Southern California Code Camp In Review
This past weekend I attended the Southern California Code Camp and I had a great time. This is the second code camp I have attended and I am continually amazed at the quality of the sessions. For those of you who don't know, code camps are completely free events where the sessions are all made of of community driven content (anybody can propose a session and potentially be a speaker). Sure there were some big name speakers such as Michele Leroux Bustamante and Richard Campbell (of .Net Rocks fame), but there were also tons of speakers who are just regular mortals like you and me...well me. For me, this was a weekend of just trying new things and just hoping for the best. And I must say that it was a success. What do I mean by new things? Well, those of you who know me realize that I don't usually put myself in social situations where I have to meet new people or make small talk on purpose. This means at the last code camp I attended, I just went to sessions and enjoyed the content - but I didn't really bother to talk to anybody really. Well, this time I decided to try my hand at stepping out so I decided to volunteer to help out. This gave me opportunity to meet tons of cool people. Here is a list of my favorite sessions:
- Ask a Recruiter - Chuck Middendorf and Marie Watkins - This was just a casual time of question and answer. Chuck and Marie had very useful advice to share when it comes to resumes and recruiting.
- Calling Web Services with ASP.NET AJAX - Rob Bagby - You can really tell that Rob knows his stuff when it comes to asp.net ajax. I really like the new term he coined - Ajax Service. It captures perfectly that the fact that an .asmx file in Asp.Net ajax doesn't have to speak soap, it defaults to the lighter weight JSON/Restful type service.
- Building a Claims-Based Security Model with WCF - Michele Leroux Bustamante - I make sure I attend Michele's talks when I can because they are guaranteed to be extremely informative and helpful.
- SQL Querying Tips & Tricks - Richard Campbell - This was my first time seeing Richard speak and I was really amazed at what a great speaker he is. You can just tell that Richard is extremely knowledgeable about so many topics that you can't help be in awe.
- The Scaling Habits of ASP.NET Applications - Richard Campbell - Again, an amazing session which I can immediately apply at my job.
My personal goal is to be a presenter at next years code camp. Now I just have to find a topic and the right T shirt to wear.