Repeat of the MEF talk at PDC2008

Repeat of the MEF talk at PDC2008:

After the amazing great reception MEF got during ScottGu's keynote yesterday we had tons of people ask about a MEF session. So we are VERY happy to be able to repeat Glenn's MEF session... Please come if you can.

TL33-R Managed Extensibility Framework: Overview [REPEAT]

Wed 10/29 | 4:45 PM-6:00 PM | 409A
Presenter: Glenn Block
Glenn Block

Please Note: This session is a repeat of TL33, which originally took place on October 27th at 1:45PM. The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a new extensibility model in the .NET framework that provides a simple declarative model for application developers and extenders to build openly extensible applications. Come to this session and you'll learn about our Composition model and the APIs that work with it. You'll learn about composable parts, exports, imports and the composition container that brings them all together. You'll see how using the model you can develop open-ended applications that can easily be extended both internally and by third-parties.

Framework Design Guidelines Video from PDC2008 Talk Posted

The great folks that work tirelessly behind the scenes here at the PDC have already gotten the Framework Design Guidelines Video posted.

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC58/

Enjoy!

10 Years of Framework Design Guidelines (video)

Krzysztof Cwalina and I had a chance to sit down and chat with informIT just before the PDC to talk about how the design guidelines have evolved over the last 10 years. The latest version of the guidelines have just been published as the Framework Design Guidelines 2nd Edition.

10 Years of Framework Design Guidelines (video)

Also, Krzysztof and I did an interview where we talked about what is new with the Framework Design Guidelines 2nd Edition.

Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries (video)

Best Practices for Wrapping Native Code

At our talk on Framework Design Guidelines at the PDC, Krzysztof and I were asked about resources for wrapping a native code library in a nice managed code framework.

This is an extremely common pattern. Organizations frequently have large "heritage" investments in C\C++\COM code and now they need to expose that functionality is way that is productive and familiar to .NET developers. Wrapping the native functionality in a well-designed managed library maximizes the productivity of the breadth of .NET developers.

I promised to blog a few resources on how to best accomplish this.

Jesse Kaplan recent PDC talk is relevant: Managed and Native Code Interoperability: Best Practices

CLR Inside Out: Marshaling between Managed and Unmanaged Code
Yi Zhang and Xiaoying Guo - January 2008
Marshaling is an important part of .NET interop. It allows you to call into unmanaged code from managed code. This column will help you get started.

CLR Inside Out: Introduction to COM Interop
Thottam R. Sriram - January 2007
The CLR allows seamless interactions between Microsoft .NET applications and COM. But how, exactly? The CLR team knows.

In addition, Jesse will have a great article in MSDN magazine in Feb 2009.. you should check it out.

Book Plug: Silverlight 2 Unleashed

I was very honored when Laurent Bugnion asked me to write the foreword for Silverlight 2 Unleashed. Laurent has long been a very active member of the Silverlight (and general .NET) community. He is plugged in and deeply understands the platform.

You can read my forward on line..

Oh, and his book is in color, code samples and all! very cool.

;-)

Enjoy!

Book Plug: The C# Programming Language (3rd Edition)

At PDC2008, we shipped the third edition of the C# Language specification... If you are a language-lawyer type or just like to know exactly how the latest version of the language works, this book is for you!

In this addition, we tried something new, we asked some folks from the community to add some annotations about pit falls, best practices, and history. Please take a look and let us know what you think... Do these sort of things work for you?

dnrTV Does MEF!

Glenn Block recently did a great screen cast on the Managed Extensibility Framework.

Show #130 | 11/26/2008

Glenn Block on MEF, the Managed Extensibility Framework
Glenn Block shows you how to use MEF to allow a plugin architecture in your .NET applications. The framework is extensible enough to allow any type to be imported and exported as managed plugins, which are called parts.