Wow, I haven’t actually posted anything this year so I feel it is time to fix that with an update from Scottish Developers. Oh and this is also the first post using a new theme (well, new for my blog anyway). I am starting to tire of WordPress so am seriously considering writing my own site in ASP.NET 4.0 / MVC 2 just to play with things. Anyway, here are the upcoming events on the Scottish Developer’s calendar.

March

• Wednesday 16th, Dundee – Web Application Testing With Selenium
  I will be doing a final run of my introductory talk on testing web applications using Selenium at the University of Dundee. There are still places available for this talk so please see the registration page for more details.
• Thursday 25th, Glasgow – Guathon!
  Geek celebrity Scott Guthrie (Scott Gu), vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, will be spending an entire day in Glasgow talking on Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 3.0. Places are limited for this event so head over to the Guathon page and get registered asap!
• Friday 26th, Edinburgh – Geek Dinner
  We will be taking an evening off from the code and presentations at the end of the month while reflecting on the teaching of The Gu from the previous day. At present we don’t have a restaurant in mind for this yet but we are open to suggestions. Since we need to get an idea of numbers for the dinner, if you are interested in joining us please make sure you register first.

April

• Wednesday 14th, Edinburgh – Introduction to SOLID
  Chris Canal will be providing an introduction to SOLID and how it can be used to build more maintainable software which reacts better to change. There are still places available for this talk so please see the registration page for more details.
• Monday 19th, Edinburgh & Tuesday 20th, Glasgow – Jesse Liberty
  Silverlight guru Jesse Liberty will be speaking for us in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Details for this should be available soon, keep an eye out on the Scottish Developers blog for updates.
• Wednesday 28th, Dundee - SSL/TLS – Just when you thought it was safe to return
  If you are interested in internet security this is a talk you wont want to miss. Arron Finnon will be explaining why SSL/TLS is not as secure as we believe and will be pointing out the vulnerabilities with this very commonly used security technology. There are still places available for this talk so please see the registration page for more details.

May

• Saturday 8th May, Glasgow – Developer Day Scotland 2010
  This is a day not to be missed and the highlight of the Scottish Developer’s calendar. Join us for a day of presentations, grok talks and geekery at Glasgow Caledonian University. 20 speakers, 4 rooms and various topics including  jQuery, Defensive Programming, HTML 5, Code Contracts and Silverlight. We are getting close to full for registrations so make sure you don’t miss out and get signed up ASAP. More information can be found on the conference home page.
• Saturday 8th May, Glasgow – DDD Scotland Geek Dinner
  Come chill out after DDD Scotland and catch up with developers, speakers and the organisers to share stories and experiences over a good meal in the heart of Glasgow (exact venue yet to be decided although we expect to be in the Merchant City area). Afterwards you can retire to a bar or pub to continue conversation or head out to a club to party.

All of this information can be found in a handy iCal format from our Google Calendar.

I have been quite busy over the last little while between moving flat, finishing university, looking for a job and other things and as such I have not had the time I would have liked (as well as the energy) to write a couple of the posts I have in mind although there are some drafts now kicking around I am working on.

In the mean time I have been invited to join the Scottish Developers committee and as of yesterday I have taken over the role of convener for the Dundee (well, soon to be Tayside) branch of the user group. I am very happy to be asked to fill this position and I look forward to getting started.

Thanks again to Colin and the rest of the committee for the opportunity.

Haven’t updated in a while so I figured 2 birds with 1 post.

jQuery Talks

I would like to say thank you to all of the people who voted for my jQuery Deep Dive session at both Developer Day Scotland and Developer Day Belfast, I will now be speaking at both events. I am still very surprised at how popular the sessions have been so far and I just hope that what I deliver on the days lives up to the expectations.

Developer Days

Ok, a bit of an update on these.

