December–STOP CODING with Garry Stewart

Hey all. Is the first tool in your toolbox Visual Studio (or vi for the hardcore)? Is your first action when starting a new project to put together a data dictionary or entity relationship model? You might be a code addict.

This Wednesday (the 8th) join Garry Stewart as he teaches us a better way. Garry has recently been building a semantic wiki as a data capture and reporting mechanism. He’s going to contrast this with our “natural” first desire of building a relational model and then building “normal” applications to keep a database up to date.

What: Think first then code with Garry Stewart
When: Wednesday 8th December, 6pm -> ?
Where: 43 below bar & bistro, Underground on the corner of Barrack and Hay Streets
Cost: Free

Hope to see you there.

NOTE: Just to let you know the function room was booked so we are going to be in the restaurant area this time.

November / December

Hey folks. First off, thank you very much to Rivaaj for running a session on Pex and Moles last month. It was very informative (and we had a good discussion about automated UI testing afterwards as well).

Unfortunately we are not having a session tonight and rather than mess with the schedule I'm going to hold off again this month as I have no leads on a presenter/discussion leader.

That said, I do have a person lined up for December 8th so we are all set for next month.

Remember that I do have a couple of licences of things to give to anyone that wants to stand up and present or even just lead a discussion of any kind so if you're interested please drop me line at michael.minutillo@gmail.com

See you all next month.

Don't forget session tonight

Hey folks. Don't forget there's a session on tonight on Pex & Moles. Details are here.

Last chance for free Windows Phone 7 Training

Tomorrow is the first day of the 2-day free deep dive workshop on Windows Phone 7 run by Nick Randolph, there are still a few places left. Follow the link to get more info and register.

October Session - Pex and Moles with Rivaaj Jumna

Join us on Wednesday 20th October** as Rivaaj Jumna leads us on a discussion about Pex and Moles, two MS-Research projects that aid in Unit Testing.

There's a pile of unit testing tools, some more worthy than others, out there. Pex and Moles are a pair that have been brewing for a while and may just be ready to be looked at more closely. We will be looking at the pair with the plan to:

• Highlight features that set them apart
• Look at a few code samples
• Sound off initial thoughts on where they could fit into the test/design process.

What: Pex & Moles with Rivaaj Jumna

Where: 43 Below, Cnr Barrack & Hay Street. Underground and across the intersection from MacDonalds

When: Wednesday 20th October, 6pm until you need to go

Cost: Free. Although if you don't come you lose the right to complain about static classes for a month.

** We are on the 20th so that we don't clash with the Windows Phone 7 Deep Dive Workshop that is on during our usual week.

Free Windows Phone 7 Workshop

Nick Randolph is coming to town to deliver the Windows Phone 7 Deep Dive Workshop. The workshop runs for two days (14th & 15th of October) and is free to attend but registration is mandatory. From Nicks MVP profile:

Nick currently runs Built To Roam which focuses on building rich mobile applications. Previously Nick was co-founder and Development Manager for nsquared solutions where he lead a team of developers to build inspirational software using next wave technology. Prior to nsquared, Nick was the lead developer at Intilecta Corporation where he was integrally involved in designing and building their application framework. After graduating from a combined Engineering (Information Technology)/Commerce degree, Nick went on to be nominated as a Microsoft MVP in recognition of his work with the Perth .NET user group and his focus on mobile devices. He is still an active contributor in the device application development space via his blog at http://community.softteq.com/blogs/nick/ and via the Professional Visual Studio website, http://www.professionalvisualstudio.com/. Nick has been invited to present at a variety of events including Tech Ed Australia & NZ, MEDC and Code camp. He has also authored articles for MSDN Magazine (ANZ edition), four books with the latest being Professional Visual Studio 2010 and Professional Development for Windows Phone, and helped judge the 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2010 world finals for the Imagine Cup.

For more information about the workshop including details on how to register, check out Nicks blog post:

Windows Phone 7 Deep Dive Workshop visiting Perth

P.S. Quick reminder - Tonight is the Perth YOW! Night with Dave Thomas

Perth Agile Night, Thursday September 30

Thanks to the Perth .NET Community of Practice we are having a YOW! Night on Thursday 30th September with Dave Thomas. YOW! Nights are an extension of the YOW! Conference. There are two presentations planned:

1. Envisioning backlogs
2. Functional Programming and NoSQL data

The event is free but you need to register to attend.

