PDC Birds-of-a-Feather

Thanks to all the hosts and volunteers who collectively made the Birds-of-a-Feather sessions at PDC09 a huge success!

Also, thanks to those of you who provided feedback on how to make the sessions even better next time.We’ll work on reaching more people, maybe a somewhat larger room and getting the content out to the community at-large.

If you have another thought post-PDC please leave a comment here.

We’ll be holding BOF sessions at Tech North America June 7-11, 2010 in New Orleans. Stay tuned to details.

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday.
The BOF Team

We had some great sessions on Tuesday, opening day, many of which were SRO so arrive early today.

Wednesday 11/18

• 11:30 am-12:30 pm Developers on Better Design, User Experience and Why It Matters Co-Hosts: David Kelley and Jason Beres
• 1:00-1:45 pm BOF @Lunch ASP.NET MVC – Share Your Stories From The Trenches Fishbowl Panel
• 2:00-3:00 pm Shoud I Use Silverlight, MVC, or Web Forms for Web User Interface Development? Co-Hosts: Ben Hoelting and Todd Anglin
• 3:15-4:15 pm Is Open Source Old News? Co-Hosts: Miguel de Icaza, Joseph Downey, Sara Ford, Peter Galli, Jackson Harper, Joseph Hill
• 4:30-5:30 pm Exception Management – Handling and Reporting Exceptions Effectively Host: Paul Sheriff

See the complete list of sessions for all the PDC09 BOFs.

We are excited to announce that the Community Roundtable on Tue 11/17 6:00-7:00 p.m. which has an outstanding group of expert panelists will be accepting questions via Twitter during the event.

In addition, several community volunteers will be tweeting live during the event so you can follow the discussion even if you are not able to attend PDC.

Follow the session at http://twitter.com/PDCBOF

Post questions to @pdcbof

PDC is just getting started and we kick off w/ the following BOF sessions today.

Tuesday 11/17

• 11:00 am-12:00 pm How to Build and Enrich Your Technical and Local Communities Co-Hosts: Joseph Guadagno, Chris Woodruff
• 12:30-1:15 pm BOF @Lunch Will Cloud Computing Change Your Life? Co-Hosts: Simon Guest, David Pallman, Eugene Shustef, Aaron Skonnard, and Michael Stiefel
• 1:30-2:20 pm Agile — Tales of Triumph, Tribulation, and Teams Co-Hosts: David Starr, Mike Vincent
• 3:00-4:00 pm Tooling on Agile Teams Host: Joel Semeniuk
• 4:30-5:30 pm Behavior-Driven Development vs. Test-Driven Development: What’s What? Host: Dennis Doomen
• 6:00-7:00 pm Special Event: INETA BOF Community Roundtable
  Join David Chappell, Scott Hanselman, Patrick Hynds, Fritz Onion, Miguel de Icaza, and Sara Ford for an open discussion on anything technology related. Carl Franklin will moderate the discussion and be recording the event as a .NET Rocks show.

See the complete list of sessions for all the PDC09 BOFs.

Announcing another timely and relevant BOF topic, this one on Oslo (renamed SQL Server Modeling after this topic went to press).

DSLs and Modeling Behaviors with Oslo

Oslo provides capabilities for modeling data using “M”, but in addition using the DSL tools available to us with MGrammar should provide a good framework for modeling behaviors and business rules in our applications. Have you tried using Oslo to model behaviors or other aspects beyond modeling data? Or do you hope to do so? In this session we will discuss different approaches.

Host: Kevin D. Wolf

See the latest list of sessions for all the PDC09 BOFs.

Bring your questions for Fritz to the INETA BOF Community Roundtable on Tuesday, 11/17 from 6:00-7:00 pm at PDC 2009. Get there early for a door prize drawing.

URL: http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/fritz/default.aspx

Passion:
Fritz is keenly interested in several aspects of development including MVC, Silverlight, AJAX, and Sharepoint. In his free time he is dabbling in Silverlight and WPF as well. However his real passion is classical guitar.

Bio:
Fritz is a co-founder of Pluralsight where he focuses on Web development with ASP.NET, Ajax, and Silverlight. Fritz is the author of the books ‘Essential ASP.NET’ and ‘Essential ASP.NET 2.0’ published by Addison Wesley. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences including the PDC, TechEd, and VSLive!. Microsoft recognizes Fritz as an MVP for his contributions to the ASP.NET community.

Bring your questions for Patrick to the INETA BOF Community Roundtable on Tuesday, 11/17 from 6:00-7:00 pm at PDC 2009. Get there early for a door prize drawing.

