Our last User group session saw some great content from some great presenters.

We started with Dave Lemphers presenting “Developing Multi-threaded Applications using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0”

This session was extremely valuable for anybody, from Architects to developers, providing a glimpse into the future with respect to where hardware is going.

I would like to reinforce that just because we have more grunt available, don’t use it as an excuse to write non performant code.

Dave took us through many examples of multithreading, and there was some fantastic discussion amongst the room as to “Best Practices” and I know a couple of members got an opportunity to clear some misunderstanding they had about this advanced topic.

A really good example of some of the value you get being a member of a user group.

Adam Cogan from SSW delivered the afternoon session “Making VSTS integrate into your current systems”

Adam kept the packed room on the edge of their seats delivering a topic with the enthusiasm of a kid with a new toy that a lot of us (judging by the numbers) are going to become very familiar with over the coming months.

For those who are just about to embark on implementing VSTS he not only highlighted some of the hurdles that we may encounter, but demonstrated some solutions to these. We saw how we could extend / customize the environment to suit OUR needs and he showed us some third party products to fill gaps in the product. Finally he also demonstrated the data warehouse created from the install and showed the ease at which you can get good reporting data.

If you are interested in VSTS and could not make it, then grab the slide decks HERE.

A big thanks to both Dave and Adam.

Alastair