Public Class GeoffAppleby

So, How Was the Security Summit?

It was good, thanks for asking :)

It was a great day for sure - lots of fun, and lots of good information. I stayed on the MSDN track, which mostly about Team System features, so missed out on 2 of the 3 Yukon talks, which is a shame, a chance to see VSTS in action was worth it :)

• Opening Keynote: Ben English, from the MS security team) drove this, and we got some overviews of WUS, VSTS, MOM, and other goodies. Note: If you do a google search for Ben English, you get some interesting results. Make sure you qualify it a little (eg, 'ben english microsoft').
• Session 1 - VSTS Overview: This was cool - they brought Prashant Sridharan in from the states (I'm guessing he just likes Sydney beaches) to talk about this. He knows a heap of stuff (you'd hope so, since he's like a senior product manager for it) and gave some really good demos on what you can do in Team Architect, Team Developer, and Team Test, and the differences between the three.
• Session 2 - Tools for Quality Code: Nigel Watson ran this one. It was focused mostly on the code testing tools in Team Developer - PreFast and FXCop, and the massive amounts of help that we get now in writing unit tests - the coolest part being that both normal unit testing and TDD are easy to do. I have a bit of a beef with this session. Half of it was an Ad for Compuware, and the add ins that they've written for visual studio. It's important that MS recognizes their partners, and that we know what the VSIPs have on offer - but when I go to these sessions, I want information and useful help with either MS products (it's an MS event after all) or assistance in how to do my job well. The Compuware part, while coming from the angle of 'Look how this will help you write more stable secure code', didn't feel helpful. There wasn't enough time to cover what they should have been covering, so it was extremely rushed to pack it all in, and it ended up coming out as just a marketing gimmick. That said, their Fault Simulator and SecurityChecker look pretty cool :)
• Session 3 - Design for Operations: This one was presented by Nigel again, with some help from Dave (I can't remember his last name). This was a more in depth demo of the designers in Team Architect. Very cool. Nigel did the talking, Dave ran the demos, and they showed some very good stuff.
• Session 4 - Source Control and Work Item Tracking: Prashant did this one. It was very cool - I was particularly interested because it's this bit we're having the most pain with - ClearCase and ClearQuest are just so painful. I'm impressed with how it's looking. He also spent some time talking about pricing and licensing. He didn't talk actual dollar values, but he said that a full blown VSTS will cost more than the current Enterprise Architect version, but current MSDN Universal subscribers will get a free license for either Team Architect, Team Developer, or Team Test (choose for yourself) - and renewal of the subscription, if done within a certain time frame after VSTS comes out, will cost no extra either. The Team Foundation server, however, must be purchased separately and won't be part of the MSDN subscription. He also mentioned an outlook plugin that they'll be shipping too for work item tracking, and the full source will available - sweet.
• Session 5 - Click Once: The best session of the day, and not just because I'm friends with Andrew Coates, who ran the session. He's a fantastic presenter (well, I thought so) and he knew his stuff, which is important for all presenters. And his code samples were in VB :) It's a really good feeling to see it proven that code I've written in the past can just be thrown away - Click Once is going to make desktop deployment and updates so much easier, it's not funny. The application updater block and variants can be thrown away now, I think.
• Session 6 - Into to SQL Server 2005 Programming: Greg Low ran this one, and it was good to finally meet him. This was a very quick overview talking about changes to TSQL, CLR integration, the security model, and changes to ADO.net. There's so much that's new and changed that one hour is not enough at all - but it was a nice quick run through.
• Beers Afterwards: Probably the best part of the night, sitting around chatting with Eddie de Bear, Andrew, Greg, Mitch Denny, Darren Neimke, Joseph Cooney, Ken Schaefer (Mr adOpenStatic himself!), and...some other people :) (Readify guys, Avanade guys, Athena from the Canberra Users Group). Was a good time to be had by all who bothered to show up :)

Other important things of note:

• I'm now in two different draws to win an XBox.
• I'm in a draw to with a VSTS surf board.
• I better bloody win something!!
• MSDN Connection members got spoiled. W00t!

Well done to everyone involved, it was a fantastic day.