Tomorrow at 6pm, I'll be doing a presentation for the Boulder Visual Studio User Group.  I'll be talking about the new features of C# and additions to VS2008 that you might find helpful. I've already given LINQ presentations, along with so many others, so this won't necessarily be about LINQ, where one would cover LINQ to X. However, query expressions are an integral part of the new C# language features and there's no way one can talk about C# 3.0 without LINQ.  Besides LINQ, there is a lot of value in the other language features of C#, including object initializers, extension methods, and lambda expressions.  Everyone is welcome to attend and it's free, so if you're in the area, don't hesitate to stop by.

Here's a Functional Programming Tutorial, written by Eric White. I liked this because it gives a nice overview of the new features of the C# programming language. More importantly, Eric ties the new features into a functional style of programming, which will be an additional way to solve problems in the future. Actually, since VS2008 is available, you can start solving problems with a functional programming approach today.

Nice blog entry, by PeteL, with links to free Web development tools for ASP.NET, AJAX, IE, and Javascript.

One of my first tasks with VS2008 RTM was to perform a conversion of an existing VS2005 solution to VS2008. So, I opened VS2008, selected the VS2005 solution file for opening, and ran through the wizard. The conversion was perfect with no problems at all whether reported, compilation, or runtime. The solution contained a WebSite, a few DLLs, an Add-In and a Setup Project. It was about 150 files in total. I didn't time it, but if I recall, it only tool less than a minute for the actual conversion, which appeared to be pretty quick at the time.

 

I accidentally opened VS2005 this morning (habit) and clicked on the converted project. VS2005 told me that the project had alread been converted to a newer version of Visual Studio.  This dovetails with yesterday's blog when discussing DJ Park's blog about Multi-targeting. In his blog, DJ Parks shows how one of the differences between the solution file formats is the Visual Studio version number, which is how VS2005 was able to figure out that the solution file belonged to a newer version of Visual Studio. The Microsoft guys are clearly thinking ahead.

Here's Somasegar's VS2008 RTM Release announcement:

 

 

You can get it here:

 

 

I decided to take a look around and see what other people were saying about ASP.NET MVC. There's much buzz and here's a list of items I found interesting:

 

Brad Abrams provides a demo of an RSS Feed

 

Jeffrey Palermo writes an article for CoDe Magazine <-- great magazine

 

But it's taken a while because Jeffrey Palermo has known about this for a while

 

Dino Esposito chimes with an alternative view of MVC as a mechanism for RESTful access

 

Elton Wells is thinking ahead of the curve on combining C# 3.0 Expression Trees with ASP.NET MVC

 

Fredrik Normen has a few postings in his blog and we'll likely see more

 

Of Course, there's a Wikipedia entry

 

How can one have a fairly balanced blog post without at least a little dissention - enter Mads Kristensen

 

Looks like the official announcement at the ALT.NET conference was Flickr'd from a front row seat via IPhone nonetheless - courtesy whoever blowmage is

 

David Hayden briefly compares ASP.NET MVC with Web Client Software Factory. This is someplace I'll revisit to see what he has to say and his views on how the two compare

 

Finally, I had to look up Martin Fowler's thoughts on the new ASP.NET MVC framework and found something much more interesting than I expected

Here's more on the upcoming ASP.NET MVC Framework.  Scott Guthrie has a nice blog post calle ASP.NET MVC Framework (Part 1). Just so you know, this hasn't been released yet, but they are promising soon.

 

Also, you can find some ASP.NET MVC Framework Demos from DevConnections on Scott Hanselman's blog.

In the early days of C#, I used to feature community sites on C# Station that I thought were interesting or useful. This gave them a little more exposure than just being in the links list. Maybe it's a tradition that I'll start back up...

 

One site that you should check out is Hooked on LINQ. In case you haven't heard about LINQ, it is an acronym for Language Integrated Query, which is a Major new feature of the C# 3.0 language. LINQ makes it easier to query objects and data sources, using a single set of syntax and API's that are part of the language.  (Okay, so I couldn't say what it was in 20 words or less, but it is still a cool and useful technology)  Hooked on LINQ is a website, created by Troy Magennis, that is totally dedicated to LINQ.  What is even more interesting is that the site is a Wiki, meaning that you can log in and add your own links and content. Cool site and all the best to Troy.

Another new feature of C# 3.0 is called Implicitly Typed Local Variable Declarations (aka var).  Here's an example:

 

 var score = 5;

 

In this case, score has the value 5 and its type is int. The type is inferred by the compiler based on the assigned expression.  Since the literal 5 is an int, so is cust.  This is equivalent to:

 

int score = 5;

 

Similarly, this:

 

var cust = new Customer();

 

is equivalent to:

 

Customer cust = new Customer();

 

They must also be defined inside of a method or property accessor.