I had a great time opening up the .NET track at Open Camp this year. This was sort of a State of the OSS on .NET Talk – if you we’re, thanks for joining us and I hope this was fun and informative!

Be sure to register soon! – try the discount code “ugdotnetOC10″

Also…

• Go read Shawn Weisfeld’s post
• the MVP Blog mention

See you there!

The goal of the SOLID principals is to write better, healthier OO code that is easier to test, maintain and develop with. Essentially, SOLID embodies object oriented development done right.

It’s important to note that SOLID is a set of principals that embody the what and the why of certain OO practices. SOLID is really light on the specifics of how. The distinction is important, in that this is part of what allows the SOLID principals to be embraced across various languages and environments including Java, .NET, PHP, Ruby, etc… So, for example, the Open Close Principal can be achieved through poly-morphism, strategy pattern, IoC, virtual methods, dynamic mix-ins (ruby); the same can be said for the Dependency Inversion Principal – these are two how’s & why’s that tackle the same problem from two different directions. The application of these principals is often very similar.

You can imagine that in that context, it would be difficult to fully embody the full breadth and depth of all of the SOLID principals in a talk where the entire set of SOLID principals were one sub point (two slides) of a 10 point talk.

My goal was to pull out a couple of practical nuggets to help people embrace the SOLID principals – namely, to code against Interfaces and to adopt a Dependency Injection approach to development. In my opinion, if a developer will take on those two practices – that alone will take them close to embodying about 90% of the SOLID principals.

Imagine getting the why wrong, but being right on the how. Let that soak in for a minute.

It’s like telling your kids to wash their hands or their pants will fall off. It’s a non-sequitur, they are un-related – and yet, people should still wash their hands. That’s what happened on Friday – and what I was heckled for.

I explained the how (what you should do with your code) correctly, but miss-matched the why. I was giving the why of Open Close Principal and Dependency Inversion Principal and attributing it to Liskov Substitution Principal – my mistake.

Should I have been heckled for that? Probably not. Not many people do as much public presenting as I do, and most would find it difficult to handle a heckler – it can throw off your whole talk (especially when you’re only on the 2nd point!) Fortunately, I’ve been doing this for a while, and I don’t think that it threw me off much, as one attendee observed on twitter

Why am I blogging about this?

First, for transparency. I was wrong in my explanation of LSP (it was a minor sub-point to my talk, and not the overall goal of my talk – but still). Second, I reached out to the person that heckled me via email the following day, and we’re back on good terms. He’s apologized for being inappropriate and we’re having lunch in the next couple of weeks. I honestly didn’t know who it was that heckled me at first,  I found out later and then realized that we had exchanged (positive) emails in the past, and so I reached out to him. Since he is active in the community, and at least a couple of other people recognized him in my session – I felt that it was important to let you all know that we’re all good – and that there were no hurt feelings.

The community is strong, no one is ever right all of the time (gasp!) and it’s important that we continue to move forward as an industry together.

Incidentally, what caused me to go back and re-look at LSP, was not from being heckled, but from a very nice email that someone else sent me after my talk – I really did appreciate that email, so to the person that sent it, thank you.

If you were at the talk that day – I’d love to get your feedback on the Joind.in site that DallasTechFest is using.

Also, if anyone is interested in looking at my slides (the last 3 slides are all of the image credits) they are – and have been for some time – posted on slideshare; if you’re interested in some of the broader blog posts on this subject, they are posted on my blog including my more complete write up on SOLID (awaiting a Liskov update!)

Thanks – Happy coding!

Photo credit used in heading – on flickr by idrewuk

This Friday I’ll be speaking at the Dallas Tech Fest, and today is the last day to pre-register! Tech Fest’s are unique from other .NET Code Camp style event in that they pull some of the best speakers from a cross section of technologies. This is a great place to come mix it up and see what’s happening on the “other side of the wall”. This year the Dallas Tech Fest will have featured tracks for .NET, JAVA, PHP, Adobe Flex, ColdFusion, IT Pro and other Mixed Sessions.

This year, my friend and organizer Tim Rayburn has pulled together some elite speakers from across the country like Craig Walls (Spring in Action), Ted Neward (as in – The Ted Neward), Mark Piller (famous for his cross platform Adobe/.NET/Java applications), Matt Woodward (IT Specialist for the US Senate) and many many more.

Register today at http://DallasTechFest.EventBrite.com Use promo code LASTYEAR to save $25.00 – go register now! It’s gonna be awesome.

I’m looking forward to this talk.. I’ll be covering the 10 Practices that All Developers Should Start Right Now! (based on this 10 Practices for Developers blog series)

I recently took on a new client in the travel industry, even though they are based in Dallas – I am working with their .NET development team in New York. As a part of that I am making my first trek to the big apple. I’m really looking forward to this trip to get to know the dev team that I’ve been working with remotely up until now. I’m also taking advantage of this trip visit the NYC .NET Meetup group and to speak at the local INETA .NET Developers Group.

