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This weekend I had the honor and privileged to attend the Grand Rapids GiveCamp in lovely Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Roughly 100 developers, designers and other technical professionals graciously gave their time and energy to help 25 worthy charities. Work was done on projects ranging from updating outdated websites to building databases to track donors.

I must make a confession here… To be honest I was very hesitant to go.  I think like many developers I have a great fear of coding in public. In the safe confines of the cube jungles you are comfortable and safe. In a public setting being sat down at a table with a room full of coders was down terrifying to me. I was terrified that I would be found out as a phony, an incompetent programmer and *gasp* a newb in comparison to everyone else.

But I felt a calling on myself to take the chance and do some good. Much of what I can directly account for to my recent reading of Joyce Meyer’s  book “A Love Revolution”. This book has really inspired me to open up and give to those in need.

Anyhoo… enough of my emotional outpouring lets get back to to #GRGiveCamp

I was assigned to do updates to some surveys and data collection tools that the Volunteer Center of Greater Kalamazoo had. I may be biased but I think we had the most awesome kick-ass team with my fellow teammates @mattsonlyattack and @kalpers.

We worked with the ASP.Net MVC Framework and Drupal to get our project done. It was very fun as I have wanted to learn MVC but have yet had the chance to sit down and dig in. I got to be tossed into the deep end and work my way through it. In 2 days of programming I managed to grok a lot and I feel very comfortable that I could safely do MVC work now.

It was an amazing time and one I will not soon forget.  Thank you Chris Woodruff (@cwoodruff) and all the crew that organized this. I feel so energized and happy knowing I did some good and made a difference in this world!

While I was at barnes and nobel the other day and browsing the Computers section I found that they had a copy of “Code” by Charles Petzold. I have heard from several people that it’s a very good and interesting book.  I decided to buy it and have started reading it. I’m only 2 chapters in but I’m already very impressed by it and can’t wait to finish it!

Looks like my cat Evi is interested too!

Amazon.com Product Description
What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new ways to communicate with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity-and our very human compulsion to communicate-have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. Now in paperback edition, this critically praised book weaves an inventive and eminently comprehensible narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines. The work of legendary computer book author Charles Petzold has influenced an entire generation of programmers. And with CODE, Microsoft Press is proud to share this gifted teacher and communicator with every reader interested in understanding today’s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet.

David Giard will be presenting “An Introduction To Object Oriented Programming” at the Findlay Area .Net User Group August 25 in Findlay, OH. For more information visit http://fanug.org

If you are in the area please come out to join us!

An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming

Object Oriented Programming is a paradigm that focuses on the objects in a software system and the messages passed between those objects. In this presentation, I will describe the fundamental concepts important to understanding objects; show the basics of object oriented programming; and illustrate these concepts using Visual C# code.

David Giard has been developing solutions using Microsoft technologies since 1993. In the past, he has spoken at Microsoft ArcReady, Microsoft DevCares and many conferences and user groups around the Midwest. He is a recovering certification addict and holds an MCTS, MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA, a BS, an MBA, and numerous other letters of the alphabet. You can read his latest thoughts and watch his show - Technology And Friends - at www.DavidGiard.com. He lives in Michigan with his two teenage sons.

Time:
5:30-7:30 PM on the last Tuesday of the month
Location:
Marathon Findlay Offices
539 S. Main St., Findlay, OH - Room 106M
Cost:
Meeting is Free.  Software, books and other door prizes at drawing held at end of meeting.

Pizza and pop served at 5:30. 

Codestock was a rocking fun time this year. Major props have to go out to Michael C. Neel (@vinull) for once again busting his ass and putting together an impressive conference.  Of course let’s not forget the amazing community work that Alan Stevens (@alanstevens) does with the open spaces.

This year was a great conference and it was cool to see it expand to a two day event. This I noticed seems to be a trend. Last year the conference / event schedule was saturated with what seemed like events almost every weekend the last year. This year there are far less but the ones that are there have expanded to be much larger.  My personal view is that this is a better deal. It’s tiring and hard on developers with families to haul off every other weekend for events.

Thursday I jumped in the car and hit the road from Ohio to Tennessee. Out of all the long drives I have ever done the I75 drive to Knoxville has to be my favorite. The scenery, once you get out of Ohio, is very interesting and I love mountain diving. It can be a bit scary at times whipping around the curves and racing down the road at unsafe driving speeds, yet so thrilling and fun!

I rolled into Knoxville around 5:30pm and right to the lovely and lushes La Quinta.  All jokes aside the La Quinta is actually a very nice hotel. They do a very good job keeping the place clean and it’s dirt cheap. With my AAA discount I snagged a double room for 53/night + tax. Extra special thanks to Dean Weber (@deanweber)  for splitting the room with me. Made the whole trip even more affordable and fun having a roomie!

The unofficial pre-conf party was at the Mellow Mushroom, a pizza place. We managed to take over the entire patio area and then some. It was an awesome time and it great to finally meet many of the #TwitterTribe in person for once.

Friday morning came around very quickly and we headed over to the conference. I figured we were getting there early but the line was already a mile long. My personal opinion would be to get it broken into multiple lines sorted by name to help keep the flow moving a bit better.