More details are available on the registration page.

September Session Reminder

We're meeting tomorrow night at 43 below for beer and discussion and beer. See you there.

Is it September already?

So...we (and by we I mean I) missed the August session. I've been sick for over a month with what I'm increasingly coming to believe was bronchial pneumonia. As my lungs start to heal and I can breathe again I set my sights upon next month. The second Wednesday of the month is the 8th which is inconveniently the night that my better half flies off to the other side of the country so unless everyone wants to come over to my place and play High School Musical SingStar I need a different date. Therefore...

The September session will be Tuesday 7th September.

I am looking for presentations/topics if anyone is interested in doing something specific. Otherwise we can just drink beer and discuss whether WebMatrix/Lightswitch is the end of the world or not.

July Session - Does the world end if you stop using Visual Studio

I have a mate who is a hardcore C programmer. For years he has been writing his code in Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS which was a state of the art IDE made by Borland in 1991. Recently I convinced him to download and try XNA development with Visual Studio and he was amazed by some of the things that I now take for granted. "This IntelliSense thing means I don't have to remember all those methods names. It's totally awesome," he tells me. And he's right. I can basically no longer code without it.

Or is that true? Are my abilities so tied to a particular tool that I am totally ineffectual without it? What does an IDE (any IDE) really do for me and does it make me a better programmer? Or is it a crutch that limits my abilities and encourages me to do things I would otherwise avoid like the plague? In short, will the universe end if I no longer have Visual Studio?

These questions and more are the basis of a recent experiment by Garry Stewart involving switching to Vim for development. He's going to come and tell us about his experiences.

What: Does the world end if you stop using Visual Studio?

When: Wednesday 14th July, 6pm - ?

Where: 43 Below Bar & Bistro, Corner of Barrack Street and Hay Street (undergound across from MacDonalds)

Cost: Free!

Hope to see you there.

Late June Session - Rhys Campbell on RavenDB

We are having a later session this month. Wednesday the 23rd Rhys Campbell is going to talk about RavenDB the new Document Database from Hibernating Rhinos.

What: Rhys "Developer, Brother, Lover" Campbell on RavenDB

When: Wednesday 23rd June, 6pm - ?

Where: 43 Below Bar & Bistro, Corner of Barrack Street and Hay Street (underground across from MacDonalds)

Cost: Free

Incentive: I'm going to give away some 30 day access codes to TekPub thanks to our sponsor...TekPub!

Hope to see you there!

P.S. If there's anything you'd like to present on (or see presented or just want to discuss) drop me a line at michael.minutillo@gmail.com. I'd be keen to hear about the Reactive Extensions Framework (Rx) as well as the new releases of Workflow and Entity Framework.

We have very powerful friends

Huzzah! We have a sponsor in the form of TekPub. TekPub is a great resource for technical training videos that are relevant across a range of technologies. I should be able to give away some video vouchers and maybe even some series ones! That won’t be until after the pack arrives though. In the meantime, spread the word and sign up for stuff. These guys are awesome.

We also have the ability to have some giveaways courtesy of JetBrains. Doing that means we need to get 30 people in a session so tell your friends! What should you tell them? Well, don’t forget that the April session is this Wednesday (the 14th) and we’re hosting Myles (@madpilot) Eftos who’s going to demonstrate IronRuby on Rails talking to an Active Directory. See you there.

If there’s another session that you’d be interested in attending or even presenting, let me know.

P.S. Who immediately responded to the title with “Yes. I bet” in Huttese?

April Session – The Rails Way

For this April’s session (14th April) Myles Eftos is coming along to demonstrate Rails development. Rails (and Ruby) have been very popular in the last decade and a lot of new language features (and new languages) will be influenced by “The Rails Way”(TM) of doing things. Also, I’m pretty sure that Myles is running Rails in IronRuby and has it talking to an Active Directory instance :o.

