This Thursday (7/10), Chad Stoker -- friend, long-time SSDotNet member and excellent developer -- will be presenting to the South Sound .NET User Group on Mobile Computing.
Here's a session summary:
Chad Stoker, long time South Sound .NET member, will be presenting information on the challenges and opportunities of developing applications for mobile devices.
Summary:
For the second month in a row, South Sound .NET is happy to offer a great presentation along with Pizza for all who attend our upcoming meeting (7/10).
The Presentation: Designing Apps for Mobility using the "latest"!
By 2012, over five billion wireless devices will be Web-enabled, including cell phones, notebooks, cars, media players, consumer electronics and toys. Web users and applications will go mobile. Agencies must become experts in mobile Web development for a wide range of employee and consumer applications. Find out about the future of FLASH, JSON, Silverlight, and AJAX on mobile devices and more!
What attendees will learn:
* Cross-browser detection, new WC3 Standards, and why there’s a new “Browser War”.
* What are “Native” Mobile Applications and why do they impact my hardware decisions?
* The REAL power of Mobile Technology… Offline data collection! (featuring the MS Synchronization Framework)
* How should agencies decide which mobile Web devices and technologies to support?
* What is the future of Mobile Web technologies? AJAX, JSON, FLASH, Silverlight… and more.
* Development, Debugging, Troubleshooting… which tools get your organization to the finish line?
* How will your Project Plan be impacted by Mobile Technology considerations and should you worry?
The presenter: Chad Stoker is a long time South Sound .NET UG member and Vice President of CodeSmart, Inc., who will be providing pizza to fill our bellies while Chad fills our brains. Bring your own beverage (there are vending machines onsite).
CodeSmart Inc., based in Olympia, Washington, was formed to meet the Information Technology needs of private and public sector clients. We offer a variety of services, from project management to architecture, from systems design to training, and of course, systems development and testing. We strive to develop the most efficient solutions, leveraging existing technologies while integrating into your environment. Our experienced staff can guide you through the myriad of choices toward a solution that makes the most sense for you… a smart solution. CodeSmart Inc. is a Microsoft Certified Partner with openings available now for .NET and Java developers.
The Big Prize: a free pass to Devscovery 2008 in Redmond! We have a free pass to give away at the July 10th meeting. Devscovery is a three day developer event (Aug. 19 - 21), offering 33 in-depth technical presentations on a wide range of software development technologies including AJAX, Silverlight, WCF/WPF/WF. Speakers include Jeffrey Richter, John Robbins, Scott Hanselman, Jeff Prosise, and other well known presenters and authors (including our very own Paul Mehner). And if that wasn't enough, an additional 22 sessions are being offered by Infragistics, on their toolset and lessons learned while delivering high quality solutions. Normally, registration costs $900 but South Sound .NET members can register at a discounted rate of $750. If you're the lucky winner of the free pass, you'll get all that content for free.
Meeting Specifics
July 10th, 7 - 9 pm
Olympia Center (222 Columbia NW)
All attendees are eligible for the prize drawings. Past prizes have included t-shirts, technical books, valuable software, passes to Devscovery, copies of Visual Studio, Vista, Office 2007 and more.
Don't forget to let your friends and co-workers know about this meeting. Feel free to forward this email and/or direct them to www.ssdotnet.org for more information.
I've been tracking down responses to the Software Development Meme and it's really interesting to see where people started, what their experiences have been and what advice they have to offer.
Not surprisingly (at least to me), most of the big name software devs started programming in their teens on whatever primitive computing device was available to them. As I expected, I'm a late bloomer compared to most that I've read about. Also not surprising is the answer to the question: If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming? So far the overwhelmingly common response is something along the lines of "absolutely".
The question on advice to new programmers has yielded a lot of good responses, some of which are things I would have probably included if I'd taken more time or space for my answer. One thing that I think I'd add that I haven't seen yet is: Don't be afraid to move on. I had a cushy position for 15 years where I was comfortable and appreciated and supported in my efforts to learn and grow. The problem? It was too cushy, I hit a plateau in terms of what I could accomplish with regard to new skills and career growth. it was cushy, comfortable and safe, being the first place i worked professionally as a programmer, the place where I was the 'kid' until well into my 30s. My co-workers meant well and provided good mentoring over the years, but I need to leave the nest in order to fly.
How did I finally get myself out of that comfort zone and on to bigger and more challenging things? I got laid off when the parent company shifted away from Microsoft based software development and shifted some products away from our development team. I will always consider that to be the best thing that ever happened to my career, it's been onward and upward from there. I will also always regret, to some degree, that I didn't make the move myself. So my advice to new programmers would be, don't let yourself get too comfortable. If you're too comfortable, you're falling behind. Push yourself within your current situation and keep your eyes and ears open for new challenges.
You'd think Julie Lerman was too busy writing her book on Programming Entity Framework to do anything else, but apparently she has time to respond to memes.. ;-) Her response was posted to DevLife and she tagged me as one of 5 developers to go next.
How old were you when you first started programming?
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 22, I think. I always thought of myself as a late bloomer as far as geekdom is concerned (well, with a lot of things actually).
How did you get started in programming?
The first programming I did was through an electronics course I was taking as part of my pursuit of an Associate Arts in Electronics. We had CPU chips plugged into breadboards and used LED displays, 555 timers and other discrete components to create simple circuits. It was very low level programming, using registers to do simple math and display the results.
What was your first language?
I guess it must have been assembly, using those CPU chips. My first professional programming gig had me working on an IBM mainframe, programming in PL/1.
What was the first real program you wrote?
I started out as a maintenance programmer, doing simple enhancements and bug fixes to PL/1 programs written by others. My first original program was in C++, I think, and for the life of me I can't remember what it did. Something very simple I'm sure. I wrote it for my employer, and also got college computer science credit for that project.
What languages have you used since you started programming?
Assembly, PL/1, VB, C++, C, Java, SQL, VB.NET, C#, Javascript, VBScript.
What was your first professional programming gig?
I worked for a division of the Washington State Library called WLN: the Washington Library Network. This division handled dataprocessing and created software for managing a consortium of Washington libraries under the State Library. We soon became a non-profit and started working with consortiums and individual libraries in other states.
As I said above, my first programming job was as a maintenance programmer but I started at WLN as a temporary wordprocessor. I showed enough technical aptitude to attract the attention of programmers and other technical folks who soon found me spending my break time hanging out in their cubicles, interrogating them on their jobs.
If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
Absolutely, only sooner. It's a very good match for my native inclination to problem solve, to find patterns and my undying curiosity about how things work.
If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
Pay attention. Pay attention to what the customer is saying, you work for them, they know their business. Pay attention to the developers around you, you'll learn more from them than from any class you attend. Pay attention to your gut, if the approach you're taking to solve a problem doesn't feel right, it probably isn't.
What's the most fun you've ever had ... programming?
Don't have a specific example, but I really enjoy problem solving. It's especially fun to solve a problem using a technique or technology I wasn't completely familiar with but was able to figure out quickly. Clean solutions are fun. Some programming situations are fun, as when I'm working with a fun team of smart, quick-witted developers who have team spirit and don't need their egos stroked. Then you get true cooperation and shared learning all around. That's a lot of fun.
So Who's Next?
Chris Bilson
Jason Mauer
Erik Mork
and Stuart Celarier
... tag, you're it guys.