2007 Dayton Cincinnati Code Camp

So I’m finally getting around to writing about the 2007 Dayton Cincinnati Code Camp. I must say, this is the second time I’ve gone, and I was not disappointed. All in all I give the camp high marks. Getting together to share knowledge is something that I fully support. I encourage all developers to attend as many of these events as they can. My thanks go out to Mike Wood and all other contributors to the camp (sponsors, speakers, staff) for making it what it was. Here are the sessions that I attended, and my remarks on each: Building a Data Access, Logging, and Exception Handling Framework with the Microsoft Enterprise Library 2.0 (Philip Japikse) It brought to light features for EntLib 2.0 that I was not aware of. It truly looks like a toolkit for enterprise level applications. However, it doesn’t fit nicely with the tools VS 2k5 give you. Maybe in time, the EntLib toolkit will be updated with code generation for table/data adapters, and the like. But then again, there is always code smith. Avoiding Database Entropy (Brian Sherwin) This talk I loved. You see, my database skillz are somewhat lacking. What Brian said really hit home. Every system I’ve ever worked on, needed a “Database Refactor,” and “Database Version Control.” The rules Brian set down really seemed to make sense. I liked the talk so much that I asked if he would be interested in presenting at the Dayton .NET group. I’ve passed the interest on to Jim Holmes. I really hope Brian can make it. Delegates and Events - the Inside Story (Dustin Campbell) I enjoy Dustin’s talks. He is so sharp and so passionate about his profession. Delegates and events are something I’ve always had trouble with. It was nice to see that .NET 2.0 made it all a lot easier with generics. However, Dustin did point out the problem with memory leaks when assigning delegates to events. This is especially a problem when you subscribe to events in Windows Forms, but Web Forms are destroyed after each request so I believe the memory leak is not as much a problem in ASP.NET. For one solution to the memory problem, see Dustin’s code or check his Blog. Real World Agile (James Avery) This was an interesting presentation. It was more of a discussion then a presentation. The thing about Agile is there are so many versions. It was nice to sit there and hear other peoples’ implementations of the Agile practices. I really like the talks when communities get involved. Getting to Know Generics (Dustin Campbell) Generics still baffle me. I know about the standard generic collection classes, but what I didn’t know was using generics for objects other then classes, like Methods! Dustin did a fantastic job of showing the usefulness of generic methods. Now I only hope that I can grasp the concept and use it more in my development. SQL Server 2005: New Tricks for Old Database Developers (Jason Follas) Once again my skillz in DB aren’t all that great. But sitting in on Jason’s presentation was pretty neat. Seeing the new features of MS SQL 2k5 was very beneficial Pivot Tables, .NET Assemblies as Store Procedures, CTE’s, etc. Definitely things I’m going look into more.