information is pure goodness from my perspective (my blog is technically not part of my official job, rather just a side hobby I enjoy and find useful).

Hope this helps,

Scott

32 Comments

  • Enjoy your trip Scott!

  • The last note is good to hear. I actually used a bit of the structure in how you presented LINQ (and the Extension Methods, Lambda Expressions, etc that it's built on) to do a talk last night for our local .NET User Group.

    It actually went down really well, even though we had it on a night when the biggest concert in years hit town so the numbers were down a bit.

    So, thanks for all that!

    Our next question is how to use LINQ for Web Services - I've been reading your comments about using the attach() method, but I'd love to see a basic structure outline on passing objects - or where LINQ comes in to play.

    Can you pass LINQ objects over Web Services, or pass a collection and return a ChangeSet, or ...?

    Anyway, thanks again, it's been a big help.

  • Thanks for posting these stuff. Its always useful to watch your slides and demos. They are very very helpful.

  • Great list of resource for learning, thank you very much!!

  • "my blog is technically not part of my official job, rather just a side hobby I enjoy and find useful"

    It is very useful! So do you not blog while at work?

  • Hi Scott, i've just returned from mix uk and had a great time. Particularly enjoyed the new Visual Studio 2008 features. Appreciate the step by step approach you take in your presentations / blog posts. Thanks again.

  • Nice shot like usual Scott. Enjoy your time in London, you may come by and visit egypt, it's the other coast out there :)

  • Hey Scott, brilliant sessions and thanks!

    I just had one question about the CSS editing in VS2008. Will it support shorthand CSS?

    margin-left:10px;
    margin-bottom:15px;
    margin-top:20px;
    margin-right:25px;

    looks much messier to me than just and will obviously help keep file sizes down etc

    margin: 10px 15px 20px 25px;

    Thanks again!

    Adam

  • Hi Andrew,

    >>>>>> Our next question is how to use LINQ for Web Services - I've been reading your comments about using the attach() method, but I'd love to see a basic structure outline on passing objects - or where LINQ comes in to play. Can you pass LINQ objects over Web Services, or pass a collection and return a ChangeSet, or ...?

    I'm still playing around with this myself - and should hopefully have some answers later this month. There are also a few changes coming to LINQ to SQL for RTM which makes the discoverability of how to use Attach() a little easier (which I'll also post about soon).

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Ken,

    >>>>>> Nice demo! Do you have any plans for an advanced control creation demo? I love those 1.1Alpha controls you guys put out and have really learned a lot from digging into that code. It is a lot of trial and error and being able to see how you guys took the Alpha scroll bars for instance and turned them into the production level product would really help me understand the process.

    We are going to be launching a Silverlight Control Toolkit in the months ahead (like we did with the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit). This will provide a good place to check out control ideas (as well as to help potentially contribute a few). We'll also be publishing the source code for all of the controls we deliver in Silverlight 1.1 directly.

    >>>>>>> I'm at the point right now where I can do what I want to do but it isn't always the correct way to go about things. In other words it works but I know there are more efficient less code-intensive ways.

    One of the things we are doing right now is ramping up our documentation and overall www.silverlight.net community efforts. Hopefully more information and best practices will be being shared publically soon!

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Mike,

    >>>>>> "my blog is technically not part of my official job, rather just a side hobby I enjoy and find useful" It is very useful! So do you not blog while at work?

    Glad you find it useful! :-) I don't actually blog at work - usually I write it in the late evenings (once everyone else has gone to bed!).

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Adam,

    >>>>>> I just had one question about the CSS editing in VS2008. Will it support shorthand CSS?

    I know that VS 2008 handles short-hand CSS today just fine. I sent out mail to someone on the team to see whether there is an option to have it generate it by default when creating brand new styles.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Scott, really enjoyed your presentations and especially the tea and biscuits session. I was the guy sitting at the front who asked you about TDD at Microsoft. I was very interested in what you had to say about supporting IoC containers and the new MVC framework for ASP.NET. Do you have any links/resources about these?

    Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed your time in London.

  • Hey Now Scott,
    Your blog is one of my favorite ways to learn about .NET. Thanks for all the content you post.
    Catto

  • Brilliant! I have to say I really enjoyed your talks at MIX:UK and makes me go on to learn all that I can.

