Windows Messages - Uses for Delphi in Win32
by Douglas Lindsay of Solution Works

Windows messages are a great and simple way of passing information between applications, threads or even just forms, synchronously or asynchronously. The session solved some common problems in both single- and multi-threaded applications by making use of Delphi's support for Windows messages, avoiding the necessity to learn about more complicated options. The session centred around worked examples, based on Douglas's own experience.

Brilliant session, which can equally well be applied to other languages than Delphi.

Glue Slides
Chaired by Craig Murphy of CraigMurphy.com
and Barry Carr of Ixian Software

In conjunction with Microsoft, Developers' Group and VBUG, Scottish Developers were pleased to hold a FREE day conference for developers.

The linking slides for the day, includes news and information developers may find useful.

Visual Studio 2005 -
Language & IDE Enhancements
by Stephen Turner of Microsoft (UK)

An excellent session delivered by one of Microsoft's top software engineers.

Visual Studio 2005 promises to bring a host of new enhancements to its programming languages and the .NET Framework. C# will be extended in areas which until now have only existed in research languages. We learned how generic will provide improved code reuse, how iterators will simplify implementation of enumerator patterns, were enlightened on how anonymous methods would ease work with delegates, and how partial types will provide easier development and code maintenance.

Visual Basic developers were also shown a glimpse of many of these features, as well as operator overloading and a new series of My classes to make common programming tasks easier. We reviewed all of these, and also look at a bunch of new features in the IDE for improving productivity including refactoring, code snippets, data visualisers and more.

All who attended were delighted by a session on many of the new language and IDE features coming along in the next version of Visual Studio. The IDE productivity improvements and refactoring support were part impressive.

It should be pointed out that Stephen covered many more new features during his demos than are in the Powerpoint document.... one of the many benefits of being there on the day!

What's New in ASP.NET 2.0
by Stephen Turner of Microsoft (UK)

An excellent session delivered by one of Microsoft's top software engineers.

Stephen was originally meant to cover SQL Server 2005, but due to circumstances he was unable to do it on this occasion. However, he didn't disappoint when he treated us to a more indepth look at ASP.NET 2.0 and VS.NET 2005 improvements that will support it.

It should be pointed out that Stephen covered many more new features during his demos than are in the Powerpoint document.... one of the many benefits of being there on the day!

Why Scrum Works
by Craig Murphy of CraigMurphy.com

Craig has recently become a Certified ScrumMaster. Over the last year, he has been doing less front-end development (coding), spending most of his vocational time on project management.

Scrum is a lightweight, iterative, project management technique that promises to deliver working software every iteration (small period of time in which something can be done).

Whilst Craig's not writing software, he's still involved in the production of a major deliverable: a management information system. Craig discussed what has worked for him and what hasn't and, in particular, the bits of Scrum that he has pushed into his current project, and what's required to help you adopt Scrum in your organisation.

Keep track on Craig's blog for more information on his experiences with Scrum.