2012.1

An introductory talk on the CQRS architecture, featuring high level architecture discussion and a quick dip into a simple example project. This is not a comprehensive discussion of the topic, but a starter to help you determine if CQRS is right for you.

In physics, two particles can act together in order to behave as one system so that a change made to one particle instantly affects the other - even if they are separated by great distances. This is known as Quantum Entanglement, which Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." The closest analogy to this for web development would be to observe a web page instantly update in response to a user entering data in a different web browser. Believe it or not, this is not only possible today, but relatively easy by using two open source libraries together: SignalR and Knockout. SignalR is an asynchronous signaling library for .NET that helps to build real-time, multi-user systems. Knockout is a JavaScript library that brings MVVM pattern to the web page, providing observable data, templates, and automatic data binding. This session will demonstrate how to use this new paradigm to build highly interactive web applications.

Jason Follas is a Technical Architect for Perficient, serving clients primarily located in the greater Detroit region (including Toledo, where he lives and serves as a leader of the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group). Since 1994, he has developed many interesting solutions on the Microsoft platform, including an aircraft loadplanning system used by an air freight company, ecommerce sites, geospatial web applications, and blend optimization software. Jason is also a Microsoft MVP Alumni.

The world is going Mobile and creating that special app could make you independently wealthy. In this talk we will go over how to get started creating apps for the Windows Phone Marketplace.

We will take a look at how we can enhance the UI simply by introducing jQuery and jQuery.UI into our templates. Whether HTML, MVC or Webforms jQuery can aid in clientside development.

Apache Subversion is an open source versioning and revision control system. Developers have been using it for years to maintain their code, websites, documentation, etc. We'll cover how to install Subversion Server, setting up a repository, installing a client to tap into SVN and cover the SVN hooks and how to use them for your project needs.

It’s time to accept the hype – “the cloud” is a component of applications going forward.  This will be a code-heavy session were we’ll walk through building and deploying a Windows Azure application.  What new tools will you need?  What new skills will you need?  What are the best resources to keep at the end of your mouse?  In this session we’ll discuss all these points and more.  We will see how easy it is to build on existing skillsets to develop an application that takes advantage of several of the services available on the Windows Azure platform.

Space Cadet is a Windows 8 Metro Style App developed using HTML and JavaScript you can freely re-use in your own apps.  The intent of this session demo is to help developers (Web, XAML and XNA focused) with writing their first Metro Style App in a fun, immersive way.  Space Cadet starts out as small game with a functional Game Loop.  After each Windows 8 topic is introduced new functionality is added to the game.  The following topics will be covered:

• Web/IE10 with HTML5 Canvas, HTML5 Audio, CSS3 Styling and Custom Fonts
  o Implementing a Game Loop with JavaScript with msRequestAnimationFrame
  o Third Party Frameworks with SoundJS for use of HTML5 Audio Element
• Touch with MSPointer
• Camera Access
• Accelerometer
• WinJS Controls with AppBar and AppBarCommand, FlyOut, ViewPort
 
The session ends with app developers having a baseline of knowledge to build their own games Windows 8 games.

Dave Isbitski is a Sr. Developer Evangelist with Microsoft covering Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox. He enjoys talking about technology and has taught full-day courses on numerous Microsoft topics as well as being a presenter at VSLive!,ReMix, XAMLFest, CodeCamps and other community events. Dave can be found on Twitter at @TheDaveDev and his blog http://blogs.msdn.com/davedev.

It is easy as a SharePoint developer to limit your toolbox to just the items in the Microsoft.SharePoint namespace.  Using these tools requires a specialized skillset in understanding the abilities and limitations of these objects.  However, as a developer, it is important to have a wide range of tools available to you even if you only build SharePoint solutions. 
SharePoint is based on the .net Framework (3.5 in the case of version 2010) and IIS web applications, so your solutions can include many of the tools supported by these technologies.  If you have only developed SharePoint solutions, you may not be aware of other technologies available to your projects.  In this session, I will show some examples of solving complex business scenarios by working outside of the Microsoft.SharePoint namespace and still provide a SharePoint based solution.
The list of topics is still under development and currently includes the following:

• Integrating third party web controls into your application.
• Accessing .net Framework to go beyond what you can do with SPList and SPQuery objects.
• Using jQuery to enhance the functionality of your webpages.
• And at least one more thing (maybe two depending on the time).
  

Asynchronous programing has been available to .Net developers since version 1. It is a technique use to maintain responsiveness of thread and not blocking it while an operation is being performed. Asynchrony preserves responsiveness while synchronous call blocks, until the result is returned. However the current async patterns available to ..net developers makes developer do funny things to your app code. In this session I will introduce the new Async framework available to Windows Phone, Windows 8 and .Net v.Next

Danilo Diaz, aka Dani, is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft's Mid-Atlantic State district. In this role, he helps developers understand Microsoft's product offerings and strategy. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked at Perficient Philadelphia where he helped establish their Mobility Practice. Dani has over 8 years of experience in the IT industry. His ability to identify and utilize the right blend of technologies to solve business needs has been an asset on all projects he has worked on. Dani's first .NET project was a Web-based eLearning application which was built on ASP.NET 1.0 Beta 2. As a consultant he has served the roles of system architect, technical lead, developer and mentor on various large and small projects. He has worked on SOA-based applications, Web applications, Windows applications and mobile systems.

