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Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

Update: The session is officially on. See the MIX10 website.

MIX10: Speaker

This morning, very early (or very late depending how you see it), I learned that one of the sessions I submitted to the MIX 2010 open call for speakers had been picked by the public. Out of 169 sessions, only 12 were picked, so you imagine my feelings right now. Honestly, I am sure that this will be a good session, but it could have gone either way, and I had prepared myself mentally for the alternative possibility too.

Understanding the Model-View-ViewModel pattern

The Model-View-ViewModel pattern (also called MVVM) is a hot topic in today’s Silverlight and WPF world. This pattern facilitates modern development techniques such as separation of concerns (decoupling), unit testing and test driven development, work with modern tools such as Visual Studio 2010, Expression Blend and more.

In this session, Laurent (a user and promoter of MVVM since 2006) will introduce this pattern to you with many demos. We will talk about the basic components of a modern Silverlight or WPF application, and of additional helpers that will make your life as a developer much easier.

MVVM at MIX

Interestingly, 3 of the 12 open call sessions picked by the audience have “MVVM” in the title. Rob Eisenberg’s “Build Your Own MVVM Framework” and Shawn Wildermuth’s “RIA Services and MVVM: It Can Happen!”, in addition to mine, should cover the topic in depth. After thinking about it, I decided I will contact Rob and Shawn to talk to them about their session, and try to avoid overlap.

On my end, I will probably shift the focus a little more on what MVVM brings you from a designer (well, integrator)’s point of view, and how you can leverage this pattern to create beautiful applications. I will also, of course, talk about the MVVM Light Toolkit, the open source toolkit I have been developing since last year, and which encounters a great success.

Send me your suggestions

I would love to hear if you have topics you would like to hear about during the session. I have a pretty good idea of what I will talk about, but let me know what is really important for you. What aspects of MVVM do you want me to focus on? What components of MVVM Light? Let me know, and I will adapt the content to include these topics!

I am very much looking forward to this session, and will see you in March at MIX!

 

Print | posted on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 12:28 AM

Feedback

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Ian Smith at 1/19/2010 1:02 AM Gravatar
Any focus on Blendability will be a good thing. I don't see the other speakers talking about this and the vast majority of the blog entries out there seem to assume anyone doing MVVM is working using raw XAML and Visual Studio. There's a real gap between the "designer" and the "developer" because of this sort of issue, which gets even more fun when you start talking about wanting the "deep linking" of Silverlight navigation, the flexibility of PRISM and MEF, the behaviors and design of Blend, and the n-tier RAD of WCF RIA Services.

Also look forward to hearing more about MVVM-Lite. I'm using PRISM at the moment but it's not really received any love since Silverlight 2 days, and with MEF on the horizon I'm keen to understand where all these alternatives (Caliburn, MEF, PRISM 2, upcoming PRISM 4, MVVM Lite etc) fit in. Management rightly get concerned when you talk about using nearly all of them (skill set required goes up and up, making hiring more difficult and expensive). Developers just don't have time to seriously evaluate all the options available in the 'MVVM supporting frameworks' space, especially when customers paying for those applications just want something that "works" and don't understand why so much time is being wasted on selecting "the right patterns" and "the right frameworks" when they've seen marketing demo's that imply "you just design the UX in Blend, and write the business logic in Visual Studio"

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Dieter De Preester at 1/19/2010 1:32 AM Gravatar
- MVVM and dialog screens, how to ?
- Blendability
- Demo of a complex app written using MVVM?

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Laurent at 1/19/2010 2:30 AM Gravatar
@Ian, Great input, thanks. Blendability will definitely be at the heart of this session. I developed my toolkit with Blend in mind from the start, and will demo that, as well as design time data, etc. I also want to show MEF + MVVM, as it is a pretty cool match and challenges PRISM on its own field.

@Dieter:
Thanks a lot! Blendability, see above, this is going to be a major focus. I will also show how I handle dialogs in MVVM apps in WPF and Silverlight.
Regarding a complex app, I will check with my clients if they agree me to show something. I agree it would be cool to have a real life MVVM app to show, and I do have one in mind which would be just great, but I am really not sure that the client will agree to that.

Thanks guys!

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by John Papa at 1/19/2010 4:06 AM Gravatar
Congrats on the session, Laurent! Looking forward to seeing you rock the house!

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Laurent at 1/19/2010 4:33 AM Gravatar
Thanks John, I am really looking forward to this.

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Joshua Blake at 1/19/2010 4:49 AM Gravatar
Congrats! We'll have to meet up there.

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Dave Campbell at 1/19/2010 8:25 AM Gravatar
Contrats Laurent... you're my hero :)

See you at MIX AND the Summit!

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Marc Schluper at 1/19/2010 1:43 PM Gravatar
I'd like to hear first about using MVVM *without* using any toolkits (even Light ones). Only after that will I appreciate the presentation of a toolkit that enhances things.

After all, haven't many of us done maintenance on a product that uses some kind of once wonderful but now completely forgotten toolkit, and wondered: "WHY ME?" Why do I need to now learn something soooo obsolete?

(Don't get me wrong; I am all for innovation. But I postponed studying MEX until it was announced MEX would be part of SL 4.)

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Laurent at 1/19/2010 7:13 PM Gravatar
Hi Marc,

I hear you!! You might have seen that Rob Eisenberg is also having a session about MVVM (as well as Shawn Wildermuth). They and I have been talking, and we decided to coordinate our topics to cover the widest range available. Rob is going to talk about creating your own MVVM framework, which I believe is pretty much what you are looking for.

My talk is going to concentrate more on Blendability with MVVM, the MVVM Light toolkit and MEF.

Cheers,
Laurent

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Werner at 1/20/2010 2:12 AM Gravatar
Hi Laurent.

I wish I could attend your presentation, but I am stuck in africa with budget cuts. Will there be a video posted of your talk. I would really like to see it because I definitely like (and use) the things you have created.

If I had to venture a topic suggestion, I would like to hear something said about the problem that its very difficult to find coders that know about and understand this entire MVVM phenomenon. It is a steep learning curve for a newby to learn MVVM, CAG, IoC, Event aggregation, Commanding, xaml, Binding, using viewmodels correctly, etc, etc.

Further more, if you can find such a person, they are probably expensive to employ, which makes it even more unlikely to build a team of coders that can work on a large project. It is difficult to explain to management to pick the expensive resource that can handle MVVM etc, than the cheap one that cannot.

This problem is hinderings MVVM's uptake by the industry I think. ;)

W

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Laurent at 1/22/2010 2:12 AM Gravatar
Hi Werner,

I am sorry to read that you cannot attend MIX. As far as I know the sessions will be available in video like last year. I will inform here as soon as I know more.

Regarding your suggestion, it is an interesting one. MVVM Is fairly new in the industry (I have been using it since 2006 which makes me kind of a veteran, but in fact 2006 is very recent in terms of experience years ;) So it is not surprising that not many developers are experienced with it in WPF, let alone Silverlight.

I will spend some time thinking about it, and how the steep learning curve can be mitigated and will talk about it at the session, maybe in the Q&A because I love to hear what the people have to say about it.

Thanks,
Laurent

# re: Talking in Las Vegas: MIX2010 and MVVM

left by Werner at 2/28/2010 9:10 PM Gravatar
Thanks for the reply.

I have been too busy from my previous post till now, only got to your blog again today. (Such a shame there are some awesome things going on here)

Will make sure I get my fingers on those vids. Other than that, MVVM.Lite does make it easier to update this entire UI pattern.

Good stuff.
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