When: Monday 23rd April 2007, doors open 6:00pm, meeting starts 6:30pm

Where: BAWA, Filton, Bristol (see FAQ for directions and a map) - 1st floor

What: An Evening Of LINQ

Who: Mike Taulty, Developer Evangelist at Microsoft UK

Why: Because this is the very first meeting of The .NET Developer Network and you can say that you were there at the beginning. Not to mention that Mike Taulty is a fantastic speaker and LINQ is an absolutely fascinating new subject.

How do I sign up for this meeting: Send an email to meetings at dotnetdevnet.com and quote your user name

Abstract: (Mike is giving two presentations this evening!)

1)     Introduction to Language Integrated Query – Language Changes in C# 3.0 and VB9 that facilitate LINQ.

With Visual Studio codename “Orcas” come C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9. The primary advancement in these two languages is the introduction of Language Integrated Query (LINQ) which dramatically reduces the amount of “looping-and-filtering” code that a developer writes by moving such constructs into the languages themselves. LINQ provides a consistent syntax or “pattern” for projecting, filtering, sorting, grouping, joining lists of objects together in memory and it does so in an extensible manner which allows that same pattern to be used against other kinds of data in the future. In this session we’ll take a look at LINQ “to objects” and explore the language features that make it possible.

2)     LINQ and Advances for Data Access

.NET Framework V3.5 is also part of Visual Studio codename “Orcas” and the new version of the Framework includes classes that take the LINQ pattern and extend it to encompass dealing with XML and relational data. In this session we’ll take a look at what “Linq over XML” and “Linq to SQL” offer us as new ways to interact with relational and hierarchical data and we’ll also take a look at how “Linq to DataSet” offers the new LINQ pattern over the existing DataSet and DataTable that we’re familiar with today.

Bio:

Mike Taulty works in the Developer and Platform Group at Microsoft in the UK where he has spent the past 2 years helping developers understand and get the best from the Microsoft platform. Prior to this, Mike spent 3 years with Microsoft Consulting Services as a consultant on developer technologies.
Before joining Microsoft, Mike spent the previous 9 years working as a software developer for a number of enterprises, consultancies and software vendors working with a variety of operating system, client, communication and server technologies. 

Mike holds a BSc Hons (1st Class) in Computer Science from the University of Leeds.