DevFest 2008

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Sessions

Questions and Answers
The always popular Questions and Answers session with all of the speakers available for attendees to talk with in an informal gathering and get the answers to their problems.

iVO, iVulcan, iNet - stealing a glance into Apple's world
Since Apple assembles Intel CPU's there are several ways to run Windows software on Mac computers. People love Apple products like iTunes, iPod, iPhone - and lots of MacBook Pro notebooks are sold to people who only want to work on sexy looking machines. More and more business people join the former target group of graphic artists and designers, so there will be a need for business software running on Mac in the future. Why not write it in VO or Vulcan? Using software like Parallels Desktop allows you to run Windows and Mac OS X at the same time, side-by-side. Capture a new and growing market, and acquire new customers by selling your Windows software to Mac users. Of course using Vulcan and .NET means a new language, a new class library, new tools - so nobody wants to learn another new operating system voluntarily.

This session will show you all you need to install, run and use Windows software on Mac computers and introduce you to the differences between the two worlds. So lay back and take a look into the parallel universe that is really worth joining. Windows has users, Mac has fans - maybe you will also become one after this session...

Effective Systems Development for Small Teams
Answer these questions honestly:

Do you consistently meet your customers’ expectations in terms of:
· On-schedule delivery?
· Quality of delivery?
· Completeness of functionality?
· Completeness of testing?

Do you consistently meet your and your co-workers’ expectations in terms of:
· The hours you work each day?
· The need for weekend work?
· The space and time to introduce new technologies?
· The ability to keep on top of all the other demands of a small development business?
· The money you earn for the hours you actually put in?

If you answer "No" to any of these questions you might like to join in this session as Mike describes his attempts to find the Holy Grail of Development! Has he found it? Only time and this session will reveal the truth. [If you answer "Yes" to all the questions you can come and tell Mike where he has been going wrong over the past 30 years].

At the very least, this session will introduce you to:
· a new way of estimating project completion dates;
· how to work on a project as a team;
· the need for source control;
· how and in what sequence to design multi-level architectures so that multiple skill sets can be brought to bear on a project in parallel.

There are no pre-requisites for this session. No matter what development tools you are currently using this session is about the principles of effective development. The details are left to you to decide when you return to your office.

Advantage Database Server 9.0
The upcoming version 9.0 of ADS will be released during the first quarter of 2008. Besides native support for Visual FoxPro 9 database files, it will also bring new features like SQL debugger and Event Notification.

Regarding VO the Advantage SQL RDDs will now be part of the product. In this session you'll get an overview of ADS and it's new features and you'll learn how to use it from Visual Objects.

Vulcan.NET Language - Parts I and II
This two part session will explain and demonstrate new features and enhancements in the Vulcan.NET language.

Some of the topics that will be discussed include
- enumerations
- interfaces
- attributes
- delegates
- events
- value types

We will also discuss the enhancements to classes, arrays, and generic types.

DBFs in Clipper/VO/Vulcan-Desktop/Vulcan-Pocket Framework Environments
This session will discuss the problems and challenges sharing DBF data between Clippper applications, VO applications and Vulcan.NET applications.
In this session we will cover issues such as:
- Codepages and Character Sets
- Index Collation
- Locking
- Nation Modules
- Memo/Blob functions

Advanced Migration Topics - From VO To Vulcan.NET
This session will cover a great number of smaller and larger migration issues for VO developers that start to work with Vulcan.
Some of the issues covered in this session are:
- Strings (Ansi vs Unicode),
- Arrays
- Objects
- Extending base classes
- Namespaces, Assemblies and DLLs
- Attributes
- Error Handling
- Threading

Choosing the Best GUI Option(s) for your Vulcan Applications
There are many GUI options for Vulcan developers: VO GUI, Classmate, Windows Forms and WPF. So how do you decide which one to use? In this session we will explore their advantages and disadvantages and demonstrate possible ways to make the transition from one GUI to another, or even use more than one in the same application.

Reflection and Obfuscation
In this session, Fabrice will give an overview of the reflection mechanism and the ability to retrieve structured-code from MSIL. It will include the presentation of a plug-in for Reflector that can generate Vulcan.NET code and the demo of a C# control ported to Vulcan using this tool. The session will also show how to protect your code using different levels of obfuscation.

Marshalling and Delegates
Marshalling provides us with the ability to mix managed and un-managed code in .NET ;
Delegates allow us to call run-time loaded assemblies: a kind of function pointers.
This session shows the mechanism in C# through the use of Twain source to build an assembly. Then this assembly is used in Vulcan to provide a small "Scan & Save" application.

