12:00-13:00

The Microsoft Web Story: ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX, and WPF/E / Jeff Prosise

If you build Web apps for Microsoft platforms, times are changing--and fast. First there's ASP.NET 2.0, which is arguably the richest server platform available for building scalable, high-performance Web apps. Then there's ASP.NET AJAX, which extends ASP.NET 2.0 with a rich AJAX framework. Finally, there's WPF/E, which extends browsers to support incredibly rich and interactive content. This session surveys these technologies, overviews their features and capabilities, and sets the stage for the drill-downs in subsequent sessions.

13:15-14:15

The ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions / Jeff Prosise

The ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions are the half of ASP.NET AJAX that run on the server. They include a suite of server-side controls that make AJAX programming as simple as dragging controls onto a form, and a set of ASMX extensions that enable Web services to serve as endpoints for asynchronous XML-HTTP requests from JavaScript clients. This session drills down into the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions and provides critical information not only about how they're used, but how they work.

14:45-15:45

The Microsoft AJAX Library / Jeff Prosise

The heart of ASP.NET AJAX is the Microsoft AJAX Library, which is a JavaScript framework that runs on the client and is not only browser-agnostic, but server-agnostic as well. This session takes a deep dive into the client-side framework and demonstrates how developers can leverage it and extend it to build cutting-edge Web apps. Among other things, you'll learn how the Microsoft AJAX Library adds OOP to JavaScript and how to use this knowledge to implement features that aren't possible from the server side.

16:00-17:00

Asynchronous ASP.NET 2.0 Programming (Level 400) / Jeff Prosise

One of the keys to building highly scalable ASP.NET applications is to use the ASP.NET thread pool as efficiently as possible by avoiding situations where ASP.NET threads lay dormant waiting for I/O operations such as database queries and Web service calls to complete. This session describes how to do just that by leveraging ASP.NET's three asynchronous (and largely undocumented) programming models: asynchronous pages, asynchronous handlers, and asynchronous modules. A session that will change your life!