What is the Professional Scrum Developer course all about?

WHO
Scott is Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, .NET Developer Platform and super star coder.

WHEN
On the 25th March 2010 in Glasgow, Scott is going to perform a marathon of presentation running through Silverlight 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET 4.0.

WHAT?
What will you get at Guathon 2010?

• A preview of technology and functionality which is brand new, maybe even some things which have not been released yet….
• Time with other web community types – it’s run by the community for the community
• 5 Hours with the guy who knows everything there is to know about .NET
• Good content – no fluffiness (or Marketing!)
• Oh yeah and thanks to Microsoft’s sponsorship the event is TOTALLY free!

LIMITED SPACE!
This is a hugely popular event! As of 1600 03/03/2010, there were a few places left – please sign up now if you are interested in going. A waitlist system will be in effect very soon.

SIGN UP HERE:
http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/guglas/default.aspx

We’re very excited about the campaign we’re launching this week to raise money for Sport Relief 2010 with a virtual fundraising initiative called ‘Give with Bing.’

While Sport Relief drives fundraising by challenging people to do physical activities such as running a mile, we’re introducing the ‘Bing Search Mile,’ which gives people the ability to search using Bing and raise money for charity.

For every 10 searches made, Bing.com will donate 5p to Sport Relief 2010, enabling you, and your friends and family, to raise money just by searching with Bing until the end of March.

With the average mile taking about 10 minutes to run, in the same time, you can make up to 150 searches online – that’s 75p raised for a good cause per ‘search mile’. And while you’re at it, why not step it up a gear and aim to complete a ‘Search Mile’ each day or even a ‘Search Marathon’ over the 5 week campaign with your colleagues, friends and family?
How to get involved:

1. Visit GiveWithBing.com and download the Official Sport Relief Bing Counter. Once downloaded, the Sport Relief counter will count all the searches you do on Bing from that point on.
2. Now that you’re registered (and signed in), invite your friends, family, colleagues or classmates to join in the fundraising with you – GiveWithBing.com automatically generates an email explaining how it works for you to send them – the more people who search with you, the more money you raise. People can also register a school
3. Run your ‘search mile’ every day and watch how your searches turn into life-changing cash for charity, with every 10 searches equalling 5p for Sport Relief. You can check your progress by visiting your individual page (more info here).

So register on www.givewithbing.com, invite all your friends to join you, and start making a difference with Bing today!

20 sessions over four session rooms – it’s an event that attracts a lot of attention, both from speakers and attendees.

For example, DDD7 in November 2008 attracted 79 session submissions (100 inc. grok talks) gathered over a period of 3 months. DDD8 attracted 79 session submissions over a period of 3 weeks. For us, this was the quickest DDD that we’ve organised so far!

From an attendee’s perspective, DDD7 saw 350 registrations within 4 hours, after which a waitlist kicks in. DDD8 saw 360 registrations within 15 minutes of the registration page going live. A further 200 waitlisted places were recorded inside the next 15 minutes. Over 100 of the waitlisted places were processed and converted into full registrations – kudos to the attendees for actively managing their registrations. By cancelling your registration, you allowed a waitlisted delegate the chance to become an attendee! Further DDD stats can be found here.

So, we have enough session content for at least three days worth of conference. And we have demand in excess of 700 delegates. It’s a problem we have been aware of since the DDD3 (remember these photos and this blog post?). But it’s a problem we really struggle to solve, partly because to solve the problem would involve a combination of many things. We could change the venue. We could run the event over two or more days. Both of these affect the “make up” of a DDD event, not to mention the financial cost. As organisers, we don’t mind giving our time for free. Many speakers don’t mind giving up their time either – for many speakers, we would like to think that DDD provides a relaxed start to a career on the speaking circuit. We are open to suggestions as to how we can move the event forward – there will be a DDD9 and there will be regional DDDs, please, tell us what we can do to make DDD better for you!

Who said that?
In the week after DDD8, much was written:

@irascian Ian Smith wrote this piece – thanks Ian!

@RTPeat Richard Peat wrote this piece – thanks Richard!

@joblogs83 Johan Gant wrote this piece – thanks Johan!

@nhaslam Nick Haslam wrote this piece – thanks Nick!

@martinpeck Martin Peck wrote this piece – thanks Martin!

@markhneedham Mark Needham (speaker) wrote this piece – thanks Mark! Mark’s slides can be found here and a video of his session here.

@robashton Rob Ashton (speaker) wrote this piece – thanks Rob!

@mikehadlow Mike Hadlow (speaker) wrote this piece – thanks Mike.

Tim Ross wrote this piece – thanks Tim!

@chris_alexander Chris Alexander wrote a couple of pieces, here and here. Oh, wait, there more here! Thanks Chris – you were, ahem, taller in real life than in your Twitter picture!

