DevCon 2012 Experience

According to Benjamin Franklin ,“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” That is why I always try to learn new things and of course participate in some technical forums and events. BDotnet is one community which is helping me a lot to enhance my learning. BDotnet is Bangalore Dotnet community and the group is well known among Microsoft developers. The group is actively involved in conducting  regular Dotnet events like the UG meet (every alternate weeks) and Tech events. The group’s mantra is “Learn And Share”.  Being a member of this group has helped me to keep up to date with the current happenings in Microsoft Space. For more details, browse bdotnet.in. Recently it conducted a conference and I am writing this blog to share my experiences about the eventful day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DevCon 2012 :

Announcement of DevCon 2012 content immediately forced my mind to blindly register for it. I was just waiting for the Saturday (4^th August). Entire day of sessions on various new topics always keeps me updated about the latest happening and of course clear some of the misconceptions too besides getting to meet and interact with lot of known and unknown faces.

Saturday morning, EGL campus, lot of crowds..believe it or not, it had happened. I was keenly waiting for the commencement of the sessions. I prepared mentally to attend some of the sessions with some confusions though whether to attend session of Lohith (my good friend) or Pinal.

The content for the DevCon 2012 as seen below were divided into 2 tracks.

Keynote by Ranjan Bhattacharjee
Windows 8 – A peek insideSpeaker: Vic Parmar	ASP.NET MVC4 + Web APISpeaker: Chaitra Nagaraj
Windows 8 for DevelopersSpeaker: Rajashekaran Vengalil	Battle of Cloud ServicesSpeaker: Niraj Bhatt
Walkthrough of a Metro ApplicationSpeaker: Praveen Srivatsa	Bulding Apps for Intel Ultrabook and Windows 8Speaker: Rajagopal A
Kendo UI community launchSpeaker: Abhishek Kant	Ignite the leader within youSpeaker: Vinod Kumar
SQL Server Tips and Tricks for Web DevelopersSpeaker: Pinal Dave	Visual Studio 2012 – Tips & TricksSpeaker: Lohith G N
Introduction to No-SQL & Mongo DBSpeaker: Manoj G	HTML5 – what you NEED to knowSpeaker: Amar Nithyananda

The sessions which I attended and my observations are detailed out below :

1. Key Note : Perfect kickstart to the session  by Ranjan. Message was clear, MS is shifting all its focus on Windows 8 and Metro UI .  Just after the DevCon 2012, there was news that MS won’t use the term ‘Metro’ in Windows 8 (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/370214/20120803/windows-8-release-rtm-leak-metro-ui.htm). I am waiting for the new name for Metro.
2. ASP.Net MVC 4 + WebAPI : This session provided a nice overview on WebAPI. Chaitra delved into how to use WebAPI plus provided details about new features of MVC4. This session was well organized and content was presented well.  NuGet, bundling and minification and Package manager will surely remain in my mind, thanks to Chaitra! WebAPI has been running in my mind for sometime and this session has ignited a fire in my mind to try it out.
3. Windows 8 for Developers : Though, I am using Windows 8 OS, I still don’t know many things in Win 8. This session exactly showed me this!  This session started with what is Windows 8, its architecture and capabilities. Creating a Metro App and demonstration of Win RT APIs and Win 8 capabilities were definitely a take away from this good session. Capturing a live photo in C#, C++ and JS was neatly demoed by Rajshekharan. Application life cycle  was also covered well here.
4. WalkThrough of a Metro Application : Praveen started from where Rajshekharan had left and was able to instill real good concepts in all of us. Lot of confusions which people had were beautifully explained. Async behavior, Application Model , Metro App modes and even Microsoft App Store concepts were explained well. I was deeply impressed with this session.  I was able to understand why  javascript alert fails in Metro UI!  Details about older dotnet applications support on Win 8. Apart from this concepts, Live Tiles details and Language projections was also neatly covered.
5. Kendo UI community launch (New Age HTML5 Apps with Kendo UI) : Abhishek Kant started this session after lunch break and was aware that people will definitely sleep! The session started discussing why Kendo UI is needed for Web and Mobile App developers. Kendo UI is a neat framework and every HTML5 developer recognizes that fact. This session also covered some rendering samples for Grid and Contact List samples and the same example was demoed on different devices.
6. SQL Server Tips and Tricks for Web Developers : Finally Lohith’s session was not clashing with Pinal! Pinal’s appealing voice and his standout style of delivering content will surely make up a sleeping person awake, no doubt about it. This session started with a lot of humour and the humour lasted till the end!

Stand Out Comedy points :

1. WebDevelopers are SpiderMan.
2. With Great Power comes Great responsibility. North Indians do not have power and so no responsibility.

As always, Pinal cleared some basic SQL fundas. Started with performance comparison for a scenario using different keywords EXISTS, IN and JOIN. He clearly demonstrated and explained how to judge the query performance using execution plan. NULL does not participated in JOINs and Scalar functions are not caught by execution plan were the SQL tips for the day.

1. 7.     Visual Studio 2012 – tips and tracks : Finally, last session and take too from Lohith! Lohith had already released some teasers in FB about his session . I was waiting to find answers. He showed a lot of tips and shortcuts on Visual Studio 2012. Some really good features like usage of Windows tab in VS.Net was presented well. Also, lot of tips was given on how to save time by using the newly available shortcuts. Now, I can have two solution explorers! Tips and tricks were too much to remember but definitely will help a lot if we know them.

After all gyaan, came the goodies! I was able to get key chains and PluralSight free one month subscription. PluralSight subscriptions are handy and always contribute to my learning. Also, some announcements came about blog contest and I was instantly thinking whether I should try to write one.Though, I missed a few important sessions like Cloud and HTML5, the learning provided in other sessions were good enough and I was pretty satisfied . It was quite a lively Saturday with a lot of learning.

The knowledge of useful things is a purse seldom lost. So, if you are not a member of BDotnet or if you are inactive member, then definitely you are losing something.