The April release date for Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 was accompanied by the usual “hubbub” and evangelical zeal that we’ve come to expect from Microsoft.

It’s fair to say that initial feedback on the changes in the Visual Studio IDE and enhancements to the underlying .NET Framework were broadly positive.

However, it really takes a few months for adoption to ramp up and the real story to emerge from developers in the trenches, so to speak.

In today’s blog, I’m going to focus on our latest .NET training release titled New Features in C# 4.0. While InnerWorkings is a longtime Microsoft partner and we support adoption of the .NET Framework in many ways, we try to keep our heads about new releases.

Our community expects us to focus on the key features that professional developers need to master. So consider us “fair and balanced” but not in the Fox News kind of way…

So what’s important for developers in the latest release of C# and why should you care about it anyway? Let me list the core areas of C# 4.0 that we think developers should focus on:

• using the dynamic keyword as a data type that supports runtime lookup
• using optional parameters for constructors and methods
• explicitly naming an argument being passing to a method
• working with the enhanced COM Interop features in C# 4.0
• dynamically importing COM APIs and deploying without Primary Interop Assemblies
• skipping the passing of optional parameters when making calls to COM objects
• omitting the ref keyword when calling a method on a COM object
• using the built-in .NET interfaces that have been made variant in .NET 4.0
• making generic interfaces and delegates covariant

And that’s really all there is! Our latest Drill on New Features in C# 4.0 is available to all InnerWorkings enterprise customers from today — contact us if you’d like to learn more about our subscription options for developers and software teams. We’ll be adding more .NET 4.0 training (think ASP.NET MVC 2) to the bundle before making it available from our web catalog, so watch this space.

In the meantime, you should check out this Channel 9 video titled Inside C# 4.0 for a behind-the-scenes look at how C# 4.0 evolved at Microsoft. Enjoy!

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If you’re at TechEd 2010 in New Orleans this week, I think you’ll be interested in the following announcement.

InnerWorkings has teamed up with our .NET training partner Pluralsight to offer developers access to a very powerful combined learning solution.

TechEd attendees will get the best of Pluralsight’s acclaimed on-demand training videos from industry experts alongside InnerWorkings’ award-winning learning tool embedded in Visual Studio.

Both our training solutions are available for the price of a single annual subscription — a great deal for folks at the show.

So if you’re at TechEd, please visit the InnerWorkings booth (#2632) or the Pluralsight booth (#2544) and we’ll provide more information about this amazing deal. Inquiries can also be sent to sales@innerworkings.com or pssales@pluralsight.com.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

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It’s a tough world out there for .NET developers and software teams. Just when you think you’ve mastered the latest technique, technology, or framework — along comes something new to rattle your cage.

How many developers conquered the Entity Framework after a long struggle, only to turn the next corner and bump into LINQ? Perhaps you spent months learning WPF and Silverlight 3, just to discover that .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 4 will RTM very soon. It never ends. You just adapt to the shock of the new, learn the necessary skills to thrive, and move on.

So we hope that today’s news is a big win for .NET developers and teams everywhere. 

I’m delighted to announce that InnerWorkings is adding Pluralsight to our list of trusted partners.

I’m sure many of you know Pluralsight well — we have always been most impressed by their combination of top tier instructors, premium video content, and active participation in the .NET community.

Empty announcements are just annoying, so I’ve got something else to add today….

I’m really pleased to announce that Pluralsight is kindly offering InnerWorkings users and affiliates 1 week of access to the Pluralsight On-Demand! .NET training library. And I should add that this exclusive offer is entirely free, gratis, libero, frei.

So don’t look a gift horse in the mouth — get on over to the InnerWorkings offer page on the Pluralsight website and sign up for your free .NET training today. Simply use the activation code 27-1-YHRA-KDST to unlock your access to the Pluralsight library and start learning new programming skills today. Enjoy!

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InnerWorkings CodeBox Provides Alternative to Google Code Search, Krugle, and Koders

San Francisco, CA – August 19, 2009 – InnerWorkings, a provider of practice-based solutions to optimize developer skills and processes across software organizations, today announced the availability a new .NET code search engine solution called InnerWorkings CodeBox™.

InnerWorkings CodeBox is a trusted reference point for .NET code samples and snippets.  It enables developers to search InnerWorkings’ extensive library of sample code, which contains over 1,000 rigorously tested solutions on a wide variety of .NET topics and techniques.  CodeBox always delivers clean and relevant source code, making it a much more reliable source for usable .NET code than search engines such as Google Code Search, Krugle, and Koders.

