Thanks to all who came and apologies to those who came and found standing room only – I intend to record these demos and host them soon, watch this space.

The demos are fully RC2 compatible now, that day was a close call to a non-working demo.

>> Click here to download the slides and second demo. <<

Wow! We had a fantastic turn-out last night, interest in MVC must high!  Not having presented for almost a year  I tried not to publicize the the talk; but still instead of the expected twenty to thirty people there must have been close to a hundred and we had to expand the room! Couple this with the Microsoft building now almost impossible to find with that road closure flummoxing us coming from the south-side – who knows how many found Old Roswell gone and went back home at that point. For those that missed last night this talk will be repeated at all local code camps that happen in the next few months, the Atlanta one is in March and 2009 details will soon appear at http://www.atlantacodecamp.com/.

Obviously that presentation covered only some of the very basics and there is a lot more to working with MVC. Watch this space for more MVC tips and if people request it, I’ll put together a deeper presentation for Code Camps etc.

Also, I was not kidding about the free presentation/ training at your company. Totally free, no creepy sales people will call afterwards either – it will keep my hand in while taking a few months out from real work and with luck one of them might lead to my next gig (which will use MVC).  So if you have at three or more devs drop me a line via the ‘Email Me’ page on this blog – don’t worry if you are a small or large shop, I just want to spread the word and try to ensure there are a selection of MVC Contracts out there when I get bored of goofing off

DDD6 was the 6th UK ‘code camp’ and I was luckily enough for my session to be voted in. Many people missed out attending because there were ~450 registrations in 24 hours!! Everyone I met was incredibly bright – most of the tough questions I asked in my Continuous Integration session were immediately answered, by sometimes what seemed half the room!

Comparison to with US Code Camps is pretty easy. The UK version is was excellent too. Classic cultural differences were there: a little less pizazz, and the average attendee weighing 20->30 lbs less. Note the cycle racks outside reception in the photos below, if US gas were $9/gallon I think we’d be slimmer too.

It pleases me greatly to report TDD/ Automated Testing is certainly gaining traction with the .Net community here. Many people told me Mike Hadlow did an excellent talk on using Inversion of Control (IoC) with TDD. Speaker of the day must go to Ben Hall who gave an overview of xUnit tools, including MBUnit which he contributes to. Apparently Ben is a fairly recent grad and this was his first presentation – watch this guy he will do well!

Ben, Mike, Richard Fennell and Michael Foord blogged this event. Barry Dorrans shares some photos. Update: even more was said about the day here, here, here, here, here, here and here!

Ben Hall – future tech superstar (no, not the back of his head, he is the guy speaking)

Microsoft UK at 7am in Winter- brrr!

Just before I left the speakers’ lounge to meet some smart people

This was in the halls, along with life size Halo characters!

After a series of extremely well received talks for the Atlanta .Net group I almost bombed last time. Not a total disaster and luckily few were present to witness it. I had given the presentation very successfully twice before, so what happened?

The Excuses

Late notice: I stepped in very late to fill the slot and did little preparation
Lack of Preparation: The only preparation was testing the demos and skim reading slides
Lack of enthusiasm: Lariam still affects me slightly, that was one of those weeks

Bad Luck

No crowd interaction: Advertising talks well in advance gets the word out and brings in people really interested in the subject – just one eager audience member can spur interest for others
Bored Blank faces: Need to learn how to handle this

Problems with my Old Style

Need short 10/15 minutes segments: The Cruise Control .Net talk was pretty technical, each section building on the last. If I lost an audience member they stayed lost. If one demo fails it could destroy every subsequent demo.
Relying on audience interaction: Good interaction makes for killer presentations – everyone learns and everyone has fun. I was relying on it, don’t!
Deja Vu: When giving the same presentation several times it feels insincere, especially when repeating jokes. This must be an experience thing, Comedy School could help too.

Registration is now live, these free conferences always fill up fast so register right now!

It is on a Saturday at Microsoft’s office in Reading and there are some great looking sessions – some good ones are bound to overlap with my slot

See you there… Developers, Developers, Developers!

This should be fun a night, I will kick off with a light hearted look at Cruise Control – it is amazing how many projects still do not use Continuous Integration. My plan is take demos and a few slides – knowing the Architect Group the audience will soon be talking more than me

Next I will give a more formal presentation on Software Estimation – it will be a little dry, but I expect people in the room will liven it up with amusing tales from the field. We all have tales to tell of estimates which went awry.

The Architects group is really meant for Architects and CTOs with 10+ years experience. Even are you not an Architect (yet!) come along this month and enjoy these basic topics. Be aware that most regulars will call out any BS from presenters, I fully expect to be challenged and hope to learn a lot from other attendees.

The Atlanta IASA website is http://www.iasahome.org/web/atlanta.
We meet at Matrix in Dunwoody:

May 9 – 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Matrix (on the top floor)
115 Perimeter Center Place NE
Suite 250
Atlanta, GA 30346

Click here for a Google Map

The office is secure so if you are late knock on the window to the left of the door and someone will let you in.

http://www.atlantadotnet.org/

This is brand new material with only one slide carried from my NUnit presentations.
The subject is testing, and on my first dry run it was utterly boring. Since
then I rewrote the slides, and am quite happy that most developers will enjoy
it.

The material is mostly high level covering:

• Extremes of development methodologies
• Different test practices, and when each one makes sense
• Automated Testing in Team System

It will not be as much fun as last
year’s code camp, but I think it is worth attending for any developer wishing
to become more methodical. This will be the primary presentation that I hawk at code
camps this year, so feedback after the event is very much appreciated.

http://www.alabamacodecamp.com/AlAgenda.aspx

You can sign up here:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032280737&Culture=en-US

If you fancy a ride there in a swanky BMW then just email and I’ll let you know my travel plans. Ok it is only a stripper 325i but I love the car, although it will be traded for a ’99 Miata soon so I’ll be able to afford to race what I drive – the BMW had two warranty issues that followed my driving school so it has not hit the track again. The dealership is always great but I don’t want to abuse the warranty, I have already had a full set of new rotors and pads + the rear diff fixed which I know were all due to
my driving. Now should I NOS the Miata…. Yes I am a law abiding 35 year old UMIST grad with a white collar job; sometimes no one would guess

While I am talking cars here are two pictures of my humble steed in two different situations. The second one is ultra-cool and will be explained in a future post. In a post after I explain how to obtain a Realtor license and just how much cash it will save you when moving house (I said that I would do that how long ago?):

DIY on the house this week – good job I have a (folding) trailer

Plugging into ODB-II, who needs the dealership?