  • It's great to see the notes and demos from your talks posted so quickly. Thank you so much for the presentations you gave in London (yesterday and Tuesday) - they made my first visit to a Microsoft conference very enjoyable. Thanks!

  • Hi Mike,

    >>>>> Hi Scott, really enjoyed your presentations and especially the tea and biscuits session. I was the guy sitting at the front who asked you about TDD at Microsoft. I was very interested in what you had to say about supporting IoC containers and the new MVC framework for ASP.NET. Do you have any links/resources about these?

    It was great meeting you! We are going to be publishing more details on the new MVC framework over the next few weeks. The team today is actually doing a design review to discuss IoC container extensibility, and will make sure it can integrate with multiple IoC implementations (including Windsor).

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Catto/Dominic/Ryan,

    Glad I could help!

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Scott: your final paragraph of this post is very inspirational. You are a saint! If you spend alot of your free/spare time maintaining this blog, you should stick a Paypal donation button somewhere. The quality and quantity of information here is priceless, IMO. Best blog on the web, hands down. Keep up the fantastic work!

  • Hi Adam,

    >>>>>> I just had one question about the CSS editing in VS2008. Will it support shorthand CSS?

    VS2008 will always be able to read/understand shorthand styles and display them accurately in the Design View preview. As for generation, there is a Tools Options setting underneath "HTML Designer > CSS Styling > Use shorthand properties when generating styles." I believe it is checked by default. (Note, there are a few dialogs that might not respect this setting, but everything else on the design surface should.)

    Hope this helps,
    Jeff

  • The ASP.net MVC UI Framework sound great. I'm look forward to it!

  • Hi Scott,
    Great sessions at MIX UK!!
    Your blog is one which I follow closely, quality of your posts is great keep em coming.
    Cheers
    Gareth

  • >>>>>>> It was great meeting you! We are going to be publishing more details on the new MVC framework over the next few weeks. The team today is actually doing a design review to discuss IoC container extensibility, and will make sure it can integrate with multiple IoC implementations (including Windsor).

    will there be a beta or CTP download available soon for this, I am very interested to see Microsoft's version of MVC. Thanks Scott.

  • Scott (or anyone): Please explain how Microsoft is positioning VWD 2008, with its new web design features, against the paid-for Expressions product. What are (still) things that can one do with Expression that can't be done with VWD?

    Thanks!

    -Kurt

  • Are there any plans for Silverlight 1.1 to add support for Animating user defined DependencyProperties? Right now we can only target Silverlight standard DependencyProperties, it's really hard to support customer controls when you can't animate the custom controls custom DependencyProperties.

  • "my blog is technically not part of my official job, rather just a side hobby I enjoy and find useful"

    Wow nice hobby!

  • Good Job Scoot. Your work have been the best.

  • Hi scott. i have a question about your blog published at Friday, June 15, 2007. You wrote tip-trick-creating-packaged-asp-net-setup-programs-with-vs-2005.aspx. I was asking my self if there is a way to accept password characters when im asking for a password. Thanks for the help.

  • NorthWindDataContext context = new NorthWindDataContext();
    context.Log = Console.Out;
    var product1 = context.Products.Where(p => p.ProductID == 1).First();
    var product2 = context.Products.Where(p => p.ProductID == 1).First();
    if (product1 == product2)
    {
    Console.WriteLine("Same object");
    }
    Console.ReadLine();

    How could above point to the same object. I dont understand it. They both explicity when to the database and executed sql statement. so even though they have same data but how they be same object?

    I am confused.

  • Great job Scott - your team does a huge job!

    Cannot stress the need for Silverlight supporting WebCam functionality as Flash does. Not concerned about formats too much - just needs to do it. I can understand issues around access items outside sandbox (webcam) - I read somewhere you are pushing the fact that Silverlight does not have all these security prompts. You would need one for Webcam access.

    Would be great to get some feed back on Video Recording in Silverlight - there are alot of questions going into the ether on the subject.

  • Hi Scott,
    VS2008 b2 Nested Master Pages work only in WebSite project?
    tks,

  • Hi Scott. I was at Mix 07 in London. Great Job! I did notice one thing though. Whenever someone asked you a question, you would say "Good question..." and then answer them. What do you say when someone asks you a really stupid question. On second thoughts, Don't answer that. Keep up the great blogging. You have saved me a number of times.

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