European VAN on RavenDB on 11 January 2011

For the first E-VAN session of 2011, we’re going to continue our series on NoSQL. So we’re more than happy to announce that Oren Eini, also known as Ayende Rahien, agreed to do a talk on RavenDB. RavenDB is an open-source (with a commercial option) document database for the .NET/Windows platform. RavenDB offers a flexible data model design to fit the needs of real world systems. RavenDB stores schema-less JSON documents, allow you to define indexes using Linq queries and focus on low latency and high performance.

I guess Oren barely needs an introduction as he’s a well known active member of the .NET open-source community (NHibernate, Rhino Mocks, Castle, etc. …), the author of DSL’s in Boo and the developer/inspirer behind products like NHibernate Profiler, EF Profiler, Linq to SQL Profiler and RavenDB. 

Here are the details:

Start Time: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 08:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 09:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 03:00 PM EST, 01:00 PM MST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site, use this time zone converter or every time zone.

Make sure that you don’t miss this excellent learning opportunity and we hope to see you there.

Discussion on the State of (ALT).NET on 23 November 2010

We’ve been hearing and reading quite a lot lately about folks that were part of the ALT.NET community leaving the .NET platform and moving on to other development platforms, not only for late night coding but also for their day jobs. This seems to go along with these people ventilating a lot of frustration regarding the .NET community in general. The ALT.NET community efforts seems to be rapidly declining as well, probably due to the fact that many of the most active members were amongst the first to jump ship. What has changed in the .NET space over the past couple of years, or perhaps, what didn’t change. Do we eventually get fed up with the single vendor driven community or do we get frustrated with the second-class role of open-source in the .NET world?

We would love to have a discussion about this topic and also we would like some feedback about the E-VAN sessions we’ve been doing for the past 1,5 years now. We have some ideas we would like to share and we would love to hear others as well.   

Here are the details:

Start Time: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 08:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 09:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 03:00 PM EST, 01:00 PM MST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site, use this time zone converter or every time zone.

We hope to virtually see you there.

Glenn Block on “WCF - Evolving for the Web“ @ E-VAN 18 October 2010

Glenn Block did an excellent talk on the stuff that he and the WCF team are working on regarding REST and HTTP on the .NET platform. He showed us some of the work that has already been done and also talked about some of the plans for the future. Very interesting to see where this new embrace of HTTP on the .NET platform is headed.

For those who missed it, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

Glenn Block on WCF Evolving for the Web @ E-VAN 18 October 2010

The original file that we used for uploading can be downloaded from Vimeo as well. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is slightly better. It’s also possible to  download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted soon.

Glenn Block on “Embracing HTTP in the .NET platform” on 18 October 2010

We’re happy to announce that Glenn Block agreed to do a talk about REST and embracing HTTP in the .NET platform. REST is a topic that has gotten quite a lot of attention on this format and with good reason. With his talk, Glenn is going to show us some of the investments that are being made to provide richer and more natural support for HTTP in WCF “vNext”. Glenn is going to talk about the work that has already been done and he’s also bringing an inside perspective on what the future will bring. So we’re more than willing to learn more about this new embracement of HTTP in the .NET stack.

For most of us, Glenn barely needs an introduction. Currently he’s a program manager on the WCF team working on Microsoft's future HTTP and REST stack. Prior to WCF he was a program manager on the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) in .NET 4.0.

Here are the details:

Start Time: Monday, October 18, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Monday, October 18, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 03:00 PM EST, 01:00 PM MST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site, use this time zone converter or every time zone.

Make sure that you don’t miss this excellent learning opportunity and we hope to see you there.

Recording of Andreas Öhlund on NServiceBus @ E-VAN 29 September 2010

Andreas Öhlund performed an excellent hands-on coding session showing how to quickly get up to speed with NServiceBus. We could easily tell that Andreas is really passionate about this excellent open-source message bus. He covered the basics of sending messages but didn’t quite get around to demonstrate pub-sub. We’ll probably schedule a second part later on if Andreas agrees to come back on and further enlighten us with another coding session.

For those who missed it, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

Andreas Öhlund on NServiceBus @ E-VAN 29 September 2010

The original file that we used for uploading can be downloaded from Vimeo as well. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is slightly better. It’s also possible to  download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted soon.

Andreas Öhlund on NServiceBus on 29 September 2010

Now that this year’s holiday season has come to an end, we’re going to pick up the European VAN meetings again. Colin and myself have been talking about making a couple of changes about the format and content of these online gatherings, but more on that in a future post.

We’re more than happy to announce that Andreas Öhlund has agreed to show us some of the goodness of NServiceBus. Andreas is a software developer for Frontwalker in Sweden. In his spare time he enjoys doing open-source development as one of the committers for the NServiceBus project. NServiceBus is an open-source, lightweight service bus for .NET and has gained a lot of traction over the last couple of years. You can read a couple of reviews here.