Learn to stand toe-to-toe with your Web-based UI in this introductory bout on using KnockoutJS. You'll enter the ring as an upstart with your knowledge of JavaScript and background in manipulating DOM elements. When you leave the ring, you'll be a hardened MVVM mauler equipped with control over observables, bindings and templates.

Derek is a .NET developer who has worked with leading software development companies such as Infragistics and NaviSys. He shares with the development community the wisdom gleaned from a decade of delivering innovative solutions to life insurers, TPAs, warehouse managers and user interface developers. Always willing to dabble in tomorrow's technology today, his other passions include swing trading and seeing the Flyers win a Stanley Cup.

Razor is a great new way to write your ASP.NET MVC views. It's also ridiculously simple! In this talk we will first see the Razor template engine in action doing what it was designed for: rendering HTML for ASP.NET MVC views. Along the way, we'll pop open the hood and see the magic going on behind the scenes. Then, we'll completely ignore what Microsoft had in mind when they created Razor and use the Razor API in applications that have nothing to do with the web what-so-ever! When we're finished, not only will you know how to make the most out of the ASP.NET MVC Razor View Engine, you'll be wanting to use Razor in all of your applications!

Jess Chadwick is an independent software consultant and technologist. He has over a decade of development experience ranging from embedded devices in start-ups to enterprise-scale web farms at Fortune 500s. He is an ASPInsider, Microsoft MVP in ASP.NET, magazine and book author, including O'Reilly's up-coming Programming ASP.NET MVC 4. Jess is actively involved in the development community, regularly speaking at user groups and conferences as well as leading the NJDOTNET Central New Jersey .NET user group.

Runners find that they can go faster with a lower perceived effort when they exercise in a pack. The same thing happens when coders pair program, and when colleagues gel. What do we need to do to so we can get code out the door sooner? It's not just continuous code integration--it's high bandwidth communication! Find out what companies of all sizes, like Comcast (100k employees), ING Direct (2500 employees), and SmarTesting (30 employees) are doing to successfully adopt and improve Agile development! Paraphrasing from Margaret Mead: "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed [employees] can change the [company]". This talk is based on personal experience as well as the work of Seth Godin, Jim Collins, Christopher McDougall, Dan Mezick, Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá, Katherine Kirk, Daniel Goleman, and others.

Experience: For over a decade, André has led agile adoptions, providing guidance to teams and organizations seeking shorter development cycles, higher quality, and more effective discovery of customer value. Playing various roles, from developer, manager, product owner and scrum master, he's done everything from hiring and building teams in startup environments to coaching teams for an organization with over 100k employees. Some of his teams have seen 50% reduced cycle time, practically bug-free code with daily deployments, and improved employee morale. He's also active in the community, providing leadership to groups such as: Agile Philly, Technically Philly Groups and Agile Tour. Education: After graduating from college and receiving an M.S. in Information Science from Drexel University, André has continued his lifelong committment to learning by reading about software teams and by organizing and facilitating discussions amongst local practitioners. To get community feedback on his ideas, he presents regularly at conferences, including: Agile 2011, XP 2010-2011, Agile Tour 2008-2010, and Agile France. Personal: André lives with his spouse and 3 children in Philadelphia, returning after two years spent abroad, where he used his fluent French to help a French team. He's a runner (clocking 5Ks in ~22 minutes), and loves club/pop music, and swing/bop/contra dancing.

This session will cover the ins and outs of SPMetal, a tool which ships with SharePoint 2010. SPMetal allows developers compile-time access to SharePoint lists and content types. Additionally, developers can write LINQ queries against these lists using SPMetal. This session will also briefly touch upon performance considerations and other best practices.

I am a Microsoft Certified SharePoint Solution Developer (MCSD) & SharePoint IT Professional (MCITP) with 4+ years of combined SharePoint experience. Currently working as a Senior SharePoint Consultant with Portal Solutions specializing in the Architecture & Development of complex custom solutions. I have worked with clients such as GirlScouts of USA, Conservation International, ECS & Fraunhofer. Until recently, I was a consulting analyst with Accenture Technology Consulting where I worked with clients such as Philip Morris and the US Postal Service. I am an alumni of the University of Maryland with degrees in Computer Engineering and Business Management.

In this talk we will introduce the REST architectural style and look at what goes into designing a good REST API and what you should expect when consuming a REST API. We will also look at the new ASP.NET Web API stack that is part of ASP.NET MVC 4 and how it can be used to create REST API's.

