Ben H Blog - Keep it Simple, Then Refactor.

I know January is almost over, but to me the year is still new.  I wanted to inform everyone about all the awesome User Groups and Community events in Colorado.

One of the most exciting upcoming events is the first ever Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta on Saturday, Feb. 21.  I cannot explain how cool this event is going to be!  It’s basically an all day geek fix.  There will be sessions related to .NET development, SQL Server and Windows Server.  So, if you work with MS products or know someone who does this is the event for you.  We have tons of speakers (Scott Hanselman is coming!) from all over the country and many who work for Microsoft and have inside info you cannot get anywhere else.  If you like what you are hearing please be sure visit the www.rmtechtrifecta.com site to register for the event to reserve your spot.

Next I wanted to let people know about the South Colorado .NET User Group.  I have taken over the leadership of this group from Julie Yack.  Julie Yack, David Yack and David Milner round out the leadership team for this group.  Next Tuesday we have Kathleen Dollard coming down from Ft. Collins to talk about rethinking Object Orientation.  SHould be great!  Please check out the link above to get more details.

Here are the links to all the MS related user groups I can think of in Colorado.

Denver Visual Studio User Group

North Colorado .NET User Group

Boulder .Net User Group

Colorado Springs SQL Server User Group

Denver SQL Server User Group

Colorado Springs Windows User Group

Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group

Please let me know if I missed a group.

Last Thursday at PASS Camp in Denver I participated in a live webcast\podcast related to SQL Server topics.  Why was a developer involved?  Well I don't want to spoil the surprise so you'll just have to watch.  Wether your a SQL Server expert or just know enough to be dangerous this is a great informational cast.  Check it out!

http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=15

Last Thursday I attend the SQL Server Pass Camp in Denver.  As one of the only developers there I got a lot of negative vibes related to LINQ to SQL and ADO .Net Entity Framework.  DBAs seem to think any tool that generates SQL statements is evil.  I have to admit I agree with them.  Even if the generated SQL is flawless, it can take away the DBAs ability to tune performance.

However, I think there is a happy medium that will help DBAs sleep at night and still give the developers the flexibility they need.  It's the same answer we've been using for years, Stored Procedures.  If you think about it, developers have had the option of running SQL queries directly against the DB for years using inline SQL statements.  So, nothing has really changed.  LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework both have full support for stored procedures.  Use Stored Procedures for all updates, inserts and deletes.  You can also use stored procedures to retrieve data. However this takes away some of the the flexibility LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework provide to the developer.  So, for reads I recommend using views.  They allow DBAs to restrict the columns visible and also provide an extra layer of security.

All the feed back I received from DBAs was positive once I explained that stored procedures and views are still the best practices for these new technologies.  They were also put to ease when I reminded them that this really is nothing new for them.

So to answer the question, LINQ to SQL is not evil.

Yesterday I attended and presented at the Colorado SQL Server PASS camp.  A developer at a SQL DBA event?  And he made it out alive?  Yep I feel like I cheated death.

No seriously, I had a great time and learned many things about some of the DBA's fear of LINQ and the ADO.Net Entity Framework.  I will post more about this subject in a separate post in the interest of not making my posts too long.

Look for a series of posts regarding the info I gathered from attending this event.  Thanks to everyone who organized and attended the event!