This presentation is going to be an hands-on introduction to NServiceBus with a lot of code samples and some ‘live coding’. Here are the details:

Start Time: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 03:00 PM EST, 01:00 PM MST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site, use this time zone converter or every time zone.

Hope to see you there.

Recording of Hamilton Verissimo on MEF @ E-VAN 28 June 2010

A very informative presentation of Hamilton Verissimo on the Managed Extensibility Framework (aka MEF). For those who missed it, the recording is hereby available on Vimeo:

Hamilton Verissimo on MEF @ E-VAN 28 June 2010

The original file that we used for uploading can be downloaded from Vimeo as well. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is slightly better. It’s also possible to   download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted soon.

European VAN on MEF on 28 June 2010

Hamilton Verissimo, aka hammett, proposed to do an all inclusive talk about the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) on the next European Virtual ALT.NET (thanks to Glenn Block for setting this up). MEF promises to simplify the creation of extensible applications, offering discovery and composition capabilities that can be leveraged to load application extensions.

Hamilton is going to be the first presenter on the E-VAN that holds a blue badge, so we’ll see how this goes ;-).

Here are the details:

Start Time: Monday, June 28, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Monday, June 28, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 03:00 PM EST, 01:00 PM MST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site, use this time zone converter or every time zone.

Be prepared to have a MEFilicious time. We hope to virtually see you there.

Recording of Michael Dirolf on MongoDB @ E-VAN 07 June 2010

We all very much enjoyed Michael Dirolf’s presentation on MongoDB. For those who missed it, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

Michael Dirolf on MongoDB @ E-VAN 07 June 2010

The original file that we used for uploading can be downloaded from Vimeo as well. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is slightly better. It’s also possible to   download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

If you got infected by MongoDB and want to learn more, then the European MongoDB conferences are an excellent opportunity. There’s one scheduled in the UK on June 18 and one in France on June 21. The nice folks at 10gen provided us with a discount code that will give all E-VAN sympathizers a 20% discount at registration (use discount code “evan”). We hope you will enjoy one of those events as well. 

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted very soon.

Recording of J. Chris Anderson on CouchDB @ E-VAN 26 May 2010

J. Chris Anderson did an excellent introductory presentation on CouchDB. For those who missed it, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

J. Chris Anderson on CouchDB @ E-VAN 26 May 2010

The original file that we used for uploading can be downloaded from Vimeo as well. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is slightly better. It’s also possible to   download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

Hope to see you all at the next session on MongoDB.

European VAN on MongoDB on 07 June 2010

We’re happy to announce that Michael Dirolf agreed to do a presentation on MongoDB as part of our series on NoSQL. MongoDB is a scalable, high-performance, open source, document-oriented database written in C++. A highlight of the features are full index support, replication, high availability, auto-sharding, map/reduce, gridFS etc. … . Michael is a software engineer at 10gen working on MongoDB, so we’re pretty sure that he’s got many things to say about it.

Here are the details:

Start Time: Monday, June 07, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Monday, June 07, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 02:00 PM EST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site or use this time zone converter.

Make sure that you don’t miss this excellent learning opportunity and we hope to see you there.

European VAN on CouchDB on 26 May 2010

The next session in our series on NoSQL is going to be a presentation on CouchDB. CouchDB is a scalable, schema-free, open source document-oriented database written in Erlang. None other than J. Chris Anderson is going to do this talk. He’s a CouchDB committer, co-author of the book CouchDB: The Definitive Guide and a director of couch.io, offering commercial hosting, support, consulting, and custom development. We guess that he’s in a pretty good position to tell us more about CouchDB.

Here are the details:

Start Time: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 02:00 PM EST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site or use this time zone converter.

Make sure that you don’t miss this excellent learning opportunity and we hope to see you there.

Recording of Neil Robbins on NoSQL @ E-VAN 26 April 2010

Neil Robbins did a splendid job introducing us to the concepts and main ideas behind NoSQL. For those who missed it, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

Neil Robbins on NoSQL @ E-VAN 26 April 2010

The original file that we used for uploading can be downloaded from Vimeo as well. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is slightly better. It’s also possible to   download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted very soon.

Next European VAN on 26 April 2010

Neil Robbins agreed to do an introductory presentation on the ideas behind NoSQL, what its all about, why its important and where it can be applied. This is going to be the first session in a series on NoSQL. We’re planning to do a couple of other talks on a variety of document databases, key/value stores, etc. during the course of this year.

Here are the details:

Start Time: Tuesday, April 26, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Tuesday, April 26, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 02:00 PM EST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site or use this time zone converter.

