Orcas Overview

On Thursday night I gave a brief overview of the next version of Visual Studio code named "Orcas" using the March CTP to the East Bay.NET FUNdamentals session. I went through building a simple n-tier application from scratch using the new and improved designers. It's really exciting to see the designers in this version allowing you to create n-tier architectures out of the box. Instead of fighting the tools, you can use them in your favor. In particular, I showed the new feature of the DataSet Designer that allows you to generate your DataSets in one assembly and TableAdapters into another data access layer.

The design experience remains the same, however you are not forced to couple your DataSets and validation code with your TableAdapters into one assembly anymore. This coupled with using type sharing when you generate your WCF proxies, you can easily create physically n-tier applications. I also briefly showed some LINQ and how to add a synchronized local data cache using the new Sync Services for ADO.NET. I'm very excited about what these next set of tools will allow developers to do!

And don't forget to check out John Stallo's Live From Redmond webcast on Orcas on April 18th for more information!