Code Camp Events Related Posts

I would like to thank everyone who came out to my DevLINQ sessions this week. The materials for both of the sessions are not available on the Files tab  of this site. In addition, here are the descriptions and direct links to each of these downloads:

• Reactive Extensions for JavaScript (RxJs)

The Reactive Extensions allow developers to build composabile, asynchronous event driven methods over observable collections. In web applications, you can use this same model in client side processing using the RxJs framework. We'll show you how you can take advantage of this framework to simplify your complex asynchronous client side operations.

Includes slides and samples demonstrating some of the uses of the Reactive Extensions for JavaScript (RxJs). The samples illustrate using RxJs for LINQ style queries, Timer based web page rotator, Mock observable sensor, Mouse drag drop, Dictionary Suggest, and Bing Translator over multiple languages.

• Async Programming in .Net

While .Net 4 added parallel programming capabilities, these tools primarily help when your application is CPU bound. In many cases, parallel processing doesn't address IO Latency issues. In these cases, we need to provide the perception of responsive applications by using asynchronous programming tools. We will explore some of these options including Delegates, Callbacks, Iterators, Observers, and the new C# Async/Await keywords.

Includes slides and samples demonstrating ways of performing Asynchronous operations from .Net 1.0 through .Net 5.0. In addition to the standard Visual Studio 2010 install, you will also need to download and in stall the following libraries to use these samples:

• Wintellect Power Threading Library,
• Reactive Extensions for WPF 4
• Visual Studio Async CTP.

TechEd2011 - GeekGive is cleaning up!

Join Matt and I on Saturday, May 14th to help GeekGive make a difference in our local Atlanta community. We’re going to be picking up trash on streets and cleaning up a park. Not just any park, we’re going to be helping the Peopletown Revitalization Corporation to clean Atlanta’s first public beltline park on the day of its dedication ceremony!

Registration for volunteers is now open and we badly need volunteers!

Register at teched2011 - GeekGive

Things are really gearing up for me over the next several months. Here’s a list of the talks I’m scheduled to give at this time. If you’re in the area, make sure to stop by and let me know what you Thinq.

1/14-15: CodeMash: Sandusky, OH

• Building Dynamic Data Driven Applications (Part 1 & 2)

1/23/2010: Alabama Code Camp: Mobile Alabama

• LINQ to SQL Tricks and Tips
• LINQ Tools

1/30/2010: Columbia Code Camp: Columbia South Carolina

• LINQ Scalability
• LINQ to SQL Tricks and Tips
• LINQ Tools

2/4/2010: INETA talk for the New England Visual Basic Professionals

• Building dynamic data driven applications with the Entity Framework

3/15-3/19: DevWeek 2010 – London

• Migrating from LINQ to SQL to the Entity Framework
• What’s new in Managed Languages
• LINQ to SQL Tricks and Tips
• Building Dynamic Data Driven Applications (full day Post-Con)

This summer at the Jacksonville Code Camp, I had the pleasure of being part of the taping of Russ' Fustino’s Toolshed. Finally, the episode has  been posted on Channel9 for you to enjoy. Here’s the overview of the episode.

Toolshed: Episode 5 - Its All About The Tools TV Show

Episode 5 has killer content on Deep Zoom, Expression Web 3, a codeplex project on a Snippet Editor for Visual Studio, LINQ Tool Samples, LINQ Pad, Link To Twitter, Expression Blend 3 Importing Adobe assets, and an incredible codeplex project must see on a solid Silverlight website starter kit using best practices!  This is Russ's Tool Shed's best effort yet! Grab a beer and hope you enjoy this most educational, enlightening and entertaining instant classic video!

The LINQ Tools segment starts at 44:35 if you want to jump ahead.

