The Microsoft Build 2012 Event — .NET Framework Highlights

It was at the first BUILD conference last year that we announced the .NET Framework 4.5. BUILD last week was a big opportunity for us to reflect on the incredible things you can do with .NET 4.5 and Windows 8. It was also a place where we could launch the great new things now available in Windows Phone 8. Christine Ruana is the project manager that organized the release of the .NET Framework 4.5. She pulled together the following highlights of BUILD and our team’s meet up with .NET users. --Brandon

What an exciting week we had last week! Thousands of talented and eager developers from around the world descended on the Microsoft campus for the four-day Build 2012 event, which was held Oct 30^th– Nov 2^nd. The conference attendees were ready to learn about, develop for, and use the new Windows 8 wave of products Microsoft launched this year! Windows 8 had officially launched on Thursday Oct 25^th, a few days before the event, and everyone was already buzzing with excitement. The big surprise, though, was the launch of the Windows 8 Phone on Oct 29^th, the day before the event. That really amped things up.

Build 2012 had many highlights for attendees as well as for the Microsoft engineers on campus. First and foremost were the four days’ worth of jam-packed technical sessions, which allowed us to share information about the capabilities of the Windows 8 platform in the interconnected world of devices, desktops, and the cloud. All the sessions were recorded, and the information is now available on Channel 9 for your viewing pleasure. Below, I’ve linked to presentations that I think will be particularly useful for .NET Framework developers.

Build 2012 session highlights for .NET Framework developers

Windows Store and desktop apps

· Introduction to Creating Windows Store Apps Using XAML– Chris Anderson, Bede Jordan

· Performance Tips for Windows Store Apps Using XAML– Kiran Kumar

· Desktop Apps: WPF 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012– Pete Brown

Windows Phone 8 sessions

· Windows Phone 8: Application Model– Andrew Clinick

· Create Cross-Platform Apps Using Portable Class Libraries– Daniel Plaisted

· Windows Phone 8: XAML Application Development– Shawn Oster

· How to Leverage Your Code Across Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8– Doug Rothaus, Andrew Byrne

· Windows Phone 8: Critical Developer Practices for Delivering Outstanding Apps– Stefan Wick

· Windows Phone 8: Performance & Optimization for Developers– Oren Nachman

· Windows Phone 8: Maps, Location, and Background Execution for Developers– Adina Trufinescu, Mike O’Malley, Cristina del Amo Casado, Daniel Estrada Alva

· Deep Dive into the Kernel of .NET on Windows Phone 8– Subramanian Ramaswamy

· Windows Phone 8: Enterprise Development– Cliff Strom, Shawn Henry

Web and the cloud

· Angle Brackets, Curly Braces, One ASP.NET, and the Cloud– Scott Hanselman

· Building Real-Time Web Apps with ASP.NET SignalR– Damian Edwards

· Building Services for Any Client with ASP.NET Web API– Daniel Roth

· Building Data Centric Applications for Web, Desktop, and Mobile with Entity Framework 5– Rowan Miller

· Bleeding Edge ASP.NET: See What is Next for MVC, Web API, SignalR, and More… - Jon Galloway, Scott Hanselman

Visual Studio and development tools

· Designing Awesome XAML Apps in Visual Studio and Blend for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8– Jeffrey Ferman

· What’s New in Visual Studio 2012– Orville McDonald

· Easy Asynchrony with C#: No More Callbacks!– Mads Torgersen

· The Evolution of .NET– Brandon Bray

LOB apps

· Workflow & Workflow Manager 1.0: What’s New, What’s Coming– Dave Cliffe

· Building apps for Office and SharePoint 2013 Using the Web Technologies You Know and Love, Part 2– Keenan Newton, Eray Chou

In addition to the sessions, there were multiple opportunities for the Build 2012 attendees to meet face to face with .NET Framework engineers (and vice versa!) to share information, answer questions, and discuss various things relating to the .NET Framework. Our .NET Framework engineers staffed the Visual Studio booth around the clock. This presence led to many impromptu discussions and conversations as attendees were transitioning between sessions.

.NET Framework engineers David Kean and Lakshan Fernando discussing .NET code sharing with two Virginia Tech alumni.

On the evening of Tuesday, Oct 30^th, the local .NET Developer Association partnered with the .NET Framework team to host a meetup on the Microsoft campus, primarily for out-of-town Build 2012 attendees. By all accounts, the party was a success! About 25 .NET Framework engineers attended the event, including those from the .NET Framework runtime, ASP.NET, SQL Data, and Visual Studio, and were easily identifiable by their colorful hats. About 120 local .NET enthusiasts and Build 2012 attendees joined us that night to continue the conversation. Since this was the first night of the conference, several people were eagerly unwrapping and showing off their brand-new Surface RTs and Nokia Lumia 920 phones, making everyone else jealous. And the highlight of the evening was Scott Hanselman’s entertaining demo of a remote-worker-remote-camera solution where he showed how perfectly the .NET Framework with C# provided everything he needed to hook up the disparate components.

Build 2012 attendees at the “Come Meet Members of the .NET Team” meetup Tuesday evening, Oct 30^th

Scott Hanselman doing what he does best – entertaining a group of techies

The Build 2012 conference is over, but the building of the Windows 8 wave of new apps and products has only just begun. We on the .NET Framework team are looking forward to taking the journey with you. We appreciate your feedback as we continually strive to strengthen and improve your developer experience with the .NET Framework. Please continue to reach out to us through User Voice, blog comments, Twitter: @DotNet, or the .NET Forums. We love hearing from you!