From Myles’ bio:

Myles started his freelance business MadPilot Productions in 2000 which has kept him fed and clothed. In between client work, Myles works on his pet time tracking system 88 Miles and is the events co-ordinator for The Australian Web Industry Association.

Although he makes no claims to being a designer, he oft dons a black skivvy, buys a mocha-latte and opens photoshop in a megre attempt to look cool. Thankfully his skills in Rails, PHP and JavaScript are much better, otherwise he may make the starving artist stereotype a reality

What: A demonstration of web development with rails
When: Wednesday 14th April. 6pm –> ?
Where: 43 Below Bar & Bistro, 43 Barrack Street Perth
Cost: Nothing**

Hope to see you there.

** For every person who does not come I shall drag a database table onto a form that gets used in a production app. One day you’ll have to maintain that. Muwahaha.

March Session – Maybe

Heaps of people are not able to make tonights session and I haven’t been able to secure a projector (trying to organize on the day is a bad idea). I’ll still be at 43 below with beer and laptop if you want to drop by after work.

The good news is that I’m already working on getting a presenter in for next month. If you want to present (in May or as a backup for April) then drop me a line. michael.minutillo@gmail.com

Perth Coffee

For those who haven’t been attending for whatever reason, a bunch of folks meet up every Tuesday at 1:30pm for coffee and a chat. This month we are meeting at Expresso77 in Allendale Square. Mitch maintains a notice at the top of the Perth .NET site (on the right) and I tend to tweet about it on the day. I also put a regular appointment in the Perth ALT.NET calendar. Hope to see you there.

March Session

The next meeting is Wednesday 10th March. I’d like to present on MEF but if anyone has any better ideas then I’m keen to hear them. One suggestion that I’ve had is that we build an IoC container with MSpec. If that sounds like the thing for you then come along and be vocal.

What: Drink Beer. Discuss .NET
When: Wednesday 10th March, 6pm –> ?
Where: 43 below, corner of Barrack and Hay
Cost: Free!

Feb Session

Somehow it has got to be today without me realizing it. The Feb Session of the Perth ALT.NET group is tonight. We are dissecting AutoMapper with the intent of:

1. Understanding AutoMapper better
2. Learning how we all approach a new code base
3. Discussing AutoMapper coding/architectural style

We are starting at 5:45ish and are at 43 below (someone tell that they can’t have VB as beer of the month for a whole year please).

If you have a laptop please bring it because we are not sure we will have one. If you don’t want to discuss AutoMapper then come anyway. If you can’t steer the discussion where you want to go then at least there is beer.

Finally, due to family commitments I won’t be able to attend and I haven’t been able to organize this session. Thankfully Rhys has stepped in at the last minute to help out. If the session is cool then lavish praise on him as he’s put it together in literally 2 days. If the session sucks blame me for only giving him 2 days notice.

Have fun and I’ll see you next month.

A Chat with Rowan Bunning

Welcome back to a new year!

Sorry for the late notice but next week Rowan Bunning is going to be in Perth to do some training. Mitch Wheat of the Perth .NET Community of Practice has organized for an informal session with Rowan next Wednesday evening at 43 below (our usual venue).

Rowan is a pioneer of Scrum in Australasia. Here is his bio from the event page:

With a background in web design, object-oriented development, eXtreme Programming and Scrum, Rowan became Australia's first Certified ScrumMaster and first Certified Scrum Practitioner before becoming the first Australian Certified Scrum Trainer. He has built extensive experience leading, coaching, and training organisations in Scrum across Australasia and Europe, including European Scrum leader EMC Consulting (formerly Conchango).

Rowan is highly active in the Agile community internationally and has spoken at several conferences in Europe and North America including Scrum Gatherings in 2007 (London) and 2009 (Munich). In Australia, Rowan founded a successful Agile special interest group supported by the Australian Computer Society and helped to initiate Scrum User Groups in Sydney and Brisbane. Rowan holds a Bachelors degree in Information Technology, is a PRINCE2 Practitioner and is Cognitive Edge accredited.

If you are going to come then I ask that you please RSVP at the event page so that we can keep track of numbers and upgrade to a bigger room if needed.