DDD Belfast 4th April 2009 in Belfast
Web: http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/belfast/
Status: Registration Open

WebDD ‘09 18th April 2009 in Reading
Web: http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/webdd09/Default.aspx
Status: Registration Opens on Monday 30th March

DDD Scotland 2nd May 2009 in Glasgow
Web: http://developerdayscotland.com/main/Default.aspx
Status: Registration Open

DDD South West 23rd May 2009 in Somerset
Web: http://www.dddsouthwest.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
Status: Registration Open

The events are getting pretty close now, Belfast is in less than a month so if you plan on attending any of the above, get your registrations in! If you are attending then I hope to see you there

In addition, if you are on Twitter you may wish to follow

• scottishdevs
• developerday
• dddsouthwest

In other news…

My blog is bothering me. I like WordPress, it has some nifty features that make blogging easier (although I probably should use Live Writer more often) however I still want to roll my own. Why?

There are a number of reasons:

1. Because I can (not a good one, but still top of the list)
2. Because I want to use ASP.NET MVC to build a blog engine
3. Because I want to demonstrate various technologies all working together
4. Because I said I would build one

The problem is time, I still maintain there are never enough hours in the day. Anyway, I have a couple more things to look into and then I will most likely start work. I want it to be an exercise in blogging because I don’t really blog as much as I should on some of my discoveries. Just something else to keep an eye out for.

And finally

Graduation is getting ever closer and the date is now set. On 25th of June 2009 I will graduate with a BSc (Hons) in Applied Computing. On June 26th, the first day of the rest of my life will begin (Actually, no, that is a lie, June 26th will most likely be a recovery day from the alcohol consumption of June 25th). I think I should go spin the job wheel and see what I can find

Ok, so I am a little late to the party for announcing it but just in case you don’t already know, DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! (DDD) Day Belfast is now accepting session submissions.

The event will be held on Saturday, 4th April 2009 however a venue is yet to be announced.

• http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/belfast/

If Northern Ireland is a bit too far afield for you, DDD Scotland will be held in Glasgow at Glasgow Caledonian University on Saturday, 2nd May 2009. Call for speakers is still open until the end of January.

• http://developerdayscotland.com/main/Default.aspx

Well, although it is half way though January, Happy New Year. I have not been posting as much as I would like but that should get turned around soon.

Today saw my first game of Warhammer 40k in 2009 and it very painfully showed me that some of the changes in 5th edition have made Tyranids even harder to play (automatically passing morale checks in a lost combat now kills hormaganuts very effectively, more so than 4th edition), still was a good game and I have some new tricks up my sleeve for next time. For the record: I hate Tau!

Geekery out of the way, time for some more, er, geekery. I will be giving two talks on jQuery in the coming months which may be of interest to those either in the Tayside area of Scotland or those willing to travel to Edinburgh. These will be my first public talks outside of university and I am excited to see how they turn out since interest thus far has been quite good.

Abstract

A new client-side framework has been taking the internet by storm, many have already been mesmerised by the power of such a small javascript library. And “what is the name of this fantastic framework?” I hear you ask, “jQuery” is my reply.

jQuery is a robust javascript framework with a very small footprint (15kb minified and GZipped) which makes the complicated aspects of javascript very simple. From traversing the Document Object Model to complex AJAX functionality, jQuery can do it all.

In this session I will introduce you to the basics of jQuery, showing you, through code, how to select and manipulate elements on the page, attach functions to events, implement ajax and more! This is the perfect opportunity to learn about jQuery and how it can make the life of web developer so much easier, allowing you to focus more on building your application!

Both talks are the same, An Introduction To jQuery, however there are two different venues and dates.

• Queen Mother Building at the University of Dundee on Wednesday 4th February 2009
• Microsoft Offices in Edinburgh on Wednesday 8th April 2009
  

As with other Scottish Developers events, both sessions are completely free and all are encouraged to come along. If interested, it you be greatly appreciated if you could register for the events using the links above to give us an idea of number.