The MIX 07 sessions are now posted online here: http://sessions.visitmix.com/. This a gold mind of information for ramping up on key custom dev Microsoft technologies. The best place to start is the keynote. Fast forward to the demos to get a sense of what is possible:
The key highlights of this conference include:
- Silverlight - www.silverlight.net. This is more than just a Flash competitor. The integration with ASP.Net, JavaScript and code behind CLR assemblies make this a very powerful addition to Microsoft development stack. The other big part of this plug-in is that a subset of the .Net CLR is now available cross platform, finally! It still is early and the marketing is a little misleading. There are actually two versions. Version 1.0 is a beta that doesn't support code behind technology or any controls. It is primarily designed to compete for media applications like showing videos online. All of the code is done with Javascript programming in the browser against the Silverlight DOM. Version 1.1 is the when the code behind functionality will be supported and it is slated for a end of 2007 release. Scott Guthrie has posted an excellent post higlighting the difference between 1.0 and 1.1. Check out this session if you want to see the lead Silverlight product manager show off what is available in 1.0: http://sessions.visitmix.com/default.asp?event=1011&session=2012&pid=DEV11&disc=&id=1520&year=2007&search=DEV11
- WPF - If you want to see the power of this technology and what you can do with Blend you have to watch this session done by two designers. It is awesome to watch: http://sessions.visitmix.com/default.asp?event=1011&session=2011&pid=DES07&disc=&id=1509&year=2007&search=DES07.
- AJAX - http://ajax.asp.net. This has been getting a ton of coverage over the past year but I have to tell you the more I learn about using the object model the more the power of this framework becomes apparent. There is way more to Asp.net AJAX than just the Update Panel! Take time to review the client script API. Here is a great session to watch done by Nikhil Kothari , a very well known ASP.NET architect: http://sessions.visitmix.com/default.asp?event=1011&session=2011,2012&pid=XD003&disc=&id=1570&year=2007&search=XD003
- LINQ - This will speed up the plumbing development work we do for almost every application we develop. Why couldn't we have had this 5 years ago??? :) See Anders Hejlsberg , the author of C#, explains it very well in this session: http://sessions.visitmix.com/default.asp?event=1011&session=2012&pid=DEV04&disc=&id=1513&year=2007&search=DEV04
- Orcas - Multi-targeting framework development, CSS and Javascript intellisense support make this install a must even during the beta period. This is a nice overview of what is coming: http://sessions.visitmix.com/default.asp?event=1011&session=2012&pid=DEV14&disc=&id=1523&year=2007&search=DEV14