*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

TechEd 2010 was in New Orleans last week and I had the pleasure of doing a full day pre-conf session at TechEd.  Pre-confs are longer sessions where attendees can get into more details.  This year I did “.NET From Scratch” which was a one day session to introduce developers to the .NET platform. 

This seminar is for anyone who is starting at ground zero with .NET and wants a deep dive into the platform starting from scratch. It is designed for developers experienced in at least one other language, and starts with the basics of . NET and covers Microsoft Visual Studio, writing code in C#, and how to build applications in various technologies of the platform such as Windows, Web, Microsoft Silverlight, and Windows Mobile. If you are new to writing applications on Microsoft .NET, what better way to start your Tech·Ed experience?

As promised to the attendees, the slide decks and demos can be downloaded from the following URL:

http://keithelder.net/presentations/NETFromScratch/NETFromScratch.zip

Remember when learning a new platform as large as .NET the main thing to focus on are your immediate needs.  That may be a language and a framework and possibly web programming.  It is impossible to learn or know everything about a platform as large as .NET but knowing what is possible is half of the battle.  As engineers if we know it is possible it is just a matter of research to figure out how to make it happen. 

A big thank you to those that attended the session and I am truly sorry about how cold it was in the room.  If I’d known in advance I’d brought some firewood and blankets.  Enjoy.

I’ve been wanting to post this for a few days now but wanted to wait until I got the *official* email.  This morning it finally came so I can break the news that I’ll be doing a full day pre-conference session at TechEd 2010 in New Orleans, LA.

The conference is officially slated for June 7-10th this year but as typical with most conferences like this there is a pre-conference that happens the day before the conference.  The pre-conference sessions are typically full day lengthy sessions whereby attendees can get deeper into a technology.  This year I will be doing a pre-conference entitled “.Net From Scratch” (at least I think that is going to be the title). 

.Net from scratch will start attendees at the beginning of what .Net is and work through all the layers of the platform building upon one another.  Some of you may recall my “Back to the Basics” series and this is born right out of that.  I know there are attendees that go to these larger events where some get their first exposure to the .Net platform.  There are a multitude of reasons why this is but I’ve never seen any sessions tailored to bringing new people into the platform.  The bottom line is if you don’t have a way to get people introduced the platform, the platform doesn’t grow.  Most of the time speakers like to talk about the new shiny thing, leaving out those people that are just getting started.  Someone has to fill this gap and I am truly passionate about filling this void. 

What is the moral of the story?  If you are going to TechEd 2010 and don’t know .Net but want to learn it come to this pre-conference session. Or if you know someone that is going to TechEd that is trying to learn .Net and the platform tell them about this pre-conference session.  It’ll be a great primer for things they’ll see and learn later in the week.

I was wanting to host a crawfish boil at my house (which is only 1.5 hours from New Orleans) on the Saturday before TechEd this year but I don’t know if I’ll be able to prepare all that I have to prepare for and host a crawfish boil.  We’ll see how things pan out.  If you’d be interested in attending a Pre-TechEd Crawfish Boil in Hattiesburg at my house on Saturday before TechEd let me know (comment, IM or carrier pigeon).  If there is enough interest I’m sure I can make it happen.

I arrived at Tech Ed yesterday after getting up pretty early.  After settling into the hotel, Jason Follas, Drew Robbins and I met up for supper and headed over to Universal Walk.  We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp and then watched Indiana Jones since none of us had seen it yet.

This morning Jason and I headed to the conference center to register and then went to lunch with Wally McClure, Rachel Appel and Jim Minatel.  Thanks for lunch Jim!

After lunch we headed back to the conference center and found our way to the wireless lounge.  I think Wally has a pic of me laying in the floor that I’m sure he’ll be posting later on.  Once the inbox was at zero we headed over to the staff meeting.

Right now I’m sitting in the Ineta summit where a slew of .Net User Group leaders are talking about ways to improve the community.  The meeting is almost like an open space.

I’m wearing my Deep Fried Bytes T-Shirt today and everyone who listened to the shows has been really complementary.  Later tonight we have the Party With Palermo and I haven’t met a person yet not going.  Definitely going to be fun and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in the community.