November 2009 - Posts
Must see session if you're into BizTalk: http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/SVR15
Session was a surprise for me, didn't expect to see a so much future oriented session about BizTalk at the PDC. Expected it to be more around just the vNext, nothing beyond that.
JP already wrote a nice overview about it: http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/jpsmit/archive/2009/11/23/biztalk-server-roadmap-presented-at-the-pdc.aspx
Being able to use BizTalk maps as WorkFlow activities inside a WorkFlow is my favorite one. I want the use that one today! :-)
Session by Chris Sells, Douglas Purdy. Slides and video at http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/FT50
Just to share my notes, thoughts and session highlights:
First the history about "Oslo" to clarify things up:
"Oslo" 2007: Very broad vision to generally enhance developer productivity. In 2008 things like .NET Services, WF4 runtime and AppFabric ("Dublin" part) emerged out of this.
"Oslo" 2008: Modeling platform. "M", "Quadrant" and the "Repository".
"Oslo" 2009: SQL Server Modeling. Still consists of the three previous parts above.
Confusing that the same code name was used for different things. But well, the above overview should clarify it up.
So the rest will be about SQL Server Modeling of course:
SQL Server will be the shipping vehicle. The three "Oslo" parts are now described as:
"M": An open data language
"Quadrant": A developer tool for SQL Server
"Repository": SQL Server to store your data
So the big surprise (for me) is that "Quadrant" has changed from being a tool for visual DSL's to a SQL dev tool.
Some statements about "Quadrant":
- It’s a data navigation tool / database data browser.
- Now can also write "M" inside.
- Allows you to quickly build forms over data. Also with master detail functionality.
- Can work with huge datasets.
- Purdy also calls it the MS Office Access for SQL Server.
T-SQL and SQL Server management studio (SSMS) are positioned to be for IT/DB pros.
"M" and "Quadrant" are the counterparts for developers.
They see the "Oslo" stuff as more abstract. Comparison with VB over C/C++ is made. Where C/C++ is T-SQL and SSMS and VB is "M" and "Quadrant".
So all cool stuff I think. Even now it's still positioned as a modeling platform. My main question is: Where can I do Visual DSL's today? Last year the team showed stuff like building WCF services and workflows with boxes and lines in "Quadrant". I need boxes and lines to do Visual DSL's. So where are they? Are they ever going to come back?
Session by Don Box, Jeff Pinkston. Slides and video at http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/FT34
Just again to share my notes, thoughts and session highlights:
Don explains that "Oslo" was a broad vision out of which a lot of things emerged. He promises that there will be names at next PDC for the "Quadrant" and "M" code names.
"M" now consists of three parts:
The EDMX spec is new. "M" now becomes a DSL over the EDM format of Entity Framework (EF). Allows you to use a textual format to use with EF instead of the visual designer. No more ugly XML file edits.
The T-SQL spec was around last year. The names MSchema and MGraph (for instances) where used back then.
Few... the Grammar spec is still around. Called MGrammar last year. After the previous talk about "Quadrant" I was almost afraid they also removed the textual DSL stuff. Box explains it as a function to get from text to some structured piece of data.
Intellipad is still around, but you now can also write "M" in Quadrant AND in Visual Studio.
Integration with repositoy has become much better. You now just can hit deploy to database from intellipad without calling all the strange .exe tools like you had to do before.
Much easier API now to use your grammar parser inside visual studio. Just include you "M" file in your project and only a piece of code like this is needed:
Lot's of details about smaller new "M" features of all the three parts in this session. But I'll keep it just with this short overview for now.
I’m not sure what to think of the move announced by Doug Purdy. It’s not a complete surprise since the team recently moved more towards the data team, but I still am disappointed by this announcement.
In the past “Oslo” was announced as a modeling platform and a Language Workbench. It’s fine by me that the model are stored in SQL Server. But is that so important that you’re storage technique should be in the name of your product? Or is “Oslo” moving in another direction instead of becoming a Language Workbench?
Experienced ASP.NET developers tend to get pretty nervous when they have to start building stuff in SharePoint instead of plain ASP.NET. David Chappell wrote some interesting stuff on this here.