Devin Rader spends his day’s extoling the virtues of Twilio (www.twilio.com), the amazingly simple cloud telephony platform. Before that he worked at Infragistics where he focused on delivering great user experiences to developers using their controls. He's done work on all of the .NET platforms, but most recently has been focused on ASP.NET and Silverlight. As a co-founder of the St. Louis .NET User Group, a current board member of the Central New Jersey .NET User Group and a former INETA board member, he's an active supporter of the .NET developer community. He's also the co-author or technical editor of numerous books on .NET including Wrox's Professional Silverlight 4 and Wrox's Professional ASP.NET 4. Follow Devin on Twitter @devinrader

What would it look like if we could use a better language to develop client side applications along with a mature framework to do so? It would look like writing applications in CoffeeScript and Backbone.js. Come to this session for some CoffeeScript and Backbone basics, and you just might not dread your next adventure into client side programming

Len Smith has been developing software professionally for fourteen years. When not writing software, Len is probably thinking or talking about writing software. His passions are all things Ruby, Agile and Lean methodologies, Testing and a fascination with Domain Specific Languages.

Are your apps not running as fast as they could be? Is your site not serving with the vigor it used to? Performance tuning is often considered a black art whose secrets are known only to a select few code whisperers who were born with an innate gift for speeding up code. This is simply not true. The skill of performance tuning can be learned and understood by any software developer in surprisingly little time.
This session will show you how to pinpoint bottlenecks in your code using profiling tools, understand their cause, and solve them to get your app back to running like a star. You’ll not only leave with an understanding of how to diagnose your performance problems but also a set of simple techniques that you can apply when tackling any piece of ill-performing code.
Still think performance tuning is a black art? Think again.

Jeremy Jarrell is a professional software developer specializing in commercial application development for the enterprise space. He is heavily involved in the local developer community both as a regular presenter throughout the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia regions as well as an author whose articles have appeared on sites such as Simple-Talk.com and DZone.com.
He is currently the Software Development Team Lead at Matrix Solutions of Pittsburgh, PA, the leading provider of strategic account analysis and CRM software to the media industry.

Building complex systems can often be easier when you break them into smaller services, but how do you reduce the complexity of the coordination between the services? In this discussion, we'll see how you can use an OSS .Net Service Bus, MassTransit, to facilitate building your applications in a distributed architecture.

Eric Kepes is an in-the-trenches software architect specializing in developing distributed systems using agile methods. He enjoys sharing his experiences using technology with the.Net community at user group meetings and Code Camps. He is the Communications Director for the Pittsburgh .Net User Group and the Pittsburgh Code Camps. Having spent nearly 18 years in software development wearing many different hats, he currently works for McKesson Automation as a software architect. He is a reformed certification junkie. When he’s not playing with computers or studying the latest fads in agile engineering and process, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters. Visit Eric’s blog at http://erickepes.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ekepes.

This session will fly over the question of Monotouch is and actually focus on building an app with Monotouch and C#. We'll talk about the process as go from File/New all the way to preparing to upload it to our friends at Apple. This will be a fast paced look at what goes into making a simple iPhone or iPad app.

At one point or another every web developer has had the joy of working with JavaScipt. Originally designed to add flare to a web page or do simple form validation has involved into the platform of the web. Scott Hanselman famously coined the term that “JavaScript is the assembly language of the web”. Now is the time to learn to harness this language. During this talk you will learn the power and flexibility of the JavaScript language and how to apply proven coding best practices as your build your JavaScript application. We will dive the core language features of JavaScript, how to apply design principles and patterns such as SOLID, the gang-of-four patterns, and architecture patterns such as the Model View Controller to design and build world class JavaScript applications.

Todd Snyder has been a software developer/architect for over 18 years. During that time, he has spent several years as a consultant providing technical guidance and leadership for the development of enterprise class systems on the Microsoft platform. At Infragistics, he is a principal consultant that focuses on the design and construction of RIA, mobile and n-tier based applications. Todd is the co-leader for the New Jersey .NET User Group, http://www.njdotnet.net/, and is a frequent speaker at trade shows, code camps, and Firestarters.

In this session we'll take a quick tour of Windows 8 and then turn our attention to developer issues and tools. Topics of discussion will include Desktop vs. Metro, .NET vs. WinRT, touch vs. mouse & keyboard, XAML vs. HTML, and more. Whatever your preferences, this presentation should help prepare for the future of Windows.

Having been a part of Agile, Waterfall, and projects with no SDLC at all. As a consultant in the business of solution delivery I will often have to come onsite and assimilate to the culture of the client. Other times it is our job to realign the culture of the client to a more agile and efficient way of getting things done. In this talk we will cover estimation, accountability, people vs process, empowering your team while not risking the delivery dates. I will cover how to pair programming and code reviews contrary to common corporate belief actually make teams more productive and result in higher quality code. And yes how testing will make your team all rockstars!

Matt Van Horn is a Sr. Consultant with Capax Global. In his current role, Matt is responsible for working with clients to produce applications to serve our clients needs. Matt, a seasoned developer with proficiencies in a wide-array of programming languages and platforms, focuses on creating flexible and dynamic code tailored to the specific needs of customers. Matt is an experienced presenter, regularly speaking at Usergroup meetings and Code Camps.