If you are in the Birmingham, AL area on July 25-26, consider signing up for the free two day LINQ Bootcamp event. I'm hoping to be there to help answer your questions as well. If you're interested in more information, here's a copy of the original announcement:

…The upcoming LINQ Bootcamp [will be] on July 25th and 26th. To register for this great event please go to http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=139378 . Seating is limited to this free event. We still need volunteers for presenting, currently more than half the chapters are still available. Your participation is needed to make this event a success so be ready to pick out a chapter when you arrive, first come first serve. You can also e-mail us at BhamSoftwareDevAssoc@live.com to volunteer or get more info.

Update: as of 7/6/09 Chapters 3, 9, 10, 11, and 12 have been volunteered for, other chapters are still open to potential presenters. All presenters will get a free copy of the book.

Unfortunately, the book in question isn't "LINQ in Action", but it should be a good event regardless.

Russ Fustino and Stan Schultes have recently started bringing their popular Russ' Tool Shed show to the internet. If you want to check out the show, head on over to http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/toolshed. They also have all of the resources, including source code, slides, and demo scripts available at http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/toolshed. I was there when they recorded the first episode at the South Florida code camp as an attendee.

We're hoping to do a recording at one of the upcoming Florida Code Camps to look at LINQ related tools. I'm planning on covering the following tools.

• LINQ to SQL Visualizer
• Expression Tree Visualizer
• PasteXmlAsLinq
• i4o - Indexed LINQ to Objects
• LINQ to XSD
• L2ST4
• LINQPad
• LINQ to Twitter

All of these tools are free (a requirement of the Code Camp manifesto). I may add a couple tools, but only have 10 minutes to cover everything. Let me know if you have a favorite tool that's not on this list.

The speaking scene in the South East has been quiet for a bit but is starting to pick up. Here's a quick list of my upcoming speaking engagements starting this weekend. If you're near one of these, stop by and say hi.

• 6/26-6/27: CodeStock (Knoxville, TN)
• 7/14: Sarasota PASS (Sarasota, FL)
• 8/3: Atlanta MS Professionals (Atlanta, GA)
• 8/13 - 8/15: Devlink (Nashville, TN)
• 8/29: Jacksonville Code Camp (Jacksonville, FL)
• 9/5: Tallahassee Code Camp (Tallahassee, FL)

If you attended any of these talks and didn't fill out an evaluation from the conference organizers, I would appreciate it if you let me know what you thought about the talk at http://www.speakerrate.com/jwooley. Make sure to include comments so that I can make future talks better.

At the Atlanta Code Camp, Michael Neal introduced me to something I didn't know about LINQ before. Since a picture says 1000 words, I thought I would just share the picture with everyone else. For those who haven't seen it yet, here's the true POWER of LINQ.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of demonstrating Delegates, Lambdas and Expressions at the Alabama Code Camp. This is not the first time I presented this. The original demo project is still available in the Downloads section of this site. This time however, I was able to round off the VB set of the demos to demonstrate all of the abilities available in C# 3.0 due to the new Statement and Multi-line Lambda language enhancements coming in VB 10. The complete VB 10 version of the project is available to download now as well.

Here are some of the added methods. (Note, this has been tested against the October 2008 beta release of Visual Studio 2010. Be aware of the evaluation time bomb in this release if you intend to use it.) The DoTrick method takes an Action delegate which means that it takes no parameters and returns no values. In VB this equates to a Sub and in VB 10 is refered to as a Statement Lambda.

'Anonymous delegate
animal.DoTrick(Sub() Console.WriteLine("Anonymous Method"))

' Lambda expression as a variable
Dim LiftOneLeg As TrickAction =
   Sub()
      animal.LegsOnGround -= 1
   End Sub
animal.DoTrick(LiftOneLeg)

'Lambda expression inline
animal.DoTrick(Sub()
      animal.LegsOnGround += 3
   End Sub)

'Multi-line lambda
animal.DoTrick(Sub()
      animal.LegsOnGround = 0
      Console.WriteLine("I'm Jumping now!")
      animal.LegsOnGround = 4
   End Sub)

I also included a nice consise combination of VB 9 function lambdas with VB 10 Statement lambdas. In this case, I find the animals that have broken business rules (Predicates which are delegates that return a boolean) and then iterate over them using the ForEach method that takes an Action delegate which can be fulfilled with a statement lambda.

animals _
   .Where(Function(item) Not item.IsValid).ToList _
   .ForEach(Sub(item) Console.WriteLine(item.ToString))

For this update, I also include a demonstration of a common use of Lambda's, particularly in Silverlight applications where all data access is asynchronous. Since all delegates actually inherit from MultiCastDelegate, all delegates by default offer asynchronous BeginInvoke/EndInvoke possibilities in addition to the Synchronous Invoke method.

