CodeMash 2.0.1.3
13 Jan 2013This was my 6th year at Codemash.
Neil Fords’ keynote on Presentation Patterns was mind expanding. No really, presentations. Who knew?
JavaScript prototypes are confusing because the prototype-chain and prototype-property have the same name. The magic? The prototype-property is a reference to the prototype-chain. It’s that simple. +1 to Guy Royse for his clear and witty presentation.
Jen Myers made a compelling presentation on why designers are important to software development.
Remember the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? It was inspiration for the ChooseYourOwnApplication project. Curious about how to construct websites with Rails, or CoffeeScript and Backbone.js? How would it work using Knockout and JavaScript? ChooseYourOwnApplication allows you to write the same single page web site using all the mentioned technologies and more. There are 30 different combinations. Don’t’ like typing? There are GitHub repos of every stage for every combination.
Jimmy Bogard presented some interesting ways to functionally test your web site using Watin and Gallio.
JavaScript test frameworks like qUnit, Jasmine and Mocha have different approaches to testing. Writing the same tests in all three platforms was illuminating. I’ve always liked qUnit but Mocha is certainly a head turner.
Roslyn is the code-name for Microsoft’s rewrite of the C# compiler. Why? It provides a way to add an API for tooling and for compiler as a service type functions. Their tool of choice for performance issues? Event Tracing for Windows. These guys really do dog food.
I ran an Open Spaces talk on Nancy. I really like this MVC framework for ASP.Net. It takes all of about 20 minutes to grok it. I also found I suck at explaining it to others.
Breakfast was almost entirely devoid of non-protein substances. Somehow, I didn’t mind.
Brian Prince’s blue-ish hair dye was not a fun and last years green. Orange would have matched the orange hoodies that were a decided upgrade from the usual T-shirts.
I missed the Bourbon and Scotch tasting. I later made up for it by drinking someone else’s good Bourbon.
One of the game rooms was setup to play Artemis, a real-time 5-person spaceship simulator game. Each team member is given a role like Captain or Navigator. I was the Engineer. Bad things happen if you let the warp-core overheat.
My favorite door decoration was all black and said, “The Bacon is a Lie”. It wasn’t, especially with honey mustard.