Xperimentality

Well nothing like being late to the game!  But better late than never.  I am still not quite into my groove after starting my new job.

If you have not heard, the next Alabama Code Camp will be held this Saturday, January 31st.  This code camp will be held in Montgomery, Alabama.  If you are not familiar with what a code camp is, it is an all day conference for developers organized by developers.  The Alabama Code Camp is free so register now!

I am looking forward to it.  I am presenting 3 topics: 2 on Silverlight, 1 on debugging, and I will be presenting an intro to WPF in the Swiss Army Knife series.  That might seem like a long day, but code camps are great fun!

I got the Silverlight Code Camp Template out on CodePlex last Wednesday.  It still needs a little work but I wanted to go ahead and get it out for folks to start using it if they wanted.  This is the same template that I built for the Alabama Code Camp site.

The template is built to be deployable on the widest range of machines.  It does not use ASP.NET.  In fact, there are no dynamic server side technologies involved.  The site is 100% HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Silverlight.  It utilizes XML files on the server for data storage since all the data is read-only.  The template also utilizes Silverlight's downloader object and zipped up assets in order to increase network performance.

Yes, more could be accomplished utilizing a combination of ASP.NET, AJAX, Silverlight, and perhaps asmx services, but then the deployment scenarios would be restricted.  And part of the point for developing it the way I did was to demonstrate that none of this was necessary in order to develop a Silverlight site!

The template consist of a main frame that contains the header and navigation.  Each subsequent page is dynamically loaded from the server when needed, then cached in the browser cache for subsequent requests.  Some pages are actually zipped up sets of assets which are then parsed and displayed by Silverlight.  This decreases the number of connections from the browser to the server and decreases overall download size.

By default, there are 5 pages:

• Home
  
  The home page is the landing page.  The home page contents are not dynamic.  They are edited directly allowing maximum flexibility.
• Speakers
  
  The speakers page is a zipped up set of assets.  Contained within the zip are the XML data for the page, pictures of the speakers, the main page layout, the left speaker item template, and the speaker bio template.  This page is generated entirely from the XML file.
• Sessions
  
  The sessions page lists all the sessions from all the speakers.  Clicking on a session title, displays the full description of the session.  This page is also a zipped set of assets containing the page layout, the session template, and the XML file for the data.
• Agenda
  
  The agenda page is a scrollable agenda.  This page was originally dynamically created but, quite honestly, I broke it!  So it is currently edited manually.  The content has been ordered to make it easy to edit in Expression Blend.  One of my first orders of business is to fix what I broke so I can get the dynamic generation part working again.  It will be driven from an XML data file as well.
• Contributors
  
  The contributors page is dynamically generated from an XML data file.  This page is downloaded as a zipped up set of assets containing the page layout, the contributor pics, and the XML data file.

There are a number of enhancements that will be made quickly.  Most of these are easy changes that I just did not get to before posting the project: things like better mouse support in scrollable regions, fixing the dynamic agenda generation, etc.  Hopefully it will be of some use to folks interested in quickly setting up a Silverlight site for their code camp.  I'll be sure to keep my blog updated as enhancements are made!

Well I got in to Huntsville last night and went to the speaker's event.  We had a game night...not to mention cookies and other food.  Notice I specifically mentioned cookies!  While I am not a big gaming person, I watched Doug Turnure, Keith Elder, and Jeff Barnes play Rock Band.  They did a lot better than I could have!  As a matter of fact, I think Keith needs more to do since it looked like he must play 5 times a day!  Anyway, it is now day 2 and things have started off great.  There is a large group here so I am sure it will be another overwhelming success!

Registration for Alabama Code Camp 5.0 is now OPEN!  It is looking like we are going to have some great speakers and terrific topics at the 5th Alabama Code Camp.  The speakers and sessions will be posted soon.  Either go to the site to get the registration link, or if you don't have Silverlight installed, click here to go directly to the registration page.

See You There!

The Alabama Code Camp site has been updated with some more data including information about the Silverlight game contest.  Sounds like it could be fun!  The call for speakers is out there.  If you do not have Silverlight installed, first of all, why not?  Second, here is a direct link to both the speaker form and the Silverlight contest guidelines.

Speakers should begin to be updated in the next couple of days!

The call for speakers went out this morning for the 5th Alabama Code Camp.  You can go to their site at www.alabamacodecamp.com and download the speaker form if you want to be a speaker.

I think I am going to do at least one presentation!  It should be a great code camp.  If you think you can make it, you should sign up as a speaker!

Looks like things have started moving forward with the next Alabama Code Camp.  The site has been updated with a new look.  It asks the question, "Do you believe in magic".  Interesting!  And the site is using Silverlight 1.0 RC!  The date is apparently Saturday October 6th.  No mention of venue yet.  A Silverlight contest has been announced and it looks like the winner is going to get a Zune!  Cool!

I will post more as the site gets updated.  I will be interested to see what the Silverlight contest is going to be.  If you want to watch the progress yourself, go to www.alabamacodecamp.com.

Well I am sitting here in the speaker's room with a bunch of great guys:
Bruce Thomas, Jeff Barnes, Wally McClure, Jeremy Chance, Joe Healy, Brian Hitney, and Keith Elder.  I think these guys have been at all 4 code camps in Alabama.  I thought I would post an update.  So far things are going really good for Code Camp 4. 

The speaker's dinner last night was at Felix's FishCamp.  I had not ever eaten at a Felix's...great food!  Anyway, this code camp introduced a really nice speaker shirt.  I had worked with Doug Greene on putting together a version of the logo for the shirts but did not know what he had planned.  They turned out really nice.  He and Matthew have done a great job on the code camp!

Today it looks like we may have some bad weather coming in.  Hopefully it won't be too bad.  Looks like we have a good turnout today so it should be some good fun.  I am happy to say that for the first time at any code camp, I had my presentation and code done the night before!

One of the things that always happens when you get a group like this together is you wind up with at least a couple good new catch phrases.  For now, I will leave you with my favorite so far: "You can't fix stupid".  How true!

This is really late coming!  The next Alabama Code Camp is schedule for this Saturday in Mobile Alabama.  This one is being hosted by the Lower Alabama .NET User Group.  They are the newest addition to the Alabama User Groups and have been doing really well.  We are all real excited to see their success.  There is a great line-up and some terrific speakers.  Check it out if you have not yet.  And if you can make it, go and register!

I will be giving a presentation at the code camp on WPF.  At this point, I am pretty sure I am changing my original idea to a presentation on some of the new key concepts in .NET 3.0 for WPF.