@guysmithferrier Guy Smith-Ferrier wrote this piece – thanks Guy!

@pcurd Peter Curd wrote this piece – thanks Peter!

@tentonnebaby Oli Francis wrote about it here – thanks Oli!

@danielrmay Daniel May wrote this piece – thanks Daniel!

@cargowire Craig Rowe wrote a piece here – thanks Craig!

@Cranialstrain Ian Battersby wrote this piece – thanks Ian!

@philpursglove Phil Pursglove wrote his piece over here – thanks Phil!

@pkiddie Paul Kiddie wrote this piece over here – thanks Paul!

@hahughson Hamish Hughson wrote this piece – thanks Hamish!

@JohnnoNolan Johnno Nolan wrote this piece – thanks Johnno!

@silverSpoon Andrea Magnorsky wrote this piece – thanks Andrea!

@calcock Chris Alcock wrote a good round-up post for The Morning Brew (if you haven’t subscribed to this, you should! It’s followed by the likes of @shanselman, it’s a must read!)

There’s a little bit of content over at slideshare. And @chrisntr Chris Hardy has added some content here.

Happy Birthday…
Some folks even had a birthday celebration at DDD8, @ben_hall: http://vimeo.com/9238695

And Barry…
But, for one person, this was the end of an era. For eight DDD events in a row Barry Dorrans has made it on to the agenda – and if memory serves me, he has always been very high in the voting. Well, except once, when he had to bung me a grand to nobble the votes, but we don’t talk about that, much. Barry is now in Seattle (we have photographic evidence to prove this) working for Microsoft – working for Microsoft almost excluded him speaking at future DDD events. Although I have hinted that if he makes a celebrity appearance, we might let him in…especially if he brings Scott Guthrie and/or Scott Hanselman with him! Other Microsoft celebrities do exist; I merely used the two Scotts here!

All day, we did nothing to Barry. Even when Barry discovered @plip’s laptop unlocked and started tweeting from it, we did nothing! I have a spot of video footage of @plip and @blowdart at the point of realisation… We did nothing until the start of his session. Barry thought he was playing a prank on @ben_hall by getting both Chicago 1 and 2 to sing happy birthday, little did he know what we had planned for his session!

Video for the bulk of Barry session can be found here: http://vimeo.com/9241853 This video also carries some content from Barry’s appearance on Crystal Maze: “You’re going to need these bellows!”

The interuptions, which Barry kindly documents here are also available:
http://vimeo.com/9205053
http://vimeo.com/9205726
http://vimeo.com/9205478
http://vimeo.com/9205839

Phil Pursglove, the man who sourced the Crystal Maze footage of @blowdart, created a Twitter list for DDD8 speakers – good work!

Through the lens
And many folks published their photographs:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtpeat/tags/ddd8/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismurray0/4319403305/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/colinangusmackay/sets/72157623198330439/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blowdart/sets/72157623190688525/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigmurphy/sets/72157623211907865/

Caught on the HDD of a Camcorder
Mixing functional and object oriented approaches to programming in C# – Mark Needham
Barry Dorrans hijacked encryption session at DDD8
Real World MVC – Ian Cooper – Developer Developer Developer 8
Multi-tenant ASP.NET MVC Projects(Or 30 very different customers and a single codebase) – Rob Ashton
Commercial Software Development – Liam Westley
C# on the iPhone with MonoTouch – Chris Hardy

Phil has more video content over at his Vimeo page.

What’s Next?
May 10th 2010 is DDD Scotland. This is the third such event to be held in Glasgow that carries the DDD “brand” into the regions!

June 5th 2010 is DDD South West.

March 27th 2010 is, still TBC, rumoured to be a date worth keeping free. Whatever is happening you should be following @plip on Twitter!
SQL Bits are busy planning “data” versions of DDD – sign up over at http://sqlbits.com/ to keep up to date with their free events!

Plans are underway for the next DDD event in either Belfast or Dublin – follow @developerday to be kept up to speed about that!

And if you are “down under”, check out DDD Melbourne, organised by DevEvening’s @alexjmackey – author of Introducing .NET 4.0: With Visual Studio 2010

Who makes DDD possible?
A huge number of people make DDD possible. It would be very difficult to name everybody (although technically, it is possible!), so here’s a high-level overview, in no particular order after the first two:

1. Attendees. Without attendees, none of this would be worth it. We love seeing rooms packed, like this one for Jon Skeet. It’s great to see 325 folks enjoying themselves whilst getting some technical knowledge too! Thanks are due to all the attendees for making it the event it was and is!
2. Speakers. These folks rock – without their session submissions, there would be no DDD! Speakers give up their time to prepare and present, we are hugely grateful to them!
3. Microsoft Events staff. These ladies are the backbone to the whole event!
4. Microsoft Communities staff. Another critical part of the equation are the folks at Microsoft who say “yes”, you can have the campus on a Saturday. These folks also make sure that the catering requests are made, such that you get fed and watered at the right moments!
5. Microsoft Campus Security staff. Whilst these chaps might not like you taking photographs of the glass roof in Building 4, they do a great job making sure you and your swag is safe!
6. Microsoft Catering staff. You like the bacon rolls, yes? You liked the brown bag lunch, yes? All that coffee and biscuits? These backroom folks deserve a massive thank you for their efforts!
7. And we can’t forget to thank the a/v guys who do a great job making sure all the projectors are working, etc. They also ensure that microphones work in the rooms they are meant to work in, or not if we choose to hijack other rooms for birthday wishes!
8. Room Monitors. Whilst the role is very informal, having a room monitor is important when the need arises! Thanks to all of you who volunteered!
9. @zimakki deserves huge thanks for making the Geek Dinner happen, and happen with the elegance that would have impressed The Queen. Every year Zi performs magic making 60 people enjoy Pizza Express! Check out this photo if you don’t believe me! This year, because of the popularity, I believe other dinners were also taking place – there’s something for everybody here at DDD!
10. Sponsors. DDD doesn’t happen without a huge amount of support from Microsoft – we are naturally indebted to them for their support! However huge thanks are also due to SQL Bits – they sponsored the coaches (which around 35% of you used!) from Reading railway station to TVP and back again. The NxtGenUG chaps threw in 100 chocolate bars – thanks guys – if you’re looking to join a user group, these guys rock! And last, but by no means least, Developer Express provided licenses for their products – huge thanks to @rachelhawley for making this happen!

Most of the folks you saw wearing blue sweatshirt/polos at DDD8 have e-mail aliases at developdeveloperdeveloper.com – if you’d like to chat to us (Ian, Phil, Zi, Craig – more to be added), please feel to drop us an e-mail using first-name at developerdeveloperdeveloper.com! Or catch up with us on Twitter!

If you’d like your DDD8 content included here, please let me know either by e-mail or by leaving a comment+link below!

Alex is an experienced developer, he discusses his own personal experiences with many of the .NET 4.0 technologies, providing us with an insight into their history, their strengths and weaknesses – it’s all valuable content that can be hard to source elsewhere. And what’s more, given that this is Alex’s first book, he has done a terrific job: his writing style is contemporary, elegant and is easy to read.

Why should I buy this book?
Don’t be put off by the use of “Introducing” in this book’s title. It’s a book all developers should buy, from beginners to seasoned professionals. Beginners will benefit from the coverage of features, Alex essentially provides a roadmap of the things you need to look at in .NET 4.0 in order to gain the most benefit.

What’s in it for me? What’s this “roadmap” you mention?
Alex covers all of the bases with chapters about the following topics: Visual Studio IDE and MEF, Languages and Dynamic Changes, CLR and BCL Changes, Parallel, Workflow Foundation 4, Windows Communication Foundation, Entity Framework, WCF Data Services, ASP.NET, Microsoft AJAX Library, jQuery, ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight Overview,WPF 4 and Silverlight 3 and Azure. This should provide you with a one-stop shop regarding the current .NET 4.0 technologies and tools: a great resource, especially for newbies, those developers moving to .NET 4.0 from the Java world, etc. and experienced developers looking to make use of new material in their applications.

One of the most common questions I get asked at developer events is “how do I get to know .NET?” – this book is a great source of up-to-date information, “newbies” and those moving to .NET 4.0 from other platforms should rush out and buy this book. Seasoned developers will enjoy the to-the-point writing style, the short code examples and the author’s reach out to “subject matter” experts from the field – if you need to know more, the links are there for newbies and long-in-the-tooth developers!

This book sits nicely in between Pro C# 2010 And The .NET 4.0 Platform 5th Edition by Andrew Troelsen (Hardcover – 3 Mar 2010) and Pro ASP.NET 4.0 In C# 2010 4th Edition by Matthew MacDonald (Paperback – 3 Mar 2010). Alex’s book provides all the groundwork you’ll need in order to be able to tackle the works of Troelsen and MacDonald – Alex’s book is available now!

What are you waiting for? Visual Studio 2010 will be released in a few months time! Get ahead now, buy this book, you won’t regret it!

Further links
Alex’s web-site
The APress web page for Alex’s book

Money Dashboard are looking for both a pro-active experienced C# .NET developer and a Silverlight guru to help take our B2C application to masses and beyond. Our application uses the latest in development methodologies, technologies and infrastructure and is a leading the way in Silverlight based Rich Internet Applications. You will work with the rest of the team on rapidly developing our front end application as well as its complex framework, middleware and supporting systems while utilising input from product management and design. This is a lead role involving extensive collaboration with the rest of the business and with an opportunity to contribute to all stages in the development process.