If you want to learn what the fuzz on NoSQL is all about, then don’t miss this opportunity. Hope to see you there.

Recording of Discussion on Software Craftsmanship @ E-VAN 06 April 2010

I hope everyone enjoyed last night’s discussion on Software Craftsmanship with Robert C. Martin, David Starr and Mark Nijhof. Unfortunately Corey Haines and Scott Bellware couldn’t join us due to issues with Office Live Meeting. We’re going to re-evaluate whether there are better alternatives to Office Live Meeting that at the very least provide a cross-platform solution.

For those who missed this discussion, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

Discussion on Software Craftsmanship @ E-VAN 06 April 2010

You can also download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

We tried to cover as many questions as possible. In case you’ve got some more questions regarding this topic, you can always post them on the Software Craftsmanship Google Group.

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted very soon.

Next European VAN on 06 April 2010

For this session we’re going to facilitate an open discussion on Software Craftsmanship. We’ve asked a couple of well known craftsmen who have either been involved in the software craftsmanship community or contributed to the greater good of the software community itself.

• Robert C. Martin is the founder, CEO, and president of Object Mentor and is a well known software professional.
• David Starr is the principal craftsman with Guild 3 Software, instructor with Pluralsight, founder of ElegantCode.com and one of the initiators of the Software Craftsman Cooperative.
• Mark Nijhof is going to join us for the third time already and so he barely needs an introduction. He recently started his own business called Cre8ive Thought.
• Scott Bellware is one of the founders of the ALT.NET movement and organizer of the Monospace, ALT.NET Open Spaces and Continuous Improvement conferences.
• Corey Haines is a well known as a Software Journeyman and spent almost a year traveling to pair-program in exchange for room and board. Now he’s still travelling around the world for his Code Retreat tour.

Quite the bunch we gathered here for this discussion. Here are the details:

Start Time: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 08:00 PM UK, 09:00 PM Brussels, 02:00 PM EST and 12:00 Noon PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site or use this time zone converter.

Hope to see you there and also feel free to join the discussion. Needless to say that we’re going to have a blast. If you already have some interesting topics that you want to see discussed here, then please add them to this thread on the Software Craftsmanship Google Group.

Recording of Mike Amundsen on HTTP Web Caching Techniques @ E-VAN 01 March 2010

Mike Amundsen did a really nice presentation on HTTP Web caching techniques. The talk both covered the rationale behind these techniques as well as getting down into the code. Highly recommended for all kinds of web developers.

For those who missed it, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

Mike Amundsen on HTTP Web Caching @ E-VAN 01 March 2010

The trick is to download the original file that we used for uploading. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is a bit better. Also you can download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted very soon.

Next European VAN on 01 March 2010

We’re going to have another topic related to REST just because this is so near and dear to our heart :-). Mike Amundsen is going to do a talk on HTTP Web caching techniques. You can read the outline of the talk here.

Here are the details:

Start Time: Monday, March 01, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Monday, March 01, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 07:00 PM UK, 08:00 PM Brussels, 02:00 PM EST and 11:00 AM PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site or use this time zone converter.

If you want to learn more about this particular topic, then make sure to drop by. Hope to see you there.

Recording of James Gregory on Git @ E-VAN 08 February 2010

James Gregory did a rock solid introductory presentation on Git last night. The talk was mostly hands-on with a bit of history at the beginning and going over the most commonly used commands for the rest of the presentation.

For those who missed it, the recording is now available on Vimeo:

James Gregory on Git @ E-VAN 08 February 2010

The trick is to download the original file that we used for uploading. So you just have to log on (or register if you don’t have an account) and download the original recording in the right down corner. The quality of the original recording is a bit better. Also you can download the original OLM recording here. Keep in mind that this one will only be available for one year.

Details of the next E-VAN presentation will be posted very soon.

Next European VAN on 08 February 2010

We all know James Gregory from the Fluent NHibernate fame, but it seems that he also has quite a few things to say about Git. You’ve probably already heard a lot of buzz around Git and most reactions of developers that already used it seem to be very positive. James is going to give a “getting started with Git” kind of presentation which should be a great way to start out. We’re certainly looking forward to this as both Colin and yours truly are both padawans when it comes to Git.

Here are the details:

Start Time: Monday, February 08, 2010 07:00 PM GMT*

End Time: Monday, February 08, 2010 08:30 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN Calendar: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Home/Calendar

(*) 07:00 PM UK, 08:00 PM Brussels, 02:00 PM EST and 11:00 AM PST. For time zone arithmetic, you can consult the world clock site or use this time zone converter.

If you want to learn more about Git, make sure to drop by. Hope to see you there.