OzAltNet OpenSpaces event

On December 3rd Australia will have it's first ALT.NET conference: http://ozaltnetopenspaces.squarespace.com/
It is free to attend (although you have to get to Swinburne University in Melbourne). I'll hopefully be there and there are rumors in the Twitterverse of a group of Perthicans flying into Adelaide and turning it into a road-trip! If you're interested then you'll need to get a ticket from http://ozaltnetopenspaces.eventbrite.com/

What: OzAltNet Open Spaces Conference
When: Saturday December 3rd 9am - 5pm
Where: Swinburne University, Melbourne
Cost: Free

Huge thanks to @pjimmy for organizing this event and hope to see you there!

Perth .NET Beers Tonight

Don't forget, tonight is the first Perth .NET Beers event. Bring your love of .NET (or any other kind of programming really), your thirst for beer, and the smallest device you can use to show off an idea should you get the urge.

What: Perth .NET Beers
When: Thursday 15th September, 5:30pm
Where: 43 below, underground cnr Barrack and Hay Street. Opposite McDonalds
Cost: Free. Although we don't provide anything and it is in a pub. $15 Pizza & Pint on Thursdays though!

There is no set schedule. If we get bored we might do a lightening round of "What cool/crap thing did you do/find this month)?". We'd love to see you there but even if you aren't going to come, send around an email to your team to let them know it's on.

YOW! Night with Dave Thomas

Hey all. Long time no see. Firstly there is a YOW! Night coming up in Perth that you may be interested in on Wednesday September 28th. Details are here:

http://perthdotnet.org/blogs/events/archive/2011/09/05/yow-night-perth-with-dave-thomas.aspx

The room got pretty packed last time so make sure you RSVP on the EventBrite page or you might miss out.

Also, it has been 7 months since we last met. Since then I have had approximately 2 people ask me "what's with that?". I'm trying to organize a bunch of Perth .NET developers to meet next Thursday (15th September) for a beer and a chat. Not sure where it will be yet but if you can make it it'll be a great opportunity to chat about the future of Perth ALT.NET. Hope to see you at both events!

Special Event: Martin Fowler and Neal Ford on Continuous Delivery

Hey folks. First off, thanks to Jake for giving a great presentation on FunnelWeb. I still haven't downloaded it (I am ashamed).

Guess what? Next month Martin Fowler is coming to town along with Neal Ford and Evan Bottcher to discuss Continuous Delivery. The details are still being nailed down but you can register here:

http://www.thoughtworks.com/events/thoughtworks-quarterly-briefing-continuous-delivery

The event will be Tuesday 8th March. I hope to see you there!

P.S. Thanks to Mitch Wheat of the Perth .NET CoP for bringing this to our attention.

P.P.S. We would normally be meeting the next night (Wednesday 9th). Do people still want to meet then as well? Are you going to the Thoughtworks event? Let us know in the comments.

Feb Session

Hey all, we ARE having a session on Wednesday night. I am still trying to nail down exactly who will be presenting but we might be having a couple of presenters so come along and enjoy a beer and a chat.

What: A cornucopia of ideas

When: Wednesday 9th Feb, 6pm -> ?

Where: 43 below bar & bistro, underground on the corner of Barrack and Hay Streets

Cost: Free

See you there

P.S. Tomorrow night (local time) is the 2nd online MVCConf. I attended the first one and can heartily recommend it (if you can stay up all night and still function the next day that is)

ALT.Dinner Thursday 3rd Feb

Hey all. As there is no .NET Community of Practice meeting tomorrow night and we have a guest in town we are going to get together and a have a meal instead!

What: .NET Nerd Dinner

When: Thursday 3rd Feb, 7pm

Where: Maya Masala Indian Brasserie (49 Lake Street, Northbridge, WA 6003, Australia)

Cost: Well according to this, highly affordable

Note: Please R.S.V.P. at http://nrddnr.com/4130 for this event

Thanks: Go to Stephen Price for organizing :)

P.S. Our next meeting is next Wednesday but we still have no presentation or topic. If anyone is interested please contact me ASAP or we'll end up having a quiet beer in the pub (not such a terrible thing I guess).

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

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