If you’re going to be in the New York City area this week, be sure to ping me – I’d love to meet up with you at one of these events!

Be sure to RSVP!

• NYC .NET Meetup Group
• NYC .NET Developer’s Group
• Stephen Fort’s Blog announcing Thursday.

Introducing Proaction Mentors… although it really could be written with an optional plural form:

Proaction Mentor(s)

Obviously this is something that I’m extremely excited about! I’m also super busy with billable client work and speaking engagements (all good problems to have!) I’ll be blogging about Proaction more in the weeks to come, especially as the website launches, the business plan solidifies, and new announcements develop! (Stay up to date by Like’ing Proaction on Facebook and following us on twitter.

In the mean time – I hope to see you at some of these upcoming events!

Improving’s Agile .NET Conf – Improving Enterprises (my good friends and former employer) hosted the Agile .NET Conference at Microsoft again this year. I was honored to be the only non-Improving person invited to speak! – April 30th

Dallas .NET User Group’s Visual Studio 2010 Community Launch! – to celebrate the RTM (release to market) of Visual Studio 2010, the Dallas .NET UG is having an all out bash… 8 speakers in 1 night! Come see my talk:
Silverlight 4 – World Domination! – May 13

Big (D)esign Conference is happening again! This time it’s over twice as BIG as last year! Seriously, my hat goes off to the organizers and the local DFW UPA! That put together an amazing conference last year that I was excited to be a part of (Silverlight 3: Bringing Back the Sexy) and this year, they’ve more that doubled the size and scope. Amazing! Hope you can make my strategic talk on “The 10 Practices that every developer should start right now”.  – May 28th & 29th

Dallas Tech Fest – What could be better than last year’s inaugural Tech Fest in Dallas? Why, the second year of Tech Fest of course! Tech Fests are unique in the way that they specifically work to pull in technologies from various stacks… not just .NET – expect to see .NET, Ruby, Java, Silverlight, Flex, iPhone development as well as a healthy open conference style area. I was a little crazy and submitted 5 different talks to this event, I’m certain I won’t do all of them… but I’m looking forward to seeing what Tim picks!- July 30th

Update: This just in.. there is a “rumor” that I might present at a two day work shop style event in Dallas some time in June. Stay tuned!

North Dallas .NET Users Group – March 3rd

First, Wednesday March 3rd, I’ll be at the North Dallas .NET Users Group talking about Model View View-Models (MVVM) for your Silverlight Applications. If you’ve ever seen my Dependency Injection for Silverlight talk, this is pretty much the follow up to that. (above is a snapshot from the last time that I spoke there.)

Technically Speaking DFW – March 27

Have you ever wanted to be a technical presenter, but you weren’t sure how to get started? Or do you want to take your technical presentation skills to the “next level”? This this is the event for you! I love the idea of events like this, and I was honored to be invited to participate. Maybe this will spark more interest in groups like Presenter Mentor?

Teresa Burger, awesome community member and talented developer over at Woot! is organizing this event. It’s $50 to attend, includes lunch, and is a full day of Dave Gunby, Microsoft’s Chris Koenig, MVP extraordinaire Tim Rayburn and also yours truly.

Register for both!

• Register for the North Dallas DNUG – Wednesday March 3rd (Free)
• Register for Technically Speaking DFW – Saturday March 27 ($50)

Yep, this is going to be a fun month! Hope to see you there!

Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, dives into a world of game development which will emerge from the popular “Facebook Games” era.

- Enjoy!

When you’re done. Check out my Dependency Injection on Silverlight presentation.

In June I’ll be the local Silverlight expert, leading a technology track on Rich Internet Applications (RIA) at a Microsoft’s BizSpark event, SparkStart.

From the official announcement:

SparkStart is a full day of business and technology discussion (open format) and learning event for startups (“startup bootcamp”). This event will also be a networking opportunity for those startups who are new to the BizSpark program and not yet enrolled in the program and would like to mingle and learn from key business and technology influencers. It will also be an event for those startups who are recently enrolled and need to keep the momentum going by learning key strategies for success, both in business, and in technology.

I’m looking forward to checking out Microsoft’s new Technology Center in Las Colinas, TX – It’s an amazing building!

It’s going to be an incredible event for startups and entrepreneurs to learn, network and get to know some of the incredible technologies that are now available. I’m especially looking forward to hanging out with some of the other people that will be presenting at the event. (too name a few)

• Local start up expert, Alex Muse
• Social Media Expert, Giovanni Gallucci
• Blake Burris of Facebook development and CoHabitat fame
• Angel investment and venture consulting mastermind Marc Nathan
• Microsoft User Experience Architect Christian Thilmany
• Microsoft Architect Brian Gorbett

Check out SparkStart on twitter and read some of Christian’s other related posts. Be sure to register. It’s going to be an amazing day!