GuruStop.NET

Hey all,

Just in case you have not noticed it already, early last night (before I woke up near midnight our time!) Microsoft released public betas of some new and fancy stuff…

1- IIS Express

Remember when I mentioned it before? A nice alternative to Visual Studio built-in dev server.

Supports SSL and other nice stuff, works even on Windows XP but simulates IIS 7.5, no admin privileges required

2- SQL Server Compact Edition

A file-based database engine, just like SQL Server Express, except that when you develop your website with it, you don’t need it to be installed on the server to get running (or anything else installed)

3- New ASP.NET Pages Syntax code-name Razor

This is a new syntax that is going to replace the old <% … %> ASP-Classic-like style we write ASPX/ASCX pages

It’s going to be mainly for ASP.NET MVC, but watch out, I smell like it’s may reach web-forms also

Very Quick Note: Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 was released finally (in combination with .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 of course).

To sum up for some people, note that VS 2008 SP1 includes ADO.NET Entity framework (and its designer) as well as ADO.NET Data Services, but NOT ASP.NEt MVC framework (but does include ASP.NET Dynamic Data & ASP.NET AJAX history control and script combining). It also includes some WCF enhancements as well as major VS performance and scalability fixes.

• ISO Donwload (and instructions)
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=27673C47-B3B5-4C67-BD99-84E525B5CE61&displaylang=en
• Readme (MUST READ: There`re many ridiculous known issues)
  http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/2/8/A2807F78-C861-4B66-9B31-9205C3F22252/VS2008SP1Readme.htm
• Official Page (Read for list of new stuff included)
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc533447.aspx
• ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 Page (Details and Videos for most big features – RECOMMENDED)
  http://www.asp.net/downloads/3.5-sp1/
• Soma’s Announcement
  http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2008/08/11/service-pack-1-for-vs-2008-and-net-fx-3-5-released.aspx

P.S.

SQL Server 2008 also was released earlier last week.

See official page for SQL Server 2008: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/default.aspx

It’s very nice to know that the launch event is not merged with EDC 2008, but comes before it. The 2008 launch event covers VS 2008, Win 2008 and SQL 2008.

It’ll be held March 24th @ Intercontinental City Stars Hotel (Register Now)

The agenda:

Found Via Amir Magdy.

Today was .NETwork usergroup second gathering. The usergroup is the first and only large/effective "offline" usergroup in Egypt (although there’re many others in INETA). They had a great success in their first gathering when they brought Steven Forte to talk about SQL Server 2008 new features for developers and ASP.NET MVC design pattern. I had a detailed post about it in my GWB blog at that time. Check it out for details.

Background: First To Second Gathering (Warning: Boring Part!!)

The .NETwork gatherings so far are more like small independent events. We -SilverKey Tech- were the first to start such events with our full day event, DemoDay (See GWB posts on DemoDay I, DemoDay II ), and later ITWorx had their CuttingEdge Club (See GWB post); which were both great corporation contribution to the developer community (and I believe we need more guys to start doing similar events), but, didn’t have much of "offline user group" nature between each round of either events (although almost each of us is friend to the other or at least friend of a friend!!). While .NETwork preferred the same "event" model, they had online and offline communication between the users of the usergroup (although mainly between students and organizers so far, but it’s a step anyway). It’s very interesting what Mahmoud Ghozz (one of the organizers) told me that the 2nd gathering session topics/speakers setup was done mainly through just phone calls!