Secrets of SharePoint 2010 Exposed at TechEd 2009

Update 3/22/2010

This seems to be a popular post for those looking for information about AJAX applications in SharePoint 2010. If this topic interests you definitely check out my multi-part series Client Side AJAX applications in SharePoint 2010.

In case you aren't aware, the details of SharePoint 2010 are under tight wraps. If you asked any of the presenters at Tech Ed the typical response was "No idea what you're talking about." But that doesn't mean presenters didn't occasionally slip up or say more than they probably should have.

Publically Stated SharePoint 2010 Info

Here’s what has been publically stated about SharePoint 2010 thus far:

• Requires at least Windows Server 2008 64 bit
• Requires SQL Server 64 bit (2005 or 2008)
• Will not support for IE 6
• Public testing to occur first half of next year

This was announced at TechEd by Tom Rizzo, director of Microsoft SharePoint Server, as posted in this InfoWorld article and also on the SharePoint blog.

New SharePoint 2010 Secrets

An exciting slip up that has received no press thus far was from the presentation: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Overview for the Business Application Developer. If you check 1:00:33 of the presentation you’ll see the first glimpse of a SharePoint 2010 Site Home Page:

I could tell something wasn’t right when I saw this part of the demo, but fellow Near Infinity employee Joe Ferner put it together first when he saw the big red "Give Feedback" button in the top right. He tweeted about what came next:

"Sharepoint 2010 to have inline list ajaxy editing."

It looks really nice, and is very exciting since SharePoint is currently a little unwieldy. Check out this screenshot from 1:01:08:

So that was the most exciting slip up. Other exciting tidbits were:

SharePoint designer will support saving workflows to re-use for provisioning

I learned this one during the Q&A session of the "Automate Business Processes Using InfoPath Forms with Integrated SharePoint Designer Workflows... All without Coding!" talk. It’s currently a pain point that workflows developed in SharePoint designer can’t be reused in the same way workflows developed in Visual Studio can, so this will be a wonderful new feature.

BDC will probably support updating and inserting data

Apparently MOSS only shipped without this feature because it hadn’t been thoroughly tested. That there has been plenty of time to test this feature by now, so it’s a pretty reasonable assumption that it will be in the next version.

Finally this is pure speculation, but I’m guessing:

SharePoint 2010 to support ASP.Net Data Services API

Microsoft supports two AJAX approaches: client side and server side. The server side uses the UpdatePanel control where you code as usual and everything magically gets AJAXized. The client side version is part of the unreleased ASP.Net 4.0, but ties in tightly with JSON provided by the .Net Data Services API that was released in the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1.

The SharePoint team could have used the server side approach, but why not use the latest technology available, speed up UI significantly, and simultaneously allow web part developers a fantastic level of client side AJAX support? If they made the entire SharePoint API available via the .Net Data Services API it would enable some powerful fast AJAX web parts. It would be awesome.

Finally, the only other tidbit isn’t a secret at all, but what I consider to the most exciting feature of Visual Studio 2010: it will support editing SharePoint solutions without editing XML. I hate XML, so that will be wonderful. So are you ready for SharePoint 2010 today? I sure am. Pity about the wait.