I got my Avalon and Indigo CTPs installed without any problems as I already went through the pains of setting everything up last weekend for Code Camp III. I have been reading through the docs (all live) and sample information, but this is definitely going to be weekend playtime for me (not quite up to the level of Clemens, but fun regardless)
Looking around the blogs, Jean-Luc has some great links to get started:
If you want to play with the March 2005 "Avalon" and "Indigo" Community Technology Preview, head on right over to the MSDN Subscriber downloads website (FYI, the .iso file is 444 MB). You have a few options once it's installed - you can try coding everything command line like Sam Gentile. Or opt to use the February CTP of Visual Studio 2005.
Next, you need documentation. A really good place to get started for all things Indigo is the Longhorn Developer Centre. David Chappell has written a really nice primer to get your head wrapped around the new concepts. Then head on over to the FTPOnline website for Indigo webcasts from VSLive! (I'd highly recommend looking at the Steve Swartz/Don Box webcast with a soup to nuts overview of Indigo. Don also has a very informative weblog with great tidbits of Indigo here and there).
Speaking of Sam, he also posted a great New England event coming up in April regarding Indigo:
“Got Indigo?†Developing Applications using Indigo and .NET
Wednesday, April 27 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM
Microsoft Waltham
Special Key Note by David Chappell
Indigo is the code name for Microsoft's new foundation for distributed computing and service-oriented applications. Join us for a day long dive into Indigo using the Community Technology preview. This developer focused day provides an introduction to Indigo, describing what it is, how it works, and how it fits with existing technologies like ASP.NET web services, .NET Remoting, and Enterprise Services. While some familiarity with .NET is assumed, the target audience includes anybody who's interested in how software development will look in the coming service-oriented world.
We both received this email from Thom Robbins who is organizing the local event (in his usual excellent way as he does with the Code Camps). I replied back to Thom: "Nice! "Got Speakers?" :) Thom mentioned this will be all Microsoft speakers as this is too new at the moment. Sounds like an exciting event!
