Emad posted a slideshow of photos from CairoCodeCamp. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I not only got to present at an excellent conference, but I was able to visit the pyramids of Giza and the Cairo Museum while I was there! This video will give you a small taste of what I experienced in Egypt.

On February 27th and 28th, I will have the honor of speaking at Cairo Code Camp in Egypt. It is my first international speaking destination, and I hope to make the best of it by presenting two topics I feel are important to designing better systems.

RESTful Data

I’ve given this talk in many locations, but I’m updating it for WCF Data Services in .NET 4. The gist of the presentation is that developers want objects, not relational data, so give it to them. In the process, you will design a distributed, multi-tier architecture! Here is the synopsis.

REST is an architectural style that allows for a layered, scalable, and cacheable enterprise information system. With WCF Data Services, a database can be surfaced to a service as a REST-style resource collection that is addressable with natural URIs and can be interacted with using the usual HTTP verbs: GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. This session will describe RESTful Data, the benefits it conveys, and its uses. Then we will set up a data service using an existing database that developers would then access rather than accessing the database directly. We will also extend it in such a manner that the service has control over what data is served.

C# Ninjitsu

I will give a teaser presentation of this at CodeMash for Telerik that covers principles in the post object-oriented C# world. The full presentation contains refactorings and patterns to make your code fluent. Design reusable frameworks, be a C# Ninja. Here’s the synopsis.

C# has humble beginnings as an object oriented language of the purest kind. It was class-based, it was imperative, and it was component-oriented. For many years, the classic object-oriented design principles served class library designers well, and the programming world rejoiced.

Chaos began creeping its way into the world of C#. They were minor things at first: a generic list here, a nullable type there. Developers used these elements to enhance their work. But those that understood utilized them to varying degrees. Some applied the new techniques with wanton abandon. Some kept the old traditions in mind.

Then the dark specter of functional programming infiltrated the language. For those that were doomed to a life of incoherent language usage, there was no hope. But those that held onto the old traditions managed to get by.

There is another way. C# is no longer a purely object oriented language. It is no longer an imperative, class-based, component oriented discipline. It is also a generic, declarative, functional discipline.

I will reexamine the object-oriented principles and introduce new principles. I will then introduce new refactorings as we move toward a more declarative, fluent world.

If you can make it out to the Code Camp, be sure to say hi. It will be the largest developer event in Egypt. I can’t wait to meet my friends in Egypt who I’ve collaborated with on open source projects and the social web. I also can’t wait to check out the pyramids and Cairo museum; a dream I’ve had since childhood!

 

The first Columbia Code Camp will be hosted on January 30th, 2010 at Midlands Tech NE Campus. We are seeking speakers for up to six tracks with five or six sessions each. Sessions are expected to last one hour with a 15 minute break in between.

If you are passionate about a topic you feel the Columbia .NET community would be interested in, please submit it at http://columbiacodecamp.com/register. The cutoff for speaker registration is January 1st, 2010 or when all sessions are filled. We will have many certified professionals presenting at this event, but we are especially looking for local talent.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL to those you think may be interested, and please spread the word through Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

Topic ideas:

1) .NET 4 and related technologies (themed)
2) Current .NET development topics
3) Non .NET technologies (yes, these are accepted!)
4) UI Design and business related topics essential for the .NET developer

Code camps are volunteer driven events that are free for attendees. As such, speakers are expected to provide for their own travel arrangements. If you are affiliated with an organization that would like to sponsor Columbia Code Camp 2010, please contact president@columbiadevelopers.org.

Columbia Code Camp 2010 will be on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at Midlands Tech NE Campus, 151 Powell Rd, Columbia, SC. Registration is now open! I will announce sponsors and speakers periodically. 

What can you expect at our code camp? A great community event with other fellow developers learning about some of the newest technologies. It will features many speakers including Microsoft MVPs, books authors, and local talent.

Code camps are by and for the developers community with community developed material. If you've never spoken before, this is a great opportunity to put something together and present on it. Sessions range from information "chalk talks" to formal presentations.

The sessions have been scheduled for SoCalCodeCamp. If you are attending Microsoft PDC, you should definitely be attending SoCalCodeCamp as you will be getting a weekend full of great content for free!

Both of my sessions are on Saturday. First up is Mash Up – ASP.NET MVC, Bing, Bing Map, and Flickr at 12:15. Then at 4:00 I will present on RESTful Data.

I will probably attend the session on Advanced C# as the details hint at some things I’ve been discussing lately, and I want to hear the presenters’ take on things. The only concern I have is that I don’t like undue complexity… my goal is to make development easier. I think the functional and fluent paradigms in modern C# is easier once you get used to it. It’s not really “advanced” so much as a different way of thinking. Of course, I won’t know what’s up until I attend the session!

Tomorrow after work, I'm driving to Richmond to speak at the Richmond Code Camp. In the past, I didn't plan out which sessions I would attend. Instead, I just floated to whatever seemed interesting. This time, I'm taking the steps to get the most out of the conference. Here's my schedule.

