I attended my first Code Camp this past weekend. Overall, it was a great experience, although for a few reasons you might not expect. I learned a little about new .NET features, but the biggest benefit for me was the networking. My code community, for the most part, revolves around Mailtrust. Through Code Camp, blogging, and Twitter (I will blog on this later, since you might remember my last Twitter post) I have joined a community of developers much larger than Mailtrust’s.
This is a good thing.
With that being said, I did really enjoy learning a few things.
WPF is pretty wild, especially with Blend. Let designers design interfaces directly, and developers just make it work. This isn’t the first time this concept has been tried out, but it works pretty damn well from what I saw.
.NET 4.0 - Oh ya. I loved that stuff. Learning about dynamic, DLR, and language enhancements is my crack.
PEX and Code Contracts - Good concepts (but some things I didn’t like)
What could be improved on?
Don’t shun open source. NHibernate and NUnit are great tools, and we shouldn’t ignore them because Microsoft is competing with them ( Entity Framework.aspx) and Unit Testing Framework.aspx)).
More code. Powerpoint should be banned.
Don’t trivialize the importance of good testing. Pex is really an amazing concept, that can complement testing, not supplement (Yes, I love trig).
It was a great experience though. I am looking forward to more RVNUG involvement, as well as my next Code Camp.