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 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 Discussion on REST @ E-VAN 20 July 2009

Our initial plan was to get Ian Robinson and Jim Webber to appear for this session, but due to some technical difficulties with Office Live Meeting that plan was flushed down the drain. Despite having done a successful dry run, who would have guessed that Office Live Meeting causes so many problems when used on the new Windows 7?

Gladly Colin Jack, Alan Dean, Sebastien Lambla and Udi Dahan chimed in to have an alternative discussion on REST which worked out pretty well actually. You can listen (rather than watch) to this discussion at the usual backlog:

Discussion on REST @ E-VAN 20 July 2009

Rest assured that the discussion with Ian Robinson and Jim Webber will be rescheduled to a later date. We will post the details on this blog soon.

Recording of Alan Dean on REST @ E-VAN 06 July 2009

Great presentation performed by Alan Dean on Separating REST Facts from Fallacies for last night's European VAN. You simply can't afford to miss this presentation if you want to get your REST facts straight. You can watch the recording from the E-VAN gold collection:

Alan Dean on REST @ E-VAN 06 July 2009

Keeping in touch with the spirit of REST, Colin already posted the details for the next E-VAN meeting. Ian Robinson and Jim Webber were kind enough to answer all your questions about REST.

Ian Robinson and Jim Webber on 20th July

As part of our series of session REST we've been lucky enough to get Ian Robinson and Jim Webber to agree to appear on the E-VAN on the 20th and we're looking for your input to help shape their session. The more views/questions the better so add them as comments or e-mail them to us and we'll aggregate them for Ian/Jim.

As you may know they are writing a book on REST, along with Savas Parastatidis and have also written one of the best articles on REST that you'll find. However there are a range of other related topics that are worth discussing including MEST, Guerilla SOA, ESB's, consumer driven contracts, and business service design so feel free to submit as many questions as you can on these or any other topics by adding comments to the blog entry.

And don't worry if some of these are new to you I've added some links below so get learning :P

Session Details

Monday July 20th (6:00PM GMT)

In France/Germany/Belgium: 8:00PM
In UK is: 7:00PM
EST in the US is: 2:00PM (EST)
PST in the US is: 11:00AM

Attendee URL

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

Links

Here's some great links you might want to look at before the session:

• MEST - Jim has discussed why in many cases his default is now to consider Web-oriented style of architecture, but when/where is a MEST style (sans-SOAP) still a good choice?
• Guerilla SOA - See Jim's session at InfoQ, definitely a topic worth discussing particularly as to do it successfully seems to involve bringing in a range of other interesting topics.
• Consumer Driven Contracts - A very interesting topic and one its definitely worth spending some time familiarizing yourself with.
• ESBs - This relevant given Martin Fowlers recent post which discusses the misuse of ESBs but you might also want to watch the presentation that Martin/Jim did at QCon called Does My Bus Look Big in This?
• Service Design - As was discussed on the session with Udi there are some techniques you can use to define large scale business services. But how do we go about defining the boundaries of these business services? Is capability modelling the best approach? Ian has a great post on some of the subtleties involved but it's a great topic, as is taking the output of the capability modelling and building sensible services. You might also want to read this post by Ian and a related one by Jim.
• Combining REST with Web Services - A topic that was also discussed in the Thoughtworks REST podcasts, so where are Web services still useful? Mixing REST, MEST and Web Services...are projects doing this successfully?

See you on the 20th.

Alan Dean on REST (Monday 6th July 2009)

We've now planned the next couple of E-VANs which will focus on REST, the first will be with Alan Dean where he will cover facts and fallacies related to REST.

Alan is a real authority on REST and he's got a great talk ready so this is a great chance to find out more about REST. In addition if you have any particular questions for Alan, or topics you'd like to discuss in detail, then you can add them to the existing topic on the google group.

Start Time on Monday July 06 (7:00PM GMT)
In France/Germany/Belgium: 9:00PM
In UK is: 8:00PM
EST in the US is: 3:00PM (EST)
PST in the US is: 12:00PM (Midday)

The session will last around 90 minutes and on timings see this world clock site or more information.

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