With BeginInvoke, we use a lambda that takes an IAsynchResult object as a parameter. In the past we had to declare the call back as a separate method. With the inclusion of multi-line statement lambdas, we can now declare the callback directly inline with the BeginInvoke request as follows:

Public Sub BeginTrick(ByVal trick As Action)
   trick.BeginInvoke(Sub(result)
         Thread.Sleep(1000)
         Console.WriteLine("...Trick Completed for " & ToString())
      End Sub, Me)
End Sub

If you missed this presentation, I'll be doing it again at the South Florida Code Camp next week. Come on down and check it out.

In case you missed the PDC, don't miss the opportunity to get some of the content for a greatly reduced cost. Microsoft touring the country with their MSDN Developer Conference  and are coming to Atlanta on December 16th at the Westin Peachtree Plaza.

I'll be among the who's who list of local experts presenting the content. For my part, I'll be showing you the language enhancements that are coming for C# 4.0 and VB 10.0. This release is more about parity than ground-breaking advances like we had with LINQ in the last release. There are a number of nice features which should make programming a bit easier.

In addition to the language session, Glen has a full writeup including the speakers and sessions. There's also a number of cool give-aways. Sign-up today for a great event.

If you haven't signed up for Tech Days '08 Atlanta, what are you waiting for. Run on over to  http://www.msdnevents.com/atlanta and sign up for 1, 2, or all 3 days.

In addition to the posted conference, there's a series of chalk talks that are not on the official schedule. These are great ways to interact with experts at a level that is typically deeper than you get in the standard lecture type presentation.  There are some interesting sessions which Glen has outlined on his blog.

Here's the quick rundown:

Tuesday, 9/23:
8:30 AM - Developing Applications for Windows Mobile - Rob Cameron (Microsoft)
9:45 AM - XNA Game Studio Development for Zune - Rob Cameron (Microsoft)
11:00 AM - Introduction to Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio - Brian Johnson (Microsoft)

Wednesday, 9/24:
8:30 AM - Can we use SharePoint for That? - Doug Ware (Elumenotion)
9:45 AM - Deep Dive into the ASP.NET AJAX Update Panel - Wallace McClure, Scalable Development)
11:00 - LINQ Deep Dive - Jim Wooley (Yours truly)

Thursday, 9/25:
9:00 AM - Overview of Visual Studio Team System "Rosario" - David Scruggs (Microsoft)
10:30 AM - ALM Open Space (Panel)

You don't have to be registered for these chalk talks to attend. These should be great talks and highly worth the cost of admission (free). I would highly recommend taking MARTA to get there as parking is not included

After DevLink a number of us organizers, speakers and attendees went to the bar to wind down. While there, Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell pulled out a mic and started recording people's reaction to the show. It may not have a lot of technical content, but is an entertaining listen anyway. Check the show #372 on DotNetRocks.Com. If you listen carefully, you can find out my twitter account as well.

While at DevLinq (er DevLink), I also had the opportunity to sit back in the rocking chairs with Keith and Woody to record an upcoming DeepFriedBytes.com episode. I'll let you know how you can access that show when it is posted.

Glenn just announced that the Geek Speak podcasts are available again. They were disabled right before my session on LINQ Migration Strategies came out. If you have a Zune or IPod and want to subscribe to the feed, it is available again.

If you're going to be at TechEd Developer '08, make sure to say hi if you see me. I'll be hanging out in the VB area of the Technology Learning Center for some of the conference. In addition, I'll be one of the contestants in Speaker Idol and appreciate all of my peeps coming out to show your support.