8:00 - 8:45am - Auditorium - Welcome And Keynote

I'm not a morning guy, particularly after driving 6 hours. However, I'll try to be on time to catch the keynote.

8:45 - 10:00am - Speakers Lounge - Preparation

Before I give a talk, I like to review my material.

10:15 - 11:30am - Room 223 - Introducing MSBuild - Chris Eargle

My talk. I would be disappointed if I wasn't there.

11:30 - 12:30pm - Lunch

Lunch will most likely consist of pizza. Were you aware that researchers have discovered that people who eat pizza at least once a week are at a lower risk for certain cancers?

12:30 - 1:45pm - Room 220 - Guerilla SOA on WCF - Joshua Graham

I love SOA, and I love WCF. I'm not so sure about the guerilla part.

2:00 - 3:15pm - Auditorium - How to Give Technical Presentations: 101 - Hal Hayes

Maybe I can learn a few tricks to make my presentations better?

3:30 - 4:45pm - Room 210 - Implementing validation when using the ASP.NET MVC Framework - Roberto Hernandez

I'm curious about the validation techniques used when you don't have postbacks. In a layered application, I use UI validation only to provide a better user experience. I would expect true validation to occur in the business or service layer.

5:00 - 5:30pm - Auditorium - Wrap Up and Prizes

The fun part. I haven't won an Xbox 360 yet.

 

I am speaking at the Raleigh Code Camp during the lunch session. I was told it would be made into a webcast for INETA. If that's the case, I'll post a link up to it when I receive it. The topic is Design Principles, and the slide deck is available.

I will be presenting at New England Code Camp 10: Dev InTENsity! this weekend. Chris Bowen has posted the schedule on his blog.

Here are my presentations:

Sunday, September 21st 9:00am, Room MPR B (moved to MPR A), New Features in C# 3.0
Sunday, September 21st 12:30PM, Room MPR B, Introducing MSBuild

I was surprised to hear that the Jacksonville Code Camp wasn't cancelled. A major tropical storm was coming through the area at the time, but the organizers for the Code Camp weren't going to let that stop them. I decided if they were brave enough to hold a conference during a tropical storm, I should be brave enough to drive into it. Just not in my rag top; we took my wife's car.

Friday, my wife and I packed our bags and headed out the door. We were picking Lou Vega up from Charleston, and it was going to take 6 hours total with that detour. We hit the largest storm immediately outside of Columbia. Life is so ironic. The worst we encountered from Fay were strong winds. It's not fun when you're inches away from a concrete barrier and you can feel the wind pushing your car to and fro.

We were quite lucky that the storm had cleared the streets. A certain direction web site changed E Coastline Dr to Line St. This caused us to end up in a very unsavory part of town. Once we determined that there wasn't a Hyatt Regency between what appeared to be crack houses, we called the hotel to get directions. The most eventful part of the evening was when Lou wrestled an alligator driven from its habitat by the storm... but that's a story for another day.

The Code Camp went very well considering the circumstances. The location was moved to a different part of town, but we didn't have trouble finding it due to my spidey senses. It felt kind of odd giving a presentation from the back of a room, but all was well in the end. I was able to meet up with some old friends, Scott Dorman and Russ Fustino, and made a few more. Later that night we went back to the Regency for the after-party. One benefit of the reduced attendance was the proliferation of blue tickets. It ended up being like a pub club with better food and a nice view of the river.

If you haven't made it to a Code Camp before, I recommend you try it out. It gives you a chance to learn, win books and software, and hang out with other members of the development community. The best part is they're always on the weekend, so it will not interfere with your regular work schedule.

I've been busy since the South Florida Code Camp. I've been promoted to the Architecture Team on the South Carolina Integrated Tax System project, and I've been to two more code camps.

The speaker list was already full when I tried to get in on the Raleigh Code Camp. I was still able to do a session on Continuous Integration due to another speaker's VM crashing. I had very few attendees since it wasn't advertised. However, as long as I have one person interested in the topic then I'm good to go.

Last weekend I did two sessions at the Roanoke Code Camp. The Design Principles presentation went very well, with enough crowd participation to keep it interesting. The Continuous Integration session went smoothly, but the crowd was somewhat quiet. Afterwards, one of the attendees told me that he thought it was a follow-up to the Design Principles session (apparently confusing MSBuild with Building Software). So, it's possible the crowd was quiet because they had no background in what I was presenting on. This was exacerbated by the fact I was in the same room.

From now on, if I'm going to do multiple sessions I will try to do related topics (design or agile processes) or request to be in different rooms.

This coming Wednesday I will be presenting on Continuous Integration at the Triangle .Net User Group in Raleigh. I've currently been running two 30 minute modules: 1) MSBuild, 2) CI / Cruise Control.NET. I will put together a new module this weekend so I can fill out the time more appropriately for a user group meeting. I'll probably take it back to fleshing out the build process with running more tests and integrating the generated reports into CruiseControl.NET.

After next week, I will have done 8 sessions at 6 events in 5 locations. It's still early in the year so perhaps I should set my goal to 20 locations instead of 20 events? When do you want me to come to Charleston, Lou?