URL: http://www.patrickhynds.com

Passion:
Patrick’s passion is taking nothing more then an idea and turning that in a solution that supports a business. Patrick observes that as the industry changes, the more it stays the same. “The tools change and even the technology changes, but the need for people who can architect real solutions and the companies that deliver them will only increase as the world automates lesser tasks.” Patrick’s technical focus is on .NET Security.

Bio:
Patrick Hynds, MCSD, MCSE+I, MCDBA, MCSA, MCP+Site Builder, MCT, is the Microsoft Regional Director for Boston, the CTO of CriticalSites, and has been recognized as a leader in the technology field. An expert on Microsoft technology (with, at last count, 55 Microsoft certifications) and experienced with other technologies as well (WebSphere, Sybase, Perl, Java, Unix, Netware, C++, etc.), Patrick previously taught freelance software development and network architecture. Prior to joining CriticalSites, he was a successful contractor who enjoyed mastering difficult troubleshooting assignments. A graduate of West Point and a Gulf War veteran, Patrick brings an uncommon level of dedication to his leadership role at CriticalSites. He has experience in addressing business challenges with blended IT solutions involving leading-edge database, Web, and hardware systems. In spite of the demands of his management role at CriticalSites, Patrick stays technical and in the trenches, acting as project manager and/or developer/engineer on selected projects throughout the year.

Microsoft’s stance on open source has shifted dramatically.  Not only is Microsoft releasing an ever-growing stable of open source projects (including the DLR, MEF, and MVC), they’re even contributing back to the Linux kernel.  Has the open source movement has moved beyond controversy?  In this BOF, we’ll find out.  What are the new battles?  Who won the old ones?

We will discuss:
●    How you use (or when you avoid) open source in your work, and why. 
●    When to have an open source strategy.
●    Where do we take open source from here?

Co-Hosts: Miguel de Icaza (Mono Project-Novell), John Downey (Software Developer, Purdue University), Sara Ford (Microsoft), Peter Galli (Microsoft), Jackson Harper (Mono Project-Novell), Joseph Hill (Mono Project-Novell)

For more sessions, go to the latest list of BOF sessions for PDC09.

Bring your questions for Scott to the INETA BOF Community Roundtable on Tuesday, 11/17 from 6:00-7:00 pm at PDC 2009. Get there early for a door prize drawing.

URL: http://www.hanselman.com

Focus: .NET

Bio:
My name is Scott Hanselman. I work out of my home office for Microsoft as a Principal Program Manager, aiming to spread good information about developing software, usually on the Microsoft stack. Before this I was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years. I was also involved in a few Microsoft Developer things for many years like the MVP and RD programs and I’ll speak about computers (and other passions) whenever someone will listen.

Before Corillian and Microsoft I worked as a Principal Consultant at a local Microsoft Solution Provider called STEP Technology, speaking, writing, consulting, and very much not getting rich during Web 1.0. Even earlier, I worked at a Car Parts Data Warehouse called Chrome Data, and before that I had a small company that specialized in internationalization and thunking. I’ve also been an Adjunct Professor at OIT, teaching C#. On the side, I created the first PalmPilot Diabetes Management System in 1998 and sold it to a healthcare company five years later. It’s now in limbo, but I’m trying to get it released as Open Source.

What else would you like to know?

I am an early adopter, it seems.  I ran Tweak Computer Support BBS, with some success, a very long time ago. I was a FidoNet node. I have nice teeth and love cheese amongst other things. I like Tools, and I’ve co-written some books. I’m diabetic. I like studying Amharic and Zulu/Ndebele and listening to African Music as well as other more diverse music. I know Black Hair and can both braid and cornrow. I have a podcast. I hack on hardware and waste time. I do Open Source. I have a large forefive-head. I am good at Excel and keep my resume mostly up to date for no reason. We speak Sign Language to my son and my wife speaks Ndebele. I have a great family and have had great teachers and a fantastic wedding with a great Cake Topper. I don’t sleep too much. I write a lot. I’m trying to raise $50,000 for Diabetes research.

We are pleased to announce Pluralsight as a sponsor for the INETA BOF Community Roundtable on Tuesday, 11/17 from 6:00-7:00 pm. Pluralsight will be donating a handful of Pluralsight On-Demand! training free week trials.

Pluralsight is a Microsoft .NET training provider offering classroom and On-Demand! training. Pluralsight has some exciting new features and course roll-outs targeted for launch at PDC09 – be sure to check out their website for more information at http://www.pluralsight.com