This year I had the incredible pleasure of speaking at CodeMash 2009 (last year I missed it by breaking my glenoid just before going. This was better).
The organizers asked for feedback, and I realized that my feedback (slightly edited) made for a reasonable field report as well. Here it is…
You can find the complete program for this conference here.
About Your Sessions
I had two sessions. The first was on Hypervideo. Unfortunately, despite having rehearsed just hours before, a critical piece of software fell off my computer and wasn’t there when needed. Fortunately, John Stockton was there with just what I needed, and I had the presentation backed up on thumb drive (and, for that matter, my entire disk backed up as well just in case), so only 10 minutes was lost.
The presentation went well, I thought, and the Q&A was good. I did get one flame later on Twitter, but a follow-up email to the writer produced a terrific exchange and he was quite gracious and had good suggestions.
The second session was on Templating controls and (a) it should have come before the first and (b) I should have realized the wide variety of experience in the room and chosen a topic that assumed less familiarity with Silverlight. That said, it went well and people were into it and asked good probing questions.
Who did you have great conversations with?
More people than I have had with at any similar conference. Truly excellent conversations with very motivated, very interesting and very bright programmers. That was great. I talked to about 2 dozen people at length and another dozen briefly. Could have been more but I spent a lot of time sleeping and rehearsing. Great atmosphere, lots of fun but very serious about the technology. It was a blast.
What value did you get out of being at CodeMash?
A bit of a breakthrough in my role as a Technical Evangelist, defined by me as a techie (coder/ developer) who is sufficiently excited about a technology that I want to talk about it, share it, show it, and teach it. I’d been fighting that role a bit, and many things at CodeMash contributed to my embracing it.
What did you get out of the Ask The Experts panel?
It was a blast. The .NET Rocks guys do and the panel was an
opportunity to listen to a different perspective and see clearly how much sense it made in its context. I hope to follow up with James Ward and maintain contact. Great guy, very smart.
Plus, every time I come within 6 meters of Josh Holmes I learn something about how to do my job.
Must mention that Jim Holmes has an incredible knack for making everything easy.
A great time, hope I get to go again.
More: .NET Rocks RIA Panel
