This follows on from my Code Camp Oz 2006 Review Part 1.
The presenters at Code Camp Oz 2006 had a range of styles, and the sessions felt more like conversations than lectures - but with people who definitely had something to "show and tell". Most of the presenters were very knowledgeable about their respective subject areas and most injected their sessions with a healthy dose of humour (I reckon that helps aid "mental digestion", especially when you're listening and talking tech for 8 straight hours, two days in a row!)
Whatever Code Camps are elsewhere around the world, the humour, lack of market-ese, and "fair dinkum", practical nature of the sessions ("How does this help me now?" kind of stuff) helped add a distinctly Australian feel to this Code Camp.
This year, as it was my second Code Camp, I think I was a little more relaxed and prepared to take time to talk to people a little more than last year. I'm not much of a networker, but in the same way I'm not shy to go up and say hello or talk to people about a session. I'm particularly glad I was able to tell the presenters how much I enjoyed their sessions.
As for the sessions: 50% of the sessions were pure gold; a further 30% were enjoyable, and the rest didn't appeal for one reason or another. At Code Camp, there's no requirement to attend every session - in fact, a lot of sessions ran concurrently with a smaller "breakout" session for a more engaging and almost round-table type discussion.
The speakers that stood out for me, in no particular order, were:
- Chris Hewitt - there was a real buzz around Chris's session on WinFS (the upcoming SQL-based file system) and he didn't disappoint the pretty large crowd in his breakout session. Chris was an entertaining presenter who used humour to good effect (like his "evil plan to take over the world" document).
- Greg Low (blog) - when Greg speaks it's always worth listening. I reckon he's got to be one of the top (if not the top) man on SQL Server in Australia. I got to speak to him and hear a couple of his stories "from the trenches" at dinner one night, and I felt like a Junior Burger in amongst the Big Macs between Greg (a Regional Director) and Dan Green. Greg spoke about "Avoiding recompiles in SQL Server" which Greg identified as a performance problem. Greg is such a good presenter and just seems to take everything in his stride, nutting things out while he's still talking (one of the the things I noticed about the less experienced presenters was the long silences while they tried to figure out what was going on - there was none of that with Greg).
- Dan Green - Dan had the tough job of being the first presenter at 8:15 AM Sunday morning (yikes) and he spoke on a topic that he admitted wasn't his first choice. However, he had clearly done his homework and was excited about his presentation. I guess I "got" where Dan was heading from the outset because he started with an analogy of how easy it was to get started programming on a Commodore 64, something I'd done myself! And he presented in a really practical way - that is, "here's what I learned when starting to come to terms with Windows Workflow Foundation, that you'll come up against too". It was the first look that I'd had at this technology, and Dan even touched a bit on why you would use WF. Dan was also a cool guy to talk to at the afore-mentioned dinner because he's seen how things work in bigger software companies (even Microsoft itself) and he had some really cool ideas and rants.
- Darren Niemke (blog) - I got to talking to Darren last year and (probably unknown to him) he gave me some good advice and help on a software problem I was having, not by giving me the answers but by helping focus my research - belated thanks Darren! Darren had a down-to-earth style - he wore shorts and t-shirt - and helped disect the market-ese behind his session on "Development in Vista".
- Adam Cogan - Adam is recognised as one of the most successful and active developer-type people in the Australian community. He's a Regional Director and runs a software development company called Superior Software for Windows (SSW). I've enjoyed Adam's presentations in the past and have seen him present at a SQL User Group and last year's Code Camp (where I called him a "geek rock star" and had envy over his Dell laptop), and have also at a training course run by Adam in Melbourne. Adam's a very entertaining and knowledgeable speaker and along with Greg, one of the better presenters in Australia (according to me anyway). Adam reviewed 3rd-party vendors for ASP.NET development, and used his sense of humour and endless trove of tales tall and true to really involve the audience. I thought his session was informative and non-biased as, unlike a "Summit" or other type of conference, vendors aren't present at Code Camp. Adam also stands out because he is always soliciting feedback and is open to people's comments and criticisms on what he's presenting, and also doesn't miss a chance to talk about his company's tools and the excellent "Rules To Better..." standards on his site.
- Susan Entwisle - Susan had a really impressive session that didn't really fit the mold of the other presentations. I didn't get a chance to thank her for her informative and broad look at "The Future of Modelling Tools". It was clear Susan knew her stuff - she didn't stay behind the lecturn but roved around talking about stuff I'd never heard of like "Domain Specific Languages" and "UML 3.0". She didn't have many slides (unlike someone who said they had 80 or so slides in their presentation...yuck...just show me the code). I think in Susan's session I realised I was truly a developer and not an architect because I still want to write code first and think later! Susan also talked a little about code generation which is something I'm just starting to get into.
- Joseph Cooney (blog), Chuck Sterling (blog) and Deepak Kapoor - the sessions run by these guys on Windows Presentation Framework were really well attended and there was definitely a "cool" factor around the possibility of spinning 3-D videos and the demonstrations of moving buttons. The sessions balanced nicely between "wow" and "work" by also touching on separation of markup from code, compositing of controls and the business value that this tecnology will help deliver, and some good looking apps. One of the things that I filed away for later was the possibility (some stage in the future) of being able to compile code to web or windows - definitely cool.
- Rocky Heckman (blog) - there was an air of mystery about Rocky's session on "Hacking Applications". He presented a funny and slightly devious session, showing us code on how hackers might get at an ASP.NET application, and talking about attack vectors and real-life examples. Rocky claimed that the only reason hiw session was so full was that there was no break-out session running at the same time - I reckon it was because people wanted to know what the hell Rocky was going to cover! Rocky also demo'd a free application called the Microsoft Threat Analysis and Modelling tool which is worth following up on further.
* I've only mentioned speaker's blogs where I actually read them even if only from time to time.
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