Heroes Happen Here

So I went to the Heroes Happen Here launch event yesterday.  I had fun, learned a lot, and got some free software.  It was especially nice because I knew some of the people there.  My old boss was there, and I got to talk to him for a while.  A co-worker was supposed to come as well, but wasn't able to make it.  My mother, who is also a programmer, came.  As a side note, someone walked off with her notebook (paper, not electronic, but her software package was tucked inside).  Really, the nerve of some people.  Whoever took it belongs in prison.

Another note about the software-- they sprung a surprise on us, and not a nice one.  We only get one year evaluation licenses for SQL Server and Windows Server.  It's disappointing, because at the 2005 event they were full licenses and there was no clear indication for this event it wasn't also the case this time.  Supposedly the software won't stop working after a year and will still validate as "genuine" for updates and all that, but you'll be in violation of your EULA and I don't know if you'll be able to re-install it.  I have a feeling that using it longer will be sort of unofficially sanctioned, like how Vista upgrades itself, but I'll still be waiting a while to actually install it.

I'm willing to wait because there was another surprise: they also gave us a full copy of Vista Ultimate 32-bit.  This doesn't expire and I can re-install it later, so I'm using it for now instead.  I would have liked to try the 64-bit edition, but the option wasn't available this time.  Check back next week for my full review--  I have lots to say, but you need to use a system for a while to really appreciate it. UAC, for example, is really annoying at first as you set up the system and are constantly making lower-level changes.  But once the computer is mostly configured it might not be so bad anymore, and I want to test that.  I think that to avoid this 'burn in' period Microsoft should have disabled UAC by default for the first 30 days, and then start nagging you until you either turn on UAC or disable the prompt like they do to restart the computer after updates.

I have used Vista before, but this will be a nearly-first impression.  The last time I used Vista was the last beta before the release candidates, and it was the 64-bit edition.  At that time I was having motherboard issues in XP as well and there wasn't a good 64-bit driver for my video card yet.  So here is my install experience and first impression:

So far it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.  It installed in less time than it takes to bake a potato (I know because my wife was baking potatoes while I installed), and detected all my hardware.  Let me say that again-- I didn't have to find or install a single driver.  Normally just before I install a new operating system I make sure of two things:  that I know the make and model of each major device and that I have a good driver handy for the network card.  Given those I can find the rest on-line very easily.  This time I didn't need anything, though that's really not more than I should expect for my slightly older computer.  To this point I haven't seen the glitches people are complaining about.  Gaming performance is not noticeably degraded (more on that next week).  Right now my favorite new feature is one that no else seems to even notice:  the new address bar (more on that next week as well).  On the other hand, people tend to heap praise on the new start menu, while I just find it a jumbled mess.  No doubt I'll adjust soon enough.

Getting back to the main topic, here are a few of the things I learned about at the launch event.  Some of them aren't very interesting, but they caught my attention because they're more relevant where I currently work, or because I hadn't heard about them elsewhere:

Windows Server 2008

• I never saw a single UAC pop-up.  Whether that means it was disabled for the demo, the demo was carefully orchestrated to avoid them, or Windows Server is just better about UAC I don't know.  I suspect the first.
• IIS7 is a big improvement, and will bring back real xcopy deployment for ASP.Net developers.  As it stands, ASP.Net requires the creation of a virtual directly before a new site will function.  This is still the case with IIS7, but now you can automate the creation just by including the appropriate config file in your site.
• Most of the other items I saw don't matter much unless you're in a larger environment than I deal with right now: say at least a dozen servers or 100 desktops.

SQL Server 2008

• Configuration Server:  We can register similar servers or databases under a configuration server and then run queries against the configuration server.  The configuration server will then run that query on all the registered servers and return the aggregated results.
• Change Data Capture.  It's no longer necessary to build audit trails into your applications.  Developers can focus on building features, and let CDC worry about audit information.  This is also more secure and faster because it moves the audit information away from the busier and more open application, and centralizes it for easier auditing.

Visual Studio 2008

• Office development is a lot easier.  It's pretty easy to build new ribbons or add-ins.  I missed the section on deployment, though.
• LINQ is even cooler than I thought.  I saw a demo where SQL data was joined with XML data as easily as if they were two simple tables in the same database.  Unfortunately, it makes VB.Net a 2nd class citizen because it likes to use anonymous types.
• I'm looking forward to the javascript debugging improvements, but I didn't get to see it demoed.