One of the other great things about this year's TechEd is the inclusion of a community lead weekend between TechEd Developer and TechEd IT. There are quite a number of different events, including a Tweener Weekend code camp put on by Dave Norderer and the South Florida guys. I'm honored to be speaking as part of this event on some more advanced features that LINQ to SQL offers to developers beyond the basic drag and drop experience of the designer.

I hope to see some of you at the event (or the various parties that come with these kinds of events.)

Tomorrow, Wednesday 4/2/2008, I will be the guest speaker on the Geek Speak webcast. We will be discussing strategies for beginning to incorporate LINQ into your existing application infrastructure. In many cases, that does not mean replacing your entire data stack, but rather using pieces of LINQ to add functionality and in new components. Please join us. The Geek Speak webcasts are often driven by attendee questions. The more questions, the better the event.

I've uploaded the files for my presentations for the fall Code camp season which I just presented last weekend at the Birmingham, Alabama code camp. If you missed the talks, you can pick up the downloads at the following links. Also, I will be at the Charleston, South Carolina code camp this coming weekend (10/13) so you can catch me there. Additionally, the ThinqLinq talk is still available on the aspnetpodcasts.com. Links to all three parts of the webcasts are available on the file download page.

Below are the links to each of the downloads for my three talks.

• Building data driven web sites with Visual Studio 2008 and LINQ
• Language enhancements with VB 9
• What's new with Visual Studio 2008

These and all of my demos are available via my downloads page.

Please join us on Monday, October 1 at 6:30 PM for the monthly Atlanta Cutting Edge .NET / MsPros / VB Study Group meeting.

Note, for this meeting we will be meeting at Turner in midtown (1015 Techwood Drive) rather than the usual Microsoft offices. If you haven't attended meetings in the past due to location, here's your chance to let us know if this facility is better. Scroll to the bottom of this message for directions to the meeting.

Presentation Topics

• Speaker: Steve Porter
  Topic: Windows Workflow Rules Engine
  Summary: This talk explores creating, maintaining and executing business rules using the Windows Workflow (WF) rules engine.
  
  
  
• Speaker: Rik Robinson
  Topic: Deep Dive CSS for the ASP.NET Developer
  
  

  This will be a thorough discussion of all that is CSS.  Whether you know it as the necessary evil or the great enabler (that just hasn’t quite clicked for you yet), you should walk away with something valuable from this discussion.  I will begin with the basic box model and travel all the way to the holiest of grails (the no tables here, two and three column ASP.NET Master Page layout…yours to take home for free!).  Along the way, we’ll touch on some CSS Best Practices and gotchas in ASP.NET and take a look at the new CSS tools in Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas).   

  Rik Robinson is an Independent Consultant in the Atlanta GA area.  He holds the following certifications (all .NET Framework 2.0):  MCPD –Enterprise Applications, MCTS-Web, MCTS-Windows, MCTS-Distributed Applications.  He really hates that he has to type this in third person like someone else wrote it.  Rik is supposed to maintain his blog at www.r2musings.com.   He will soon, I’m sure.  Rik’s focus is always on the User Experience (both the end user’s and the developer’s).  
  

NOTE: Different location! We will be meeting at the Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta

Directions to Techwood

Marta Rail System: Midtown Stop on the North/South Line

FROM I-75/I-85 NORTH HEADING NORTH

• Travel North on I-75 and I-85.
  
• Take 10^th Street/14^th Street/Techwood Drive/Georgia Tech exit (Exit #250)
  
• Turn left at first red light, onto Tenth Street (heading West)
  
• Turn right onto Techwood Drive and left into the visitor entrance.
  
• Pull up to window of the Gate House and Security Officers will direct you to visitor parking
  
• Take the parking deck elevator to the 1^st floor of the 1000 Bldg and check in with the receptionist in the lobby. Tell them you are with the Atlanta MS Pros.

FROM I-75/I-85 SOUTH HEADING SOUTH

• Travel South on I-75 or I-85.
  
