DotNetDoc - Daniel Egan

  So I went to the OCDotNet user group meeting last night to see Paul Sheriff. Paul is a great speaker and it was a packed room. He was doing a talk on debugging, which is something that absolutely EVERY developer needs to master. 

Now I will get some grief for saying this next statement, but be that as it may, I think that if you show me a great debugger, I will show you a great developer.  Joel Spolsky. from Joel On Software wrote a book called  “Smart and gets things Done”, and while it hits on the core of my statement in a broader sense, he describes the developer that you WANT in your shop.  It is amazing how many times you run across a developer\coder\engineer\architect (whatever they want to be called at the time) who is so smart, that they make your head spin, but when it comes down to shipping a product they just can’t get it out the door because they are ALWAYS looking for a better way to refactor their code.  They burn through endless cycles on the smallest parts of the code as you watch your deadlines slip past and disappear in the horizon. 

Now, one of the most time consuming tasks for (most)  developers is not  writing the actual code,  or creating the documentation ( um yeah.. we all fully document our code right?), but figuring out what went wrong when your code does not work.  I don’t care how phenomenal of a coder you are or what patents you have pending for your work, ALL of us have spent hours trying to track down a bug in our software. As a matter of fact, I think debugging is an art form for developers. It takes a very keen eye to look over someone's shoulder and pick out a bug in 50 lines of code that the poor developer has been staring at for an hour. When I was teaching at CSUF, I loved leaning over and saying: “Oh, you are missing a semi-colon”, and then watching as their shoulders drop and they let out an audible sigh (part frustration, part relief). 

So make sure you take the time to build up the valuable skill. Go see one of Paul Sheriff’s or John Robbins’ talks, or read that chapter you skipped past in your C# book of choice, it will save you time in the end, I guarantee it.

Paul Working his Magic at the OCDotNet User Group

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Paul will be doing a number of talks in the Southern California area on WPF. These are FREE two 1/2 day events. You don’t want to miss them.

8/24 LA – MSDN Presents : Fundamentals of WPF - http://bit.ly/147fCd

8/25 LA – MSDN Presents : WPF in the Real World - http://bit.ly/sDCxF

9/1 LA – MSDN Presents : Fundamentals of WPF - http://bit.ly/1v8HZS

9/2 LA – MSDN Presents : WPF in the Real World -  http://bit.ly/ivtZl

9/23 LA – MSDN Presents : Fundamentals of WPF - http://bit.ly/JpuO7

9/24 LA – MSDN Presents : WPF in the Real World - http://bit.ly/xKGwg

If you are looking for a way to get up to speed on Vista and don't want to leave the comfort of your office then this event is for you.

On Friday, December 12, we are hosting a Windows Client FireStarter event at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond.   If you are a Developer or an IT Pro, you do not want to miss this event. 

You can stay for the whole session or log in for only the sessions you want to see

As another event in our ever-growing-in-popularity FireStarter event format, we welcome attendees in person (if you happen to be in Redmond), via simulcast (Live Meeting) or on demand, via download, at your leisure.

REGISTER to attend via Simulcast

Date:

December 12, 2008
Time:

8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

We have a stellar line up of MS speakers to cover the following:

Not familiar with FireStarter Events?

• ·        Deep dive event on a single technology

• ·        Unparalleled event experience  - available in-person and simulcast

• ·        Excellent Microsoft speakers; all Subject Matter Experts in their field

• ·        All content made available for viewing online after the event.  In person attendees will receive event kits upon departure.

Here are my slides for my talk at the TechDays08 in Costa Mesa on November 12th 2008. Yesterday was a fun day and we used Twitter, Facebook, Email to keep comments and questions commig all day long (durring the sessions). We will be doing this today to.

I have been to many tech events over the years and I have to say, The Underground@PDC  knocks them all out of the water.  From the World Class speakers (Scott Guthrie, Douglas Purdy, Don Box, Chris Anderson, Scott Hanselman), to the venue (The Edison in LA) to the people, this party rocked. If you missed it, here is a quick montage to show you what you missed.

The montage was Produced by: Wm. Marc Salsberry make sure you check out his site on facebook for more photos.

PDC is back and so is the Underground.... http://underground.socalcodecamp.com go signup!

Since not everyone in the local community is able to make it to the PDC,  Microsoft and INETA has put together a great event called the underground.  The location is the coolest location a geek event has ever taken place, it’s called The Edison. The Edison was the first private power plant in Downtown LA and much of the old equipment has been incorporated in to the venue. And it’s really under street level so it’s the perfect place to do the event!

I hope you all can make it there not much room at the event so signup quick!

We are hosting a FREE day-long event at the Microsoft Irvine,CA office all around SQL Server 2008.  We are trying something a bit new in that we'll be providing content for both Developers and for ITPros.  If you are interested in attending, please register at http://www.firestarterevents.com/ as we have limited enrollment capacity.  Also, pass this along to your DBA and ITPro friends who are interested in learning technical information about SQL Server 2008.  We are adding session information to the FireStarterEvents sites daily, so check back for frequent updates!

Depending on the success of this event, we are considering future events like this - that is around a product or technology, with both ITPro and Dev content provided.  If you have time, take the super-short survey on the FireStarterEvents site to tell us which topics you are most interested in.

Fire Starter Events > Home

Don't Miss it!!! Code Trip is coming to your town. I was able to attend both the LA and Irvine Code Trip events and a great time was had by all.

Tim Heuer Woody Pewitt and Jason Mauer (Microsoft DE's) are roaming around the country on a bus to spread the word.

Check out the site and where they will be next at http://thecodetrip.com/

The site is a cool combination of LINQ, Silverlight, Virtual Earth, and other cool MS goodies. If you have time find a location near you and check it out.

Doc