Create a Dynamics AX 2009 AIF WCF Web Service

This video talks about AIF in Dynamics AX 2009. This is a good video for a beginner to get started with creating AIF Services

It shows an example of how to:
a. Create a Service
b. Add new operations to the Service
c. Extend the service
d. Deploy the service
e. Consume the service


http://beta.channel9.msdn.com/posts/SanjayJain/Microsoft-Dynamics-AX-2009-AIF-Web-Services-Screencast/

Google Wave and SAP Enterprise Services

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/15521%3Fpage%3Dlast%26x-order%3Ddate

Thinking Loud

Will Google Wave + Chrome + SAP Enterprise Services in a combination form a killer app (at Enterprise level) and give a tough competition to Dynamics AX and Sharepoint technologies? Only time can tell...

Nulls in X++ Foundation Classes

Here's a good discussion on about having nulls in AFC's Axpata Foundation Classes, A good read

http://blogs.msdn.com/x/archive/2009/08/25/nulls-in-containers-a-chance-for-you-to-help-out.aspx#comments

Consume Service References in Dynamics AX 2009

Here's an interesting post by Brandon talking about consuming service references in Dynamics AX 2009. He goes a further deep into namespaces and the benefit of .Net namespace and intellisense when you use with X++. Thanks Brandon for the post

http://dynamics-ax.blogspot.com/2009/08/consuming-service-references-in.html

Watch this video on X++ Translator to Managed Code

Introduction

Thanks to Peter and team for this great video. In a brief, this gives us an insight about the future roadmap for X++. Watch out this video. Please see the link below the extract..

Dynamics Program Manager Peter Villadsen and Software Developer Gustavo Plancarte teach us about a new tool they've developed that translates X++ byte code into MSIL. We learn a lot of history along the way and gain insights into the process of taking X++ into the .NET age.


Microsoft Dynamics features a proprietary language called X++ (basically a superset of Java, with some strong data primitives added) and a complete stack (compiler, interpreter and debugger) that goes with it. The new feature Peter and team have developed is a tool to generate managed code from the X++ intermediate language produced by the X++ compiler. This will have profound impact on the performance of the business applications written in X++, and it very clearly points to where they'll be going in the next few releases of Dynamics Ax.

http://beta.channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Peter-Villadsen-and-Gustavo-Plancarte-Inside-Ax-Translator-X-to-MSIL/

My Thoughts

Downloaded this 30-min video and here are some of my thoughts after going through it:

a. Start learning .Net Fx, C#, LINQ to hold your jobs ;-)
b. In my opinion, I feel X++ is still a good DSL (Domain Specific Language) closely written and tightly integrated with the business modules and C# or VB.Net should be used as the client interaction language to write user interfaces or client logic. This is possible via the translator which can translate pcode from X++ to IL.
c. Pete rightly says that the Morphx IDE is more suited for RAD developers compared to the current Visual Studio IDE and I completely agree with him. In my experience as a RAD Developer, I found the Classic Visual Basic IDE (Visual Studio 6.0) and the MorphX IDE (in Axapta 3.0) which gives the best developer RAD Experience.
d. In the future as the roadmap would be to migrate all the codebase to .Net, it would be advantageous  for the upcoming generation of developers or technology consultants for Dynamics AX ERP as they need not worry about learning multiple languages i.e. X++ and .Net, they have to just invest in one language. Also, there won't be shortage of resources as .Net skills are available in abundant in the market.
e. It would be interesting to see how this translator evolves into the mainstream product and when it will be released