Eric Nelson, Microsoft UK

After many years of developing on UNIX/RDBMS (and being able to get mortgages) Eric joined Microsoft in 1996 as a Technical Evangelist (and stopped being able to get mortgages due to his new 'unusual job title' in the words of his bank manager).

He has spent most of his time working with ISVs to help them architect solutions which make use of the latest Microsoft technologies - from the beta of ASP 1.0 through to ASP.NET, from MTS to WCF/WF and from the beta of SQL Server 6.5 through to SQL Server 2008. Along the way he has met lots of smart and fun developers - and been completely stumped by many of their questions!

In July 2008 he switched role from an Application Architect to a Developer Evangelist in the Developer and Platform Group. Currently Eric's interests include digging into LINQ to Entities, ADO.NET Data Services and switching from C# to Visual Basic development.

At home, he battles rat infestations, comes second to the family dog and uses any spare moments he has after 10pm to team up and play online with and against friends - keep an eye out for 'erknel' and say 'hi'.

Blog: http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable

Presentation: "Parallel computing, Azure, VS.Net 2010 and .Net 4"

Track: Interview Track (Thursday)

Time: Thursday 17:15 - 18:15

Location: Fleet Room

Abstract: Ryan Slobojan interviewing Eric Nelson

Presentation: "ORM, EDM, ESQL, Entity Framework, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities - confused?"

Track: Next Generation Web on .NET

Time: Friday 14:15 - 15:15

Location: St. James's Suite

Abstract:

The Entity Data Model (EDM) v1 is the initial tiny step of what the Microsoft product groups believe will be a significant shift in how we work with data.

LINQ to Entities delivers ORM capabilities on top of the EDM and also ends up competing against LINQ to SQL.

This session will give a brief intro to each technology, expand on the “grand plan” and hopefully enable you to make an informed technology choice when working on your own projects.