The PDC Technology Firehose

Service Station, by Aaron Skonnard

Syndication

It always takes me a few days to unwind after a show and to process everything that happened there. PDC left me with one major feeling: it's overwhelming how much new stuff MS is producing at once.
 
So we have Vista and WinFx, which constitues WCF (Indigo), WPF (Avalon), and WWF (WinOE). You also have some very compelling language enhancements in C# 3.0 with things like LINQ. We have SQL Server 2005, and its family (reporting, notification, service broker, integration services, etc). We have Office 12 and Sharepoint advances, BTS 2006 and beyond, and the new Web technologies around ASP.NET 2.0 and Atlas. However, I think what finally pushed me over the edge was the new Microsoft Expression Studio technolgies, which include Sparkle, Acrylic, and Quartz. Phew.
 
This stream of technologies is simply too big for any one person to consume. I feel just like Craig and Clemens. There's only so much you can learn.
 
You have to define your sphere of interest and focus. For me that means: WCF, WWF, and BizTalk 2006 over the next year. LINQ will be my entertainment (still a ways out). Everything else is just noise.
 

Posted Sep 20 2005, 01:52 PM by Aaron Skonnard

Comments

Sean Chase wrote re: The PDC Technology Firehose
on 09-20-2005 1:29 PM
Oh man, I agree completely. Linq (Dlinq) specifically is kicking my butt. I was up last night trying to get more than trivial types of queries working (beyond what is in the demos including joins + aggregates w/ grouping). It was back and forth between SQL Server Profiler and the Beta 2 IDE which doesn't do much for intellisense in the queries yet unfortunately). I love T-SQL and I'm very comfortable writing some very sick stored procs, etc on a regular basis. And for some reason it bothers me that I don't have my arms around writing Linq queries yet!!! Grrrrr. At the same time, there is a lot to chew on looking at Linq syntax PLUS the C# 3.0 stuff like anonymous types and lambdas!

So, it's kinda funny to see a guy like you posting "This stream of technologies is simply too big for any one person to consume..." If a smart guy like you is saying that, how do you think a poor scrub like me feels? :-)
TheChaseMan's Frenetic SoapBox wrote DLINQ: Initial Observations Part 2
on 09-20-2005 9:49 PM
TheChaseMan's Frenetic SoapBox wrote DLINQ: Initial Observations Part 2
on 09-20-2005 9:51 PM

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