June 2005 - Posts
A lot of times, I've seen people get into a debate over .NET and J2EE application development. I'm not a Java developer and so cannot vouch for the same, but today, when I was looking through the MSDN RSS feeds, I saw this site and it contains a whole host of white-papers, benchmark information and sample applications about the differences between .NET and J2EE application development. You can find more information at:
Competitive Reports and Evidence: Comparing .NET to J2EE.
ADO.NET 2.0 introduces a whole lot of new features that can really help boost productivity and application features and capabilities. As I was delivering sessions on ADO.NET 2.0 changes across the various cities in India for TechEd 2005, I realized that for the session, I used a lot of resources to prepare the materials and examples for. The books online with Visual Studio 2005 was great in some aspects, but on some features, it lacked clarity and examples. However, a lot of people have already written about them (its a remainder for me to write some articles too! :-)) and in this blog, I will list down the various articles that I referred to and would also recommed to others.
The above are some of the articles that are out there. Obviously, there are more if you search on the internet, but it would take me days to compile them and these are some articles that I referred to often! As you read these articles, remember that some of them were written on previous versions of ADO.NET 2.0 and it might require some change in the new releases. I will try to keep this list updated as and when I encounter new and interesting ADO.NET 2.0 articles.
Have fun!
Just returned back from Hyderabad. The sessions on SOA on databases and ADO.NET 2.0 changes (delivered by me) got a decent crowd and there were lots of interesting questions. Features like Asynchronous Commands, Query Notifications and MARS are cool features and people had lots of questions related to that. For the SOA session using Service Broker and HTTP Endpoints, people had questions related to queueing in the database and the benefits of the same. All these questions have prompted me to write some more articles on Service Broker and ADO.NET changes. I just submitted an article on the basics of SSB to SQL Server Central and you should see it online soon.
Post all the sessions were done for the day, we had a very interesting discussion with the local MVP folks about the program and their feedback. It was very positive and time just flew up before we realized that we had gone into the wee hours of the morning :-)
Overall, Hyderabad reminded me a lot about Bangalore, both in terms of traffic and in terms of the contours of the place. The weather was also very good (around 26 degrees). I heard that summers here were really hot...
I throughly enjoyed the sessions and look forward for the final leg of my journey...Delhi.
I've written articles, delivered sessions and now feel that I'm ready to write a book on SQL Server. Its going to be about SQL Server 2005 along with my fellow MVP Vinod Kumar. This book would cover all the major enhancements to SQL Server 2005 and we are aiming it to be a good handbook to both developers and DBAs. The content planning for the book is already underway and we should start burning our fingers pretty soon :-)
Watch this space for more details...
Just returned back from Mumbai TechEd and it was great fun. This is the first time that I'm getting into the Mumbai city. All along, I used to always transit to any foreign country through Mumbai, but have never visited the city itself. Its quite a choc-o-block city with traffic everywhere and the time that I went was right in the middle of the moonsoon and it was pouring like crazy! This is a time that the city actually suffers from the onslaught of the rain and normal life can be easily disrupted.
In spite of the rain and other associated issues, I must give it to the localites for having made it to TechEd. We had a good crowd of around 600+ and my sessions on SOA in Databases and ADO.NET 2.0 changes were well recevied. In fact, both the sessions were over-subscribed and I had to thus repeat ADO.NET 2.0 again (something that normally does not happen :-)). I could not repeat the SOA session as I had to leave for the airport. But, overall the enthusiam and questions on these sessions were very good and people generally liked the features.
We also introduced a new chalk-talk on the migration aspects from SQL Server 2000 - 2005 and I beleive that it was received well too. Overall, it was great fun and a very good crowd.
Just finished my sessions at TechEd 2005 Chennai on the same topics that I took at Bangalore: SOA in databases and ADO.NET 2.0 changes. Both the sessions were well attended and there were a lot of questions. I was especially interested in the various types of questions that people asked about Service Broker, why its required and so on. I also talked about HTTP Endpoints and this also raised quite a few questions on why SQL Server is emulating IIS behavior! Overall, the sessions went on well and I feel that I convinced the audience on why these features are needed. The ADO.NET session was overflowing in fact and luckily I was able to cover all the major changes, like the dataset ones, provider changes like Asynchronous commands etc with 0 minutes to spare. Went on very well...
Am now waiting in the hotel room to conduct the hands on labs for SQL Server 2005 tomorrow. Have to while-away the time here in Chennai. Its a place that I've been to many times before and there is not much that I want to see. The bright side however is, my wife is here with my 1 year old son and seeing him in the morning and looking at him smila is a a thought that I will cherish and is worth waiting for.
Good night :-)
Got to install the latest updates to both SQL Server 2005 June CTP and Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. Initially, I was apprehensive that the two will not work together, since I had heard through the grapevines that they are not compatible. However, if you are creating a new virtual PC image for installing these applications or are starting afresh on a new machine, the recommended order is as follows:
- Install SQL Server 2005 June CTP
- Install Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2
This order will ensure that the two applications will work together. The main difference to note for is that the .NET Framework 2.0 version number is different.
If you have an existing VPC containing older versions of SQL Server 2005 (for example, the April CTP), you can then use the information provided in the following link: Installing SQL 2005 June CTP on a computer with VS 2005 Beta 2.
One caveat that I found when I installed the June CTP of SQL Server 2005 was that my service broker applications did not work by default. When I checked the sys.transmission_queue system table, I had an error that said that the “session keys for the database could not be accessed...”. On poking around the readme, I found that you had to run this statement in the database where you are testing:
CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = '<password>'.
Post this, everything started working. If you do not want to do this, you will need to set ENCRYPTION=OFF in all your dialogs. Anyways, the June CTP looks cooll with some new features (especially the new reports that are accessible in the summary page) etc.
Will be playing around with these builds for sometime now, since I heard and read that the next CTP of VS 2005 will not be compatible with the June CTP! Better use my time constructively :-)
Just finished my stint at the TechEd 2005 Bangalore. I took two sessions, one on SQL Service Broker (SSB) and how to use it to build SOA applications in the database and the second was the new features of ADO.NET 2.0. The SSB session was really great and there were lots of questions and in the end, I think the audience was pleased with the new features.
SSB is a great capability in SQL Server 2005 and it allows us to write asynchronous, transacted and reliable message based applications, which earlier was possible only through other message based solutions like MSMQ. The best part is all of the new syntax is in T-SQL is programming against SSB is extremely easy! The best part of what I like is the in-built transaction management and the ability to control the number of Q readers, both of which will require some amount of coding and performance penalty if we start implementing our own mechanisms.
Am hooked on to SSB now and will be writing a set of articles soon. Have already submitted one to SQL Server Central and it should be out soon.
Off to Chennai TechEd 2005 now for the same sessions....
You can now start keeping yourself upto date on the next version of Office (code name, or version not yet public) at:
Next Office Version. There is a link to register yourself for regular updates and possibility an opportunity to try out the beta, if you get selected. So hurry!