Alan Stevens ran the opening keynote, if you could call it that, since it was really what had to be the largest open spaces opening circle I had every seen!

I attended mostly open spaces but also did a few eyes front presentations. Honestly I’m not really here to comment on them. A recap for those that weren’t there is pointless and for those that were know what happened.

Closing the day out we were all privileged to get to be part of a live taping of DeepFriedBytes Podcast by Chris Woodruff (@cwoodruff) and Keith Elder (@keithelder). Special guests include three microsofties; Josh Holmes (@joshholmes), Brian H. Prince (@brianhprince) and Jeff Blankenburg (@jblankenburg).

After that a group of us hit a local Mexican join for some solid food and then we rolled over to the Official Codestock Social. Ok time to get on my soapbox here. Once again I was very disappointed in many of the core community and speakers. I know it’s a free country and people can do what they want but for all the talk about community I found it very disappointing to see that a group of people decided to have what account to a private pool party at the hotel instead of attending the Social.

The social was a great time and I wish more had attended. I had many great conversations and enjoyed playing video games and board games with many people.

Saturday came way to early once again and I crawled out of bed and drug my butt to the conference. Josh Holmes gave an inspiring talk about “The Lost Art of Simplicity.” This is a must see if you get a chance to see him give it.

I attend a bunch of open spaces and eyes front sessions. The only really exciting one was the introduction to Ruby and Koans by Leon Gersing (@fallenrogue). I had an amazing time learning ruby and getting to hang with a few of the Tribe. Best session bar none!!

Finally the day wrapped with the closing and prize giveaway. The big prize this year was the uber-mega Visual Studio Team System Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription given by Wallace B. McClure (@wbm). This is every developers dream prize and at a retail price of roughly $10,000.00 it’s also way out of the league of most developers. Unfortunately I did not win. Next year I’m going to have to bribe or blackmail someone to get it!

Then a large group of us headed out for dinner and the unofficial after party at Alan Stevens place.  The food was fair, I was pretty disappointed in the quality of the prime rib I had but the time spent with my friends more than made up for it.

The after party was helluva good time! I won’t go into great details but there was a bonfire and lots of people having awesome conversations. I drank a few beers and smoked 3 cigars that night. A Rocky Patel Vintage 92, Gran Habano 3 Siglos and a Drew Estate Tabak Especial Cafe Con Leche.

The party winded down around 2:00am and I headed back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep until I would have to drive back to Ohio.

The drive home was bittersweet. It was nice to get back home to my love and to sleep in my own bed, yet I was saddened to once again leave my developer family.

I cannot stress how important it is to be able to spend time with all of the wonderful people I have come to meet and befriend. Working in a job day to day can be great but many times the coworkers you have to deal with are very much what have been termed the 5:01 developer that has no passion or care to attend events of just hang out and talk tech. They turn off at 5:01 and go home for the night. There is very little passion or enthusiasm for their trade and they see it as nothing more than a job to earn a paycheck.

Being able to spend time with the Tribe as we call ourselves is needed to help me recharge and re-energize my passion for the craft.

I look forward to seeing you all at the next event. Thanks for reading!

Just a little reminder that Codestock is coming up shortly folks! It will be June 26-27, 2009 in Knoxville, TN.

CodeStock is about Community. For Developers, by Developers (with love for SysAdmins and DBAs too!). Last year an idea started at CodeStock to mix Open Spaces within a traditional conference. This year we’re going to crank things up to 11 and rip off the knob - and you’re being drafted to help!

• Keynote by Microsoft RIA Architect Evangelist Josh Holmes
• From Developer to Business Owner roundtable with guest Nick Bradbury creator of HomeSite, TopStyle, and FeedDemon
• 50+ break out sessions + Open Spaces (self-organizing sessions)
• Grand Prize: VSTS 2008 Team Suite with MSDN Premium
• Virtual sessions with Jeffery Richter and John Robbins

Space is limited so register today at CodeStock.org

“The continuing goal of the Code Camps series is to provide an intensive developer-to-developer learning experience that is fun and technically stimulating. The primary focus is on delivering programming information and sample code that can be used immediately” - IndyCodeCamp

The 2009 IndyCodeCamp was a rousing success once again. David Leininger and the whole crew (sorry I don’t know all your names folks) once again managed to organize and operate a very efficent and informative conference. The The Gene B. Glick Junior Achievement Center is a great location and works very well for the event.

There were many, many great presentations but being only human I was only able to watch five. I’ve found myself being less interested in individual technology presentations. No offence to all the presenter but you can only see so many silverlight and azure presentations before you feel like you’ve seen it all.  So, for this event I spent most of my time in track five “Beyond Lines of Code” aka soft skills.

The list of presentations I went to was:

• Care About Your Craft: Adventures in the art of software development - Tim Wingfield
• DevSpeak: Principles - Michael Wood
• Improving our craft: A Discussion on Software Estimation - Michael Eaton
• Being More Than a CodeMonkey: Practice Beautiful Code - Michael Wood
• A Lap Around “Oslo” - Dan Rigsby

And finally below you can check out all the photos I took at the code camp.