I was in Utah last week visiting Neumont University and had the privilege of talking with the student body about a variety of topics. I introduced the upcoming SnapDragon Framework and launched into a huge discussion regarding career advice and software development patterns. It was pretty unexpected but I honestly really enjoyed our talk. I wanted to spend some time reviewing some of the topics we went over.
Obviously I began with introducing myself and ProAce. Afterwards I went over the same basic presentation that I used for Austin Code Camp. I did elaborate on the examples, however, and gave a demonstration of a prototype of the application blocks that I have been ranting and raving about. I prototyped a Content Management System application block and gave a quick 5 minute example of how you could enable managed content in any MVC application. I will be following up with a post about this in my technical blog within the next few days.
The dialogue I had with the students regarding their careers, ProAce, and patterns was stimulating. We discussed implementation, the importance of patterns, and really just has a great back-and-forth about the reality of the industry. One of the more notable parts about this trip, however, was the wide variety of students that I met after the presentation. There was a large amount of interest in my company and I had the chance to meet a great number of prospective students. Very exciting!
I’m very grateful for my close relationship with the University and appreciate the opportunities they give me to speak and weigh in on important issues. I had a great time and was able to wrap up the final tasks with our enterprise project team (the primary focus of my visit).
For those of you that missed the presentation and would like to know what was covered, I will be doing a followup post very soon. Please check back for updates!
Today I gave a presentation at Austin Code Camp on the up and coming SnapDragon framework. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this year’s CodeCamp but from what I hear from other people, this wasn’t like most years. Regardless of the turnout, it was definitely a learning experience and an inspiration for me to get more involved with the development community at large. I’m definitely looking forward to getting more involved with the Austin Dot Net User’s Group and meeting some of the bigger names around Austin and growing my network.
If you’re wondering about the title of this post, a friend of mine and I were in a bit of a car wreck after leaving code camp today. It wasn’t anything too serious but unfortunately his car is a little banged up and I’m feeling pretty sore .
Anyway, I have attached the presentation for any one that is interested in looking over what was presented today.
SnapDragon Abstract:
A collection of tools, .NET classes, CSS classes, jQuery extensions, and other reusable application blocks that aim to minimize development overhead.
As illustrated in the attached presentation, we have future plans for growing the framework and involving the community in its development. I’m looking forward to releasing the current code base as Open Source within the next couple of weeks and reaching out to the community to get their feedback.
Somehow May managed to sneak right passed me…like a…ninja. Seriously, I have no idea where this month went. Do you?
It’s 1:00am and I should definitely be in bed right now but I’m actually pretty excited for tomorrow morning. Not only is this my first time attending Austin Code Camp, I have the privilege of speaking on behalf of my company. I’m giving a presentation about our upcoming SnapDragon framework. I’m not sure if these sessions will be recorded, but I’ll be posting my material on here as a followup after tomorrow.
I know that I’ve promised to update more frequently…and I also know that I haven’t been doing that. I won’t make another promise of updating, but I’ll make a more conscious effort! Wish me luck
I used to really care about being social. Actually, it’d probably be more accurate to say that I used to really care about making it seem like I tried to be social. Lately I’ve been learning to kind of embrace a lot of my quirks and stop trying so hard. I probably try to “redefine myself” on a daily basis but this time I think I’m on to something…
We’ve been working on the social.proace project at work and it’s finally starting to take off. It’s funny, no matter how cliche it is, every initiative we make always follows that damn hype cycle:
Hype Cycle
(source: Wikipedia)
I’d like to think we’re at that lovely plateau, but I think we’re more into that slope of enlightment. There are some bugs to work out with our twitter integration and of course the random bugs here and there, but I think it’s coming together pretty nicely. Then of course there’s the whole issue of having content…so I’m going to have to stop being lazy and start writing some technical posts.
It’s not quite ready to link to yet, but I’ll give you a little preview:
social.proace
OK, I had planned to make a long post but I’m exhausted. I’m going to throw on some Arrested Development and The Office and head to bed.
There’s too much pressure. Pressure to expand on the summarizing statements that I always begin with and to close with some enjoyable sentiment that lives up to some mysterious expectation. It’s almost like I feel the need to cater my words to what I think people are expecting to read. Meanwhile, I secretly want to tell you all about how beautiful the weather is and why I’m content with not having anything “exciting” planned for today. I’ve never been one to over analyze this type of thing – certainly not enough to force me into some sort of writer’s block. I honestly think I’m just really out of touch lately.
I’ve been working on some new initiatives at work that are really engaging and it’s been lot of fun. I’m leading our new open-source initiatives and we’re all working hard to polish off the first release of our upcoming Framework (code-name “SnapDragon”) in time for the Austin CodeCamp this May. I’m also working with our Creative Director and my friend Rex to revamp our website and create a company blog as well. Needless to say, I’ve been pretty busy.
I wish I could explain to you everything that has happening with me recently but I don’t know where to start. I’ve been really contemplating some heavy topics, each of which I could probably write a few pages and probably will in the upcoming weeks. Everything from tacit knowledge to reflecting over this past year, there’s a lot to talk about. Undoubtedly, you’ve seen the new look and feel of my blog and you’ve noticed a sudden change in the tone of my writing. I want to introduce the new tone with a few posts and really get back to writing more often – even if it’s a random thoughts that I had while I was driving to work.
In the meantime, play around a little and discover some of the posts that you may have missed. I’ve had plenty of these posts written and let them sit around since I never had a place for them but with the new direction of my blog, I’ve included them in the various categories. I hope you’ll take the team to read a few and open up some discussion. You know how much I love to talk about these things.
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