ASNApalooza Sessions

Register Now

This year’s ASNApalooza offers three special focuses:

  • AVR for .NET
  • Strategic guidance for AVR Classic users
  • IBM i RPG modernization

Regular session content will include these sessions (note, check back later, there will be one more session added):

Using the debugger in Visual Studio 2010

Lots of power lurks in the Visual Studio 2010 debugger—but not all of it is outrageously intuitive. This session peels back some of the layers of the VS2010 debugger and shows you effective ways to put it to work for you. This session covers nuanced features of the obvious debugger features (such as breakpoints and watches) but also digs into more obscure features such as tracepoints and pin-to-source watches. It will also discuss some suggested ways to configure Visual Studio for the best debugging experience. Among some of the specific topics covered are:

  • How to set and use breakpoints (including conditional breakpoints)
  • How to set and use tracepoints
  • Viewing, and changing—at runtime—a variable’s value
  • Setting up VS windows for the optimal debugging experience
  • The difference between a “debug” build and a “release” build and why you never want to deploy a debug build.

Tips and techniques for avoiding monolithic applications

Large, monolithic applications cause lots of problems. They are hard to test, take forever to compile, and a royal hassle to safely modify. This session takes a look at some tips and techniques you can use to provide a rational separation of concerns for your AVR applications. Tips and techniques that provide to both Windows and browser-based applications, will be presented that show how to separate the presentation layer from the file IO and business logic layers. Some of the details this session covers include:

  • What “separation of concerns” is and why it’s important
  • Techniques for keeping file IO and business logic separate
  • Why monolithic software construction can be harmful
  • Splitting your code into primary and cross-cutting concerns
  • Why SOA isn’t just a buzzword and why it matters

A survey of the controls included with AVR for .NET

AVR Classic had about 26 or so controls. AVR for .NET has more than 150 of them! There is a pretty high likelihood that the control on which you spent money with AVR Classic is included, out of the box, with AVR for .NET. This session provides a survey of them and shows many of the interesting things they can do. In addition to its myriad controls offered, AVR for .NET is also able to use the .NET Framework to do some of what you need controls to do in AVR Classic. This session looks at some of these techniques, too. For example, this session will look at

  • MenuStrip/ToolStrip
  • GridView and DataGridView
  • DateTimePicker
  • Tab control
  • Working with text files with .NET’s System IO namespace

Preserving your legacy RPG with ASNA Wings and ASNA Monarch

ASNA Wings is the newest addition to ASNA’s IBM i RPG application modernization platform. ASNA Wings uses IBM’s Open Access for RPG Edition to provide browser-based alternatives to traditional green-screen display files. With Wings, all RPG logic and file IO remain hosted on the IBM i platform.

ASNA Monarch is ASNA’s IBM i RPG application modernization platform that migrates RPG/400 and ILE RPG to the .NET platform. Once an application is migrated from the IBM i to .NET, its logic executes in the .NET environment. The database for Monarch applications can be either the IBM i DB2 database or MS SQL Server.

This session provides a high-level overview for both ASNA Wings and ASNA Monarch. It shows how Wings can be an easy entry point into a possible later full application migration to .NET. with Monarch. This session will also show ASNA’s new browser-based emulator and how it dramatically changes the dynamics of application modernization.

Strategic guidance for AVR Classic programmers

AVR Classic first debuted nearly 18 years ago. Raise your hands if you feel old! ASNA has hundreds of customers who’ve created mission critical applications with AVR Classic. Many, if not most, of these customers are now facing the challenge of how best to move that application portfolio into the future. There aren’t magic answers to the challenges of persisting legacy code, but this session helps set the stage on how you can get to the best answers to the challenge for your business. This session covers:

  • A summary of the current issues of persisting your COM-based programs into the future
  • Don’t rip and replace, stabilize and surround!
  • What UI you should target in the future? We live in a post-PC world!
  • Application architecture considerations for the next generation of your applications

DataGate Studio for Visual Studio 2010

For years, AVR has included the free-standing DateGate DataBase Manager as its utility for working with DataGate databases. After years of serving us well, the old DB Manager is finally being put out to pasture. Taking its place is DataGate Studio for Visual Studio. DG Studio is tightly integrated into Visual Studio and does all the old DB Manager used to do and much more. Among the topics covered with be:

  • DataGate Studio Projects
  • Creating DB connections
  • Creating and modifying database files
  • Working with record locks and open files
  • New AVR for .NET operations for working with files

Interoperability between AVR Classic and AVR for .NET

Choosing between COM and .NET, or AVR Classic and AVR for .NET isn’t either/or! In our conservations with customers, we’re often quite surprised at how little is understood about the ability of AVR Classic and AVR for .NET to coexist nicely in the same application. This session details our “stabilize and surround” recommendation; where you get COM applications stable and stop making changes to them and then start building around that foundation with new .NET applications. This session will discuss some of the technical points to consider as you strive for AVR Classic and AVR for .NET interoperability. Among the topics covered with be:

  • Code interoperability between AVR Classic and AVR for .NET
  • Database coexistence across the two platforms
  • Learning considerations to prepare you and your AVR Classic team for .NET

How to add modern UI elements to browser user interfaces

This session shows UI creation techniques that you can use to create better, more responsive user experiences in your browser-based applications. Most of these techniques also apply directly to Wings and Monarch applications.

  • Adding a Google map to your applications
  • Improving the user experience with Ajax
  • Using flow layout instead of absolute positioned elements

Register Now