We have Chris Hammond coming to talk with us at the Capital Area DotNetNuke User Group (http://www.capitaldug.org) meeting this coming Wednesday, May 21st. Chris is a core team member of the DotNetNuke development team.

This will be a great meeting for those interested in developing DotNetNuke Modules!

The meeting starts at 7pm at the ATT offices in Tysons Corner, in Vienna, Virginia.

First, let me congratulate our fearless leader, Scott Lock on being selected as a Microsoft MVP. This is a wonderful accomplish and it is about time Microsoft got around to recognizing all the people who organize events and connect developers together. Scott's recognition is long overdue. He's not only a technologist, but a community leader.

On most nights there is a user group somewhere in the Washington DC metro area with someone presenting technical content that would typically cost significant monies in travel, lodging, and registration fees to see the same content at a conference or training scenario. Without a doubt, the CAPAREA user group has had a stellar list of presenters and topics. Without people like Scott, who work tirelessly to make these presentations happen - and for no compensation - the developer community would not have access to these wonderful resources. Thanks Scott - and kudos for a job well done.

Scott is giving a presentation tonight at the Capital Area .NET User Group (CAPAREA) on VSTO - Automation and Customizing Excel 2003.

Here's the summary:

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 7:00 PM

Building office applications has never been better.  You've heard all of the hype about Office 2007, Ribbons, etc.  This session is based on what the majority of us are in today...Office 2003.  Customizing and automating Excel 2003 is a great way to build dynamic workbooks that solve some cool problems.  This presentation is an overview of what Visual Studio Tools for office is about and how it applies to Excel 2003 and Office 2003.

Located below are the SQL, data and VB project files from my presentation at the Richmond Code Camp

RichmondCodeCampXquery.zip (12.6 KB)

Here is my powerpoint presention. It is more than a little light because the focus of CodeCamp is the CODE!

Richmond Code Camp XQuery Tips and Tricks.ppt (2.34 MB)

I would like to thank Andy Leonard, Susan Lennon, and the rest of the Richmond crew for a well run operation.

When working on code developing a SQLCLR stored procedure for my upcoming presentation at the Richmond Code Camp, I ran into this problem with the SqlPipe output.

Here is my code:

<Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlProcedure()> _
Public Shared Sub procExtractSubjectDetail ()
'Return a string of Subject IDs/XML seperated by a ";"
Try
'Connect to database, notice the context connection
Dim Command As SqlCommand = New SqlCommand
Command.Connection = New SqlConnection("Context connection=true")
Command.Connection.Open()

'Generate the SQL query
Dim strSQL As String = "SELECT ID, Study FROM StudyDetail"

'Attach query to command object
Command.CommandText = strSQL

'Execute command object and get results back in a SQL reader object
Dim reader As SqlDataReader = Command.ExecuteReader()

'Create an efficient stringbuilder to hold the results
Dim Subjects As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder

'Add an emtpy string
Subjects.Append("")

'Collect the results
While reader.Read
'String output size limit is 4kb
'so let us restrict our output for this demo
Subjects.Append(reader.Item(0).ToString() + "/")
Dim sXml As SqlXml = reader.GetSqlXml(1)

Subjects.Append(sXml.Value.ToString)
End While

'Close and release the reader
reader.Close()
reader = Nothing

Dim strResult As String = Subjects.ToString()

'Is it too big?
Dim iSize As Integer = strResult.Length

'Send the results
SqlContext.Pipe.Send(strResult)

Command.Connection.Close()

Catch ex As Exception
'Catch the error and resend it. You could add more error code handling here.
Throw New ApplicationException("An error occurred. " + ex.ToString())
End Try

End Sub

--

This was failing when I ran the code. The issue? SqlContext.Pipe.Send(STRING) only allows a string size of 4k bytes. My output was over 7k.

OK. I'm a slacker.

I promised to get this up back a month ago. Here is my powerpoint presentation on developing user defined aggregates in SQL Server 2005 using .NET CLR. I gave this presentation at the NovaSQL user group. The group is managed superbly by Jeremy Kadlec, who also does MS SQL Tips.

