VISUG event in Mechelen (Belgium)

Apparently this event was amazing. Wish I had been there. According to Jans blog (http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/default.aspx) there was a LOT of good news. See these quotes!

"Scott confirmed Daniel's statements (not supported, only use the the client side scripts, server-side controls don't work, etc), but more interesting; he told the audience that ASP.NET AJAX will be supported in SharePoint 2007. How is Microsoft going to pull off this trick? ASP.NET Ajax will be supported in SharePoint when we release a service pack for SharePoint, we will ship it later this year. "

And...

"Another statement that Scott made, (which actually contradicts Daniel's statement) was about using the UpdatePanel in web parts. According to Scott you can make use of the UpdatePanel in SharePoint, when it's hosted in a web part."

Now I like the sound of this! I want to go on record as stating that I believe (and Daniel is free to disagree, but please explain to me your logic) that UpdatePanel is the holy grail of Sharepoint. I have done a lot of Sharepoint work in the past few years and the one thing users hate more than anything is that a page has to post back, and RELOAD EVERYTHING every time. Now we all know that the Sharepoint payload is huge, and pulling it down for every tiny post back in a webpart is crazy. Lets wrap those baby's in an UpdatePanel and increase the user experience 1000-fold!

It has been my personal mission to get UpdatePanel working in a webpart, and now I know that my goal is attainable. Wish me luck!