“Most sample code available on the Internet today is of low quality and questionable value,” said Francis McKeagney, CEO of InnerWorkings.  “You don’t know who has written the code, if it has been reviewed, or if it will even compile.  With InnerWorkings CodeBox you know you’re getting clean code that has been thoroughly tested, released to customers, and that works first-time. Developers can find top quality code in a reliable, efficient way and software organizations will benefit from reduced developer research time and significantly less risk to their code base.”

You can learn more by viewing the InnerWorkings CodeBox datasheet, or by contacting us at sales@innerworkings.com.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA - (Marketwire - July 22, 2009) - InnerWorkings®, the leading provider of practice-based solutions to optimize skills and processes across software organizations, today announced the addition of a money back guarantee clause to their standard licensing agreement. If a customer finds that the coding challenges, real-time code judging, and sample solutions created by InnerWorkings do not help to improve their software developers’ performance and productivity, then the customer may have the program’s license fee fully refunded.

“We are extremely confident about our solution and acknowledge that every company has its own unique standards of performance and productivity for its developers,” said Francis McKeagney, CEO of InnerWorkings. “If a customer finds that our solution does not positively impact its own standard levels of developer performance within 90 days, then they are guaranteed a full refund of the licensing agreement. Our objective is to make a company’s software developers more productive and more efficient through practice-based training. If we are not providing that benefit then our program is not doing its job.”

InnerWorkings has written this customer warranty into its standard licensing agreement based on the firm knowledge that its practice-based learning solutions can measurably impact developer performance. Each company defines their own set of standards for success, so InnerWorkings has decided to present this blanket warranty to emphasize a true commitment to building great software organizations. If a customer is not meeting their own standards of developer performance, they must send a formal claim to InnerWorkings within 90 days of the contract signing to get their license fee fully refunded.

About InnerWorkings

InnerWorkings helps software organizations to gain clear insight into development team capabilities and to optimize skills and processes. The company’s goal is to help customers improve developer utilization and reduce the risks of in-house development, outsourcing, off shoring, and recruiting. InnerWorkings has been a Gold-Certified Microsoft Partner and Visual Studio Integration Partner since 2003. InnerWorkings customers include a number of Fortune 1000 companies. For more information visit http://www.innerworkings.com.

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I thought I’d share a little good news with all our friends and followers this afternoon. I’m happy to announce that InnerWorkings was named a winner of the prestigious annual Bersin Learning Leaders award.  We made our mark in the “Vendor Innovation” category and everyone here is very proud of the accolade, needless to say!

In a world where “astroturfing” or fake product reviews are more common that most web users realize — check out the latest scandal where Belkin’s CEO issues an apology for the shady work of an overzealous employee — it’s nice to get a genuine award that recognizes our hard work in bringing InnerWorkings Developer to market.

Of course, we’ve been saying the product is highly innovative for years (!) but it’s always fun to see some external validation of our unique approach to helping developers learn by doing. Most people remark on our rules-based code judging engine as the most innovative element, but we’ve also pushed the boat out in terms of our SaaS deployment, executive learning dashboards, and web-mediated customer support.

Nor does it stop there — we’re constantly looking at new ways to add value to the software organization and support professional developers who make the wheels go around. With your help and feedback, I’m hoping we’ll be back next year to win another learning award for an innovation yet to be hatched.

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There’s nothing quite like a trip to Seattle in December - for a Dubliner like me, the wet and dreary weather offers a gentle reminder of home! I traveled up to Redmond last week to meet Jim Kayler, a colleague from Wisconsin, for a scheduled interview on Channel 9 about InnerWorkings.

The interview is titled Teaching developers: A peek inside the inner workings of InnerWorkings and it runs to just under 30 minutes. Both Jim and I didn’t quite know what to expect — a friendly chat or a serious interrogation — but we both agreed it was a really enjoyable experience. I encourage you to check it out and let us know what you think:

It was fun to meet Charles Torre, one of the originators of the Channel 9 experience, and a very good interviewer. Charles moves around easily between deep technical subjects, product architecture, startup growing pains, and general business topics. It’s always a bit disquieting to see (and hear) yourself on camera, but the whole interview was a blast and hats off to Charles and the production crew for making it flow so smoothly.

I spent some time researching Channel 9 before our interview, and it’s hard not to be impressed with the site’s pedigree; the same can be said for the talented cast of 9 characters who founded it. After spending some time with Charles and the team, it’s clear that they hold fast to their 9 core principles. This approach is centered on emphasizing ‘the conversation’ by setting PR and spin aside to speak directly to the Channel 9 audience about technologies and industry trends that matter.

