I made it! I saw some really great presentations yesterday. I really learned a lot from each speaker. I changed up the schedule a bit and ended up attending the following sessions:
Why Ruby? by Joe O'Brien. I had to know what all the hype was about in regards to Ruby. I had a friend trying to pull me towards Ruby on Rails about a year ago. I just didn't get it. Now I get it, this thing has a life of it's own. The language is simple, straight forward and can make you more productive. What more can you ask for? I also like the IRB, just straight forward. One of the best tips I picked up from Joe was to learn a new language a year. Priceless information. Looks like Ruby will be my language of choice for 2008.
A LINQ to Everything by Leon Gersing. This was a presentation I was really looking forward to attending. I really got a chance to see LINQ in action. The demo of the blog site was great. Even without the internet access I could see how cool LINQ really was and some of the ways you can incorporate it into your site. The XML info was an added bonus I want to incorporate at work too. The biggest thing I'll take away from the presentation is the fact that you can use it against more than just SQL. Opens so many possiblities.
Exploit the XML Capabilities of SQL Server 2008 by Jason Follas. I originally attended this session to see some of the ways to use XML in SQL Server 2008 hoping to take away enough information to apply to SQL Server 2005. Boy was I in luck! The presentation was directed towards 2005 because you could use the XML capabilities in both. This was an information packed session and just what I needed. Best tip of the session...know the questions that will be asked of the XML. Wow, does that save some time and headaches.
A Quick Tour of the Windows Mobile Development in Visual Studio 2008 by Nino Benvenuti. I attended this presentation because I really don't know much about mobile development. Learned a lot from the walkthrough but I wish there was more time for this one. There's a lot that's new in Visual Studio 2008 and I'm not familiar enough with mobile development overall to really dive right into this one but I still plan to follow this topic to stay informed.
The C# Variety Show by David Redding. This is one skill I'm really need to push myself to develop. I'm really new to C#. In college I took a course or two on VB but am no longer interested in focusing on that language (no offense to the VB lovers out there). The presentation had some good information about the advanced uses of C#, more where I want to be than where I am. That was one of the reasons for attending this session. I want to push myself. I plan to look further into yield return, overloading operators, and using delegates.
SEO for ASP.NET Developers by Dan Hounshell. This presentation was right up my alley. I'll admit I used to share the "not my problem" attitude. I've been responsible for our affiliate program for years. I've been trained to place the burden of SEO on the affiliate. I'm starting to realize it's to my benefit to learn more about SEO as a developer. Dan gave so many great tips I couldn't take notes fast enough. On top of that my laptop battery died and I didn't have a spare. I quickly grapped my old school notebook and started jotting away. I've just purchased a few domains to experiment with so this was right-on-time information to get my sites established properly from the start.
This was my first event and I'm still new to the .Net community. After a twitter or two I received today, my thoughts on the way home were confirmed. In a way...I blew it. I really didn't meet as many people as I could/should have. This was my one moment in time. I'm just a bit shy until I get to know people. I know, how do you get to know people if you don't open up your month and speak? Well, in the past I've usually waited for people to speak to me. Need to change that, don't want to give people the wrong impression.
I may still attend IndyCodeCamp on April 26, 2008 so if you're there and you see me, please, stop me and introduce yourself. Anyone that attended CODoDN can follow me on twitter.
See you next year!
P.S. I did a quick interview after the sessions so perhaps you'll see me on a blog near you!
Update: Andy Erickson created a great video that really captured the spirit of the day. I've finally gotten up the nerve to share the link so enjoy!