• Take Techwood Drive/Tenth Street/Fourteenth Street exit (Exit #84)
  
• Go straight ahead and the exit ramp turns into Techwood Drive
  
• Cross 14^th Street and stay in the right lane.
  
• Turn right into the visitor entrance on Techwood Drive
  
• Pull up to window of the Gate House and Security Officers will direct you to visitor parking
  
• Take the parking deck elevator to the 1^st floor of the 1000 Bldg and check in with the receptionist in the lobby. Tell them you are with the Atlanta MS Pros.

Thanks, and I hope to see everyone at this month's meeting!

A couple weeks ago, I had the privledge of discussing my favorite topic, LINQ, in an MSDN Geek Speak. If you missed it, they posted a recording of it today. Check it out at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032322905&Culture=en-US. Also, you can check out the LINQ Links at http://blogs.msdn.com/geekspeak/archive/2007/01/25/follow-up-from-linq-geekspeak-webcast-with-jim-wolley.aspx (Yes, I know they spelled my name wrong in the URL.)

Speaking of names, what do you think about a moniker Kinq Of Linq? Is it too over the top or just provocative enough?

I had the pleasure of helping to organize and run the Atlanta Code Camp version 3.0 this past weekend. From all accounts, it was an unqualified success. We estimate we had around 290 attendees which is up by 50 from last year. Nearly every room was full for every session which speaks to the quality and diversity of the speakers in that all topics are equally popular. The contributors really stepped up as well, including Cizer who contributed nearly $250,000!

We had speakers scheduled from 6 states, including GA, FL, AL, SC, NC, and even Seattle Washington. I also did a quick poll of the attendees at the beginning and we had people from the above states and also Tennessee and New Jersey. That's a heck of a trip just to attend a community event. I hope that they got their money worth. If it is any indication, I didn't have anyone ask for a refund. (To those of you unfamiliar with Code Camps, they are free events). I had the pleasure of speaking at 6 of these events last year and must say that this was the most diverse group I have seen geographically so far. I humbly offer that we set a high bar for the rest of the year to live up to.

For those of you who attended (and those who were unable to attend as well), I have already begun posting the speaker's slides and demos on the AtlantaCodeCamp site. More will be coming as I receive them. In addition, we had several WROX affiliated speakers record their sessions. I'll post a link to those once they are ready.

Altnough it was a great time, I'm glad that the event is over so that I can have a chance to sit back and rest a bit. I'm sure this won't be the only code camp I can be seen at this year. I'll see you out there sometime.

Jim

Local Community Champion, Glen Gordon convinced me to share my LINQ insights in an open chat forum this Wednesday, 1/10. If you are interested in LINQ, sign-up for the talk at http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032322905&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US and check it out. Here's the link to the annoucment on their blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/geekspeak/archive/2007/01/08/a-new-year-and-a-new-series-of-geekspeaks-first-up-linq-with-jim-wooley.aspx

Fellow Code Campers,

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Registration for the 3rd annual Atlanta Code Camp is now open. Please register on the Click to Attend website to guarantee your spot at the Code Camp.

Here's the link:
https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=113135

Just a reminder. The 3rd annual Atlanta Code Camp will take place on January 20th. The event is completely free and lunch is included. Doors open at 7:30am at the Decatur campus of DeVry University

250 North Arcadia Ave
Decatur , GA 30030

If you are coming in from out of town, we have a recommended hotel near the event. Call the Holiday Inn and ask for the DeVry University rate to get a $99/night rate. Parking is extra and costs $7/day

Holiday Inn

130 Clairemont Ave
Decatur, GA 30030
404-372-0204

During the Code Camp, lunch will be provided at no cost to you. After the event, we are planning on gathering in a local eatery to continue any discussions which we were not able to complete by our 5:30 pm end time. Location information will be made available at the event.

The Atlanta Code Camps have historically "sold out" extremely rapidly and we don't expect this time to be any different. Please register quickly to lock in your spot as we are capping registration and attendance due to facility limitations.

Send your completed form to info@atlantacodecamp.com.