Requirements: Some C# knowledge would be helpful but not essential.

Vulcan and Windows Presentation Foundation
What is Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)?
Why would you want to use the WPF?
How is development different when using WPF?
What is XAML and how do you work with it?
How do you take advantage of WPF using Vulcan.NET?
Is it all flashy graphics and video, or is it truly a rich media experience?

We cover these topics and more...

VO To Vulcan - Taking A VO Application To .NET
This session is an introduction to Vulcan and .NET. In it we will take a sample VO application based on master-detail window and transport it to a Vulcan Visual Studio solution. Once we have the application running in .NET we will look at how we can take advantage of some of the features that the new environment provides.

Common VO Tasks In Vulcan.Net
This session will give you a jump start with Vulcan by dealing with some of the commons tasks that we have always done in VO and concentrate on how we can do the same things with Vulcan and the dotNet Framework classes. Subjects will include printing (selecting printers, setting options, etc), dealing with arrays, how to use dotNet sockets instead of VO sockets, sending emails, and strategies for a successful migration.

Using Microsoft’s Enterprise Library with Vulcan.NET
In this session, Meinhard demonstrates how to use Microsoft’s Enterprise Library and the incorporated application blocks with Vulcan.NET to solve common programming tasks.
He will cover the follow topics :
. Configuration & dependency injection
. Cryptography
. Exception Handling
. Caching
. Data Access

Instead of writing everything from scratch and reinventing the wheel, see what’s already there and use the same technology and procedures as Microsoft does.

VSTO : Paradigm Shift again
VSTO stands for "Visual Studio Tools for Office" but is it just a new acronym or another lot of hype? With Visual Studio 2008 The former AddOn becomes a fully integrated part of the IDE but what is it good for?
As the successor to the famous VBA scripting language of the Office Platform, it brings the full power of managed code to the Office products and enables you to write your own Office AddOns that bring your own application into Outlook, Excel & co.

In this session, Meinhard will show you how to enhance and protect your business the new Microsoft way.

Virtualization - Parts I and II : The Big Picture
Every good session starts with a sample. In part one of this this series about virtualization, Michael Fischer builds a virtual machine from scratch. Based on this example Michael covers the basics of virtualization:
. What’s the difference between virtualization and emulation
. What’s the difference between a virtualization layer and hyper visor
. How do virtual disks and virtual networks work?

And he answers probably the most important question: What do I need this for?

Part II is dedicated to real world scenarios for developers:
. Converting existing physical machines into virtual machines
. Building test machines for developers and QA staff

The session will conclude by building a complete team of virtual machines which emulate a high availability SQL database cluster.

Advanced .Net Framework and Vulcan.NET topics for Beginners
In this session we will explore many advanced subjects regarding Vulcan.NET and the .Net Framework in general. We will examine how the .Net internals work, from a beginner's perspective, without getting into too much in-depth analysis. Topics covered in this session will include:
- Common Language Runtime (CLR)
- MS Intermediate Language (MSIL) and Metadata
- Just in Time (JIT) compiling
- Language Interoperability
- Memory Management and Garbage Collection
- Advanced .Net Framework classes

Writing Internet Apps with Visual Studio and Vulcan.Net
This session will cover how to use Visual Studio, VB.Net (C#) and Vulcan to write a multi layered internet app. Topics will include:
. Structure of an ASPX page
. Why VB.NET or C# in the ASP page?
. The Vulcan Business Layer
. Controlling State
. Debugging a web app using Visual Studio

Vulcan on eBay - practicing Web Services from scratch
Do you still hesitate to start learning Vulcan? Are you still reluctant to transport your long lasting Visual Objects application, that has grown up for years, to .NET? This session present a way to jump in at the deep end, use Vulcan, learn about Web Services, SOAP and XML files and get a little application that makes a lot of fun enlarging it in any direction.

Based on the eBay API SDK, it's an all-in-one device, suitable for every purpose on eBay. Create your own search engine, learn to automate things - but don't forget, an Automatic Bidding Scheduler is not allowed! :-)

The whole registration process will be shown clearly step-by-step - including a kind of "Hello World" program with minimal setup and maximum wow effect. After this session you will become a real eBay developer - and a Vulcan Power User as a matter of course...

The sessions by other speakers will be listed here as they are confirmed.

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