You will be involved in…

• C# and .Net 3.5+ using the latest WPF and WCF technology to build business and data solutions. Develops stored procedures, SQL and SSIS/SSRS as needed.
• XAML and Silverlight 3+ integration with .Net and SDS for RIA solutions. Including design and development of GUI interface, desktop and mobile applications.
• Works closely with business and technical teams to understand, document, design and code processes.
• Works closely with technical and business teams to understand, document and design and code integration.
• Will lead the translation of concepts, requirements and source mapping documents into solutions.
• Design, develop, test, optimize and deploy applications and related functions.
• Develop online, mobile, desktop and offline applications, controls and gadgets in support of the core application.

You should have…

• Candidate must have a deep understanding of application design, development, layout and presentation.
• 5+ years relevant experience.
• General experience with Javascript, CSS, xHTML and DOM.
• Must be able to Analyze requirements, design and specification documents, and provide instructions to other team members.
• Must demonstrate strong verbal and written communication skills and be able to interface with all levels of business and IT.
• Work well in a team-oriented environment managing multiple priorities, following a project plan and meeting project delivery dates.
• Highly organized individual with excellent decision making, analytical, problem solving and presentation skills.
• Excellent communication skills. Must be able to talk and understand clear English.
• BS degree in Computer Science or equivalent professional experience

Money Dashboard is an easy to use, secure and free online personal finance service that helps people manage their money more effectively.

We will soon be launching our service to the general public and are looking for a few key individuals to join our ambitious team who believes in excellence and hard work. What we offer is involvement in a cutting edge proposition, a great working environment, challenges and just rewards.

If you think up for the challenge why don’t you email us at jobs@moneydashboard.com

Our engineering lead will lead the engineering, QA and IT team to regularly deliver new features for a teen social game and virtual world that is a top 10 teen site. He or she must also be able to respond quickly to demands from advertisers and partners who support the business. The VP of Engineering will also research on the best technologies to use to create new experiences on the site. He or she must also keep up with the rapid changes in the social gaming and virtual world spaces. Social games, ecommerce or social networking experience is a big plus.

Key requirements
The VP of Engineering must have a hands-on attitude with experience in .net/Flash and Web based development

Ability to contribute as an architect.

Experience in the Scrum/agile engineering. Skill in adding and removing process as the company grows.

Ability to attract and maintain top talent.

Ability to command the team’s respect through their work and character. They will know when to push their team, and when to push back on their peers and board. They will be an experienced manager who knows how to handle rapid company growth.

As a leader in the company, they must also gain and hold the respect of their peers in product, marketing and sales.

Experience of the operational issues related to scaling and running an active virtual goods e-commerce site are also extremely useful. A good understanding of non-engineering IT issues such as System Administration, and Technical support is a plus. The VP of Engineering would ideally have very strong experience in all these or demonstrate that they can pick this knowledge up very quickly.
Experience with budgeting, partner negotiation and HR.

This is a key role for the company, reporting to the CEO with extensive visibility with the Company’s board.

Based in Glasgow, Scotland.

Renumeration package is excellent / competitive.

Please send a letter and CV to Cfrancis@weeworld.com

About WeeWorld
WeeWorld is a teen social game and virtual world with mainstream appeal. Millions of U.S. teens flock to our destination sites each month. The WeeMee avatar continues to multiply, with more than 30 million registered WeeMees on WeeWorld and our partner sites such as AIM.

Self expression, friends and fun
Teens choose virtual items to wear, to gift to friends or to add to their rooms. Every choice they make tells the world a little more about who they are, what they’re passionate about and the brands and media they love. WeeWorld is a thriving community where teens hang out, socialize and play games.

A thriving community where teens hang out, socialize and play games.
We work with leading advertisers and millions of virtual goods are purchased or downloaded every week. We’re backed by two of the world’s leading investors, Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners.

Quick Facts
· Fastest growing (+54%) virtual world among teens
· High engagement with teens visiting the site at least once per week and spending more than 100 minutes each month
· Top 3 virtual world in average time spent per visit
· Top 10 teen site based on total unique US visitors

Virtual worlds are growing
· Virtual worlds estimated to grow by 21% per year
· Global virtual world users to reach 640M by 2015
· Social media spending to hit $3.1B in 2014
· Teen spending will reach $208.7B in 2011
· Virtual goods market to reach 1.8B this year

Code Retreat UK, the first Code Retreat to be held in the UK, is happening in Glasgow, on the 21st November.

A Code Retreat is a full day session where developers work together to hone their craft by working in pairs to solve a problem. The pairs change every 40 minutes so that everyone gets to experience many different perspectives and ideas over the course of the day. We’ll be working in Ruby for this first Code Retreat, but Ruby experience is not required – we can pair Ruby newcomers with more experienced Ruby developers.

The event will be held at Caledonian University, lunch is provided and we’ve booked an