XQuery has now reached standardization by the W3C. The XML Team at Microsoft is now asking for input on whether there should be a standalone XQuery implementation in the .Net Framework in their blog entitled Standalone XQuery Implementation in .NET?.

My posted response is below:

I, also, would like to see an XQuery implementation within the .Net Framework.

If available, I would be more inclinded to use XQuery over XSLT, particularly in a more dynamic setting to extract data, and then to shape the output before consuming within an application.

While the XQuery implementation in SQL Server 2005 is excellent, it is still only a subset of the standard, for example, the ability to query against multiple documents. And, I would prefer to see the implementation as native to the .Net Framework, rather than as a commercial add-on.

The differences between what could be and what is available now are two fold. First, the current implementation resides on server-side, within the SQL Server itself. A .Net Framework (System.XML.XQuery) implementation would allow the developer to choose where the query would be executed. Additionally, you would be able to query across multiple documents, which you cannot do in the SQL Server 2005 version.

I have found the XQuery syntax to be easier to craft to extract XML content and shape the output than using XSLT. I think there is a strong incentive to have the XQuery implementation because it can provide some features that may either be missing or are easier to use than SQL Server XQuery, LINQ or XSLT.

I vote "Yes" to XQuery in the .Net Framework.

CAPAREA was visited by none other than Mr. VB, himself, Paul Vick. He is the Microsoft VB language architect on Tuesday, September 26th.

Paul's topic was "Visual Basic 9.0: Language Integrated Query (LINQ), XML integration and beyond...". Paul is also author of The Visual Basic .NET Programming Language.

The speaker was a huge draw for our group. We had over 65 people in attendance last night.   

http://www.caparea.netBrian Noyes' book, Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0, has recently hit the street. Brian is the Executive VP at CAPAREA.NET and responsible for managing our speaker series (which has been excellent). Brian is also a Microsoft MVP and Regional Director. Brian is also a chief architect at iDesign, and works with Juval Lowry and Michelle Bustamante. I understand that Brian will be speaking at Microsoft's TechEd this year.

If you are intersted in getting Brian's book, you can find it here on Amazon. Of course, we are giving a couple away for some lucky prize winners who attend our CAPAREA.NET user group meetings over the next couple of months.

Kudos to Scott Lock, CAPAREA President, for getting Jasper Johansson, Microsoft Security Expert, as a presenter on December 13th.

The presentation that he will give is still being discussed, but needless to say, his "How To Get Your Network Hacked in 10 Easy Steps" and other presentations were SRO (standing room only) at recent Microsoft TechEd conferences. Not only are his topics critically important to IT developers and administrators, but he is one of the best presenters I have seen (and I have seen a few).

See you there!

OK, this is my own personal opinion, but I think it is in Microsoft's best interest to have people on standards committees and working groups, like the World Wide Web (W3C).

I imagine that it might be uncomfortable for Microsoft and its managers to have staff that both pursue work on Microsoft projects and also work on standards committes. Not only is there the issue of dividing time with your valuable resources (i.e. your employee), but also there may be times when the standards work against Microsoft.

However, that being said, as a programmer and developer, I am more apt to embrace technologies that work with open standards - not necessarily open source - then those that don't. Politically, it is a good move for Microsoft - I think it helps with acceptance of the product and tools. And, on a personal level, I hold in high esteem those folks that are working hard to come up with the standards so that systems can be built that are flexible, consistent, and can communicate. I imagine that it is not easy to work in such a compromising environment, but i am confident that the results will yield better tools for us developers.

Like it or not, it is the developers, and others down at the code or hardware level, who will always be the evangelists for technologies. I've rarely ever met a manager that was. If Microsoft relies on managers to be its guide, then it will lose its passion and the passion of its developer community, and become just another company. But "playing nice" in a cooperative manner with standards groups is one way to keep that passion alive...and I applaud Microsoft for its involvement and hope they continue to do so.

At the PDC, Microsoft talked about a host of new technologies, servers, and systems that will be rolling out in the next couple of months and years.

A reoccurring theme among some of these technologies and platforms is the integration of RSS. I have seen articles and now seeing this information at PDC, I am very much convinced that RSS will be the informational packaging used between business, services, peer-to-peer, etc., etc.