Compiler Lab Spring 2006
Day 1 : LINQ
Finally, after months of planning and preparing the lab, we have started! We had a good turn out this year and I am excited to hear feedback about our content in the next three days. We've also invited Harry Pierson to blog about the lab. So if you want to hear about the lab from an attendee point of view then you should check out his blog at: https://blogs.msdn.com/devhawk/
This morning, we kicked started the event with an Exec welcome from Scott Wiltamuth, and a welcome speech by Erik Meijer. We hit the road running by a great LINQ Keynote from Anders Hejlsberg. He covered topics such as basic LINQ, DLINQ and XLINQ. We had good participation from the group with some great questions being asked.
Erik Meijer and Mads Torgensen did the second talk about about LINQ compiler with a deep discussion about "Extension Methods" and "Query Comprehensions" in LINQ. The two talks showcase LINQ in both C# and VB, and highlighted some of their differences.
After lunch, we had a quick half hour demo on VB and LINQ and the attendees moved on to lab time. During lab time, the LINQ and CLR team visited the attendees to answer questions and help with using the bits. We also had some great discussions about annoymous types. The day ended with a roundtable Q&A session with the Attendees.
The latest LINQ bits are available here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/linq/default.aspx
Day 2 : IronPython
Jim Hugunin kicked started today with a IronPython talk. Showing really cool demos of what Python can do on top of the .NET framework. This includes loading Avalon (WPF) and XAML with five lines of code or less (users can do this with the IronPython Tutorial available on the link below.) Next, we have Martin Maly, a developer for IronPython, who did a detail walkthrough in the key components of the source.
Over lunch, our guest was shown the recent presentation by Don Syme about F#. (Unfortunately, Don is in Cambridge, and is unable to be here in person.)
Our guest also did a half hour talk on the projects that they have been working on. It is great to see the community share experiences with each other.
During Lab time, when our guest are experiementing with the LINQ, IronPython, F#, and Monad. Members from the CLR team visited and had great discussions about debuggers, jit, and of course IronPython. Erik Meijer was also around to help attendees who are interested in talking about LINQ.
IronPython Beta4 bits are avaliable here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab942d78-b3df-428d-a2e7-f80949607c1a&displaylang=en
F# bits are available here: https://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/default.aspx
Monad bits are available here:
https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=239a1116-c0f5-4320-84fc-2ad625ebb910&DisplayLang=en
Day 3: VSIP and Phoenix
VSIP kick started the day with a talk on their technologies followed by a Q&A session. Then after break, we have the Phoenix guys come over to give us an update on their project. Over lunch, several members of the CLR team visited our guest and had engaging talks about standard data structures and performance. Finally, Erik Meijer ended the lab with his closing notes and a trip to the Company store.
I hope the attendees enjoyed the lab as much as I did putting it together.
P.S. Harry is one step ahead of me.. he already blogged about the event here for day 1 and day 2.