I attended IndyCodeCamp on April 26, 2008. This was another great event. I was able to see some of the speakers I missed at CODODN. I'll admit I had to dig down deep to find the courage to roll to Indy. I'm glad I did go. I was able to see the following presentations:
ASP.NET Performance and Optimization by Jeff McWherter. I originally planned to see this session at the Central Ohio Day of .Net but changed my mind at the last minute. I'm really glad I was able to catch this in Indy. Performance and optimization are two things I need to learn more about in regards to my job. This was the perfect presentation. He discussed when to cache data and when not to cache data, when to go to a web farm, scalibility, performance, web tests just tons of good stuff. I learned a lot about performance but still have a lot to learn. This gave me a great foundation.
Zen and The Art of Website Maintenance by Michael Neel. I definitely wanted to see one of Michael Neel's presentations. I missed "the sermon" in Wilmington, OH. Again another perfect presentation for me. Most of my experience has been web related and I know I'll get back to it again so I'm trying to stay in the loop. I really liked the opening of the presentation. It really was intriguing. Even the interuptions didn't really distract me from following along. There's a lot to this. You wouldn't think there would be but that's why I'm here to learn. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. I realize I need to really get to know the history of the framework.
Silverlight - Your LINQ To A Better Experience by Chad Campbell. I was able to see Silverlight in action. Chad gave a great demo. It was helpful to see a project from start to finish. After this presentation I actually feel comfortable with trying some Silverlight in my spare time. I used Macromedia products for years before we went to VS2005. I also got to learn about some of the features Silverlight has to offer. I'm may try some XML or SOAP using Silverlight too.
Intro Test Driven Development With the ASP.NET MVC Framework by Alan Stevens. I wanted to learn more about TDD and the MVC framework and was looking forward to this presentation. Alan gave some great reasons why TDD is important. I could really relate to some of the questions he was throwing at the audience. He gave us the resources to get started so I need to at least take the 30 (60, 90, 180) day challenge. I didn't stay for the deep dive. I'm just too new to this topic but I hope to catch it in the future.
Intro to Windows Communication Foundation by Dan Rigsby. I didn't know anything about WCF when I attended this session. This was a bonus. Not only did I learn about WCF I also found out I could possibly use this on my next EDI project. Could not have been a better surprise. There's a lot to this. There's so much WCF can do. One of the best features I heard was it's better than web services. Dan provided a lot of material for this presentation and gave some great code examples. There was also a second session on WCF but again, being a newbie, I know my limits.
Line of Business Applications in Silverlight by Josh Heyse. I wanted to attend this session to catch a few more tips on Silverlight since the first presentation cleared up a few things in my mind. It started out well. We got a little background on Silverlight and some of it's features. I'm guessing Josh is new to presenting because his session was quickly taken over by questions. Lots and lots of questions that didn't have a whole lot to do with Silverlight. I wish we could have seen more of the demo he had ready but perhaps I can catch him at another event.
I saw Mike Wood there and I did meet Joe Wirtley, Dan Hounshell, and Michael Eaton (some of my tweeps) in the flesh. I actually had like a 3-5 minute conversation with Joe. I was very nervous but tried not to let it show. I'm getting there though. I also introduced myself to the speakers so I'm making progress. I wanted to go to Champps for the geek talk but had a headache and knew I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself. It had been a long day.
I look forward to next year's code camp and other upcoming events. It's been a pleasant surprise to find out the .Net community is so active and open to newcomers.
I'm really considering going to Cleveland to attend their code camp. If I do go I hope to meet more of my tweeps and hang out for some "geek talk".