The one guiding principle that I found present as a viewer and participant is that people and their stories really matter on Channel 9. Companies aren’t just about product launches, milestones, and press releases — it really is about people working hard to make an idea become a reality. Maybe that’s a better definition of a business than anything you’ll find in a shareholder report or analyst briefing.

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Threading has emerged as a red hot topic in our roadmap as increasing numbers of developers seek to build applications with multiple threads of execution.

What exactly are threads you ask? Wikipedia defines threads as “a way for a program to split itself into two or more simultaneously (or pseudo-simultaneously) running tasks.” I’m not sure what “pseudo-simultaneous” really means, but I do know that threading is one of the least understood aspects of programming today.

The latest news from our R&D team is that we’ve just released 6+ hours of self-paced developer learning that covers the following core aspects of threading:

Threading in the .NET Framework

You’ll learn how to use the .NET thread pool, the BackgroundWorker component, thread safe programming techniques, and asynchronous delegates. You’ll also learn how to perform thread synchronization with wait handles, as well as how to create and control threads manually.

Concurrency Patterns

You’ll learn about the Event-based Asynchronous Pattern, the Countdown Latch, and the Producer/Consumer relationship. You’ll also learn how to parallelize data by using Loop Tiling, avoid deadlocks with Lock Leveling, and work with immutable types.

I encourage you to check out both of these Drills on threading, which are available in C# immediately. They will soon be followed by their VB compatriots, so stay tuned for that release announcement shortly. Enjoy…

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At InnerWorkings, we see daily evidence of a thriving .NET community in the United Kingdom. Many of our web customers are British developers and .NET teams who wisely take full advantage of Sterling’s commanding position relative to the weakening U.S. dollar. But that’s another post and I’m no monetary policy expert — just ask my wife!

VBUG is a good example of the real strength of the UK developer community in action; its charter is to serve professional developers with regular local conferences and events.

VBUG also operates a membership plan for both corporate and individual developers, providing additional value in the form of a free newsletter and member discounts for developer tools and training vendors.

In support of VBUG, we decided to become a joint sponsor of the upcoming VBUG Birmingham Spring Conference on April 24th, 2008. The agenda for this conference looks great, so I’d encourage any local .NET developers and software managers to check it out:

• Visual Studio 2008
• Workflow Foundation 101
• WPF Business Apps
• Silverlight Showcase
• MOSS

As a sponsor, InnerWorkings is throwing in some Silverlight and WPF training for conference attendees. If you’d like to stay in touch with the VBUG team, signing up for their free newsletter is the way to go. For those UK developers who attend the VBUG conference, I look forward to getting your feedback on the event. All in all, it looks like a very useful way for developers to spend a day learning the latest .NET tips and techniques.

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I blogged about our first Silverlight coding contest at Sogeti a few weeks ago and congratulated our winner on his Silverlight coding prowess. Now I’ve two more very worthy winners to announce, which makes me feel a bit like a virtual game show host. On that note, the following winners should step up to take a bow:

• Sam Heck @ Hitachi Consulting
• Jason Menezes @ Capgemini

Each winner qualifies to receive an InnerWorkings subscription ($1,500 value) and a shiny new Xbox 360 from Microsoft. Not bad for a few hours of expert coding time tweaking VideoBrush and MediaElement in a sample Silverlight application, eh?

You can pit your own Silverlight skills against our code checking engine by taking the following Drills from our catalog — topics covered include creating a simple Silverlight control, layout and formatting text, and using brushes. These Drills also cover drawing 2-D shapes, using animation and transformations, and MediaElement and VideoBrush:

• Silverlight Fundamentals using Visual Basic
• Silverlight Fundamentals using Visual C#

And now a bit of background on each of our winners…

Sam Heck (pictured right) is a senior consultant at the Custom Development Practice in Hitachi Consulting. He lives in Baton Rouge, LA where he earned bachelor degrees in computer science and biochemistry at Louisiana State University. In his spare time, Sam enjoys hiking, kayaking, watching sports (and configuring his new Xbox 360).

Jason Menezes is a software developer at Capgemini, based in the company’s Mumbai offices. He’s been working for Capgemini for 18 months, spending most of his time on a core implementation codenamed the Assurance Project. Jason is always keen to learn new technology, and Silverlight was high on his list. Jason really enjoys playing computer games as a hobby and will no doubt make good use out of his new Xbox!

Congratulations to all our latest winners on their well earned prizes — don’t forget to leave some time for learning .NET in between your Xbox sessions, folks!

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