In this SilverlightShow interview, we talk with Brian Noyes –presenter at a total of 4 sessions at
Visual Stuido Live!New York conference (May 14-17, 2012). The topics of the sessions are: Building Portable XAML Client App Logic and Resources, Building Extensible XAML Client Apps, Learn to Behave - Extend Your XAML with Behaviors and Securing and Personalizing Silverlight 5 Client Apps.
As we have announced, SilverlightShow is the Social Media Premiere Partner for this conference and we are sending one SilverlightShow member to this conference for free.
About Brian: Brian Noyes is Chief Architect of IDesign Inc, a Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft MVP. Brian is a frequent top rated speaker at conferences including VSLive, Microsoft TechEd US, EU, Africa, and Asia, DevConnections, DevTeach and others. Brian is author of Developers Guide to Microsoft Prism 4, Developing Applications with Windows Workflow Foundation, Data Binding in Windows Forms 2.0, and Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce. Brian got started programming as a hobby while flying F-14 Tomcats in the US Navy, later turning his passion for code into his current career.
Brian is also a recognized article and ebook author at SilverlightShow, as well as one of our most appreciated webinar presenters (join his upcoming webinar on May 30: Prism and WCF: Two Great Toolkits that Work Great Together).
SilverlightShow: Hi Brian! Your 4 upcoming sessions in VS Live! New York event are currently among the ones attracting most interest, according to the organizers. Why do you think is that?
BN: A lot of people either have a deep investment in XAML client technologies already or are headed in that direction now that it is clear XAML has a long and vibrant future being one of the primary ways of building Windows 8 client applications. My topics target both those in the trenches using XAML today and are focused on topics that will help them write cleaner, more maintainable and well designed application, as well as helping them understand how to position those apps for moving to Windows 8 at the point where it makes sense to do so.
SilverlightShow : Your first session covers porting existing WPF / Silverlight apps to Win 8 / Metro. This seems to be a big concern for developers, judging by our recent webinar sessions on Win 8. What are the top difficulties developers face when porting an app to Win 8, and how will you address them in your session?
BN: The first and most important thing to is have a clear understand of what kinds of code can be reused, in some form, between the old and new XAML technologies. Just because both use XAML and C#/VB doesn’t mean it is a seamless transition. The good news is that developer skills transition pretty seamlessly. But I’ll got through a number of concrete examples to show specifically what kinds of code can be shared without modification, what requires little tweaks, and what is complete throw away – both in the XAML code and in the supporting C# or VB. I’ll show concrete examples of things like styles and templates from WPF and Silverlight that will or will not work on the new platform and show how to design code like view models to work on both platforms. The bottom line is that attendees should walk away with their expectations set correctly – not expecting that everything will just move over seamlessly, but also definitely not a complete rewrite if they start following certain patterns in their XAML and code today in Silverlight and WPF.
SilverlightShow : One of your sessions is on Securing and Personalizing Silverlight 5 Client Apps. Does Silverlight 5 lack something to become the perfect technology for LOB applications?
BN: OK, I have to admit a sarcastic answer pops to mind: “A clear future?” Certainly the biggest problem Silverlight 5 has today is the uncertainty over the future evolution of Silverlight and whether there will be future versions and what that means in terms of using it today. But that is something I can’t really address myself other than to say – Silverlight is a fantastic technology for building desktop client applications today and for at least a number of years to come. In terms of the talk, one thing Silverlight itself lacks a little out of the box are built in security features on the client side. That is a big part of what this talk is about – leveraging everything Silverlight has in the box, and then supplementing it with WCF RIA Services which provides some very rich security and personalization mechanisms for both the client and service side.
SilverlightShow : From the total list of 4 sessions, which one do you think would be most challenging for the attendees, and why?
BN: Definitely the Buidling Extensible XAML Client Applications talk, and the reason is sheer density of the material. In this talk I am jamming into a 75 minute session how to use the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern, Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) and the Prism toolkit to build highly extensible and loosely coupled applications. That means they have to jump on board and understand the fundamentals of three complex supporting technologies as well as seeing how they all fit together coherently in a very short period of time. Despite that I’ve given it a few times in other places and it has been very well received. There are lots of great talks on single technologies, but this one is pretty unique in showing how to combine the three very cleanly. And best of all a good part of the talk is walking through a sample application that shows how it all works that is based on several real world projects I have been the architect for where I have used these techniques with great success.
SilverlightShow : And which topic was most challenging for you to prepare? And why did you decide to go for it?
BN: It is a coin toss between the Building Portable XAML App Logic and Resources and the Building Extensible XAML Client Applications talks. The first because it is all new technology moving onto the WinRT platform and trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t without a lot of samples or documentation to go by, and the latter for just trying to figure out how to cover everything I need to convey the essence of three deep technologies and how they fit together in a single session. Bottom line I like picking challenging topics that I know the hard core developers will drink in. There are lots of choices for learning the mainstream topics, but I try to go for more niche but hard to answer on your own topics.
SilverlightShow : We currently have a contest running, giving one free pass to VS Live! New York. Contestants are asked to provide their top reason for wanting to join this event. What would you suggest them as a top reason for joining this conference?
BN: VSLive! is a great show with a dazzling line of the best speakers that I am honored to get to join into. It’s a great location, with well picked topics and speakers but not so big that the attendees get lost in the crowd – there are plenty of opportunities to track down the speakers and ask questions and learn a lot while having fun in just a few days time.
SilverlightShow: How and where may conference attendees meet you during the conference?
BN: The best bet is always to corner me right before or after one of my sessions, I always try to make point of sticking around outside the room to get all the questions answered that come up afterwards. I also encourage people to come up and talk to me before the talk as well – too often people come in and sit quietly, but that is a great time to get a discussion going that can influence what I cover in the talk. I’ll also be wandering around in the expo hall area and people can always find me on Twitter @briannoyes and try to arrange a meet up.
Thanks Brian for this interview! Wish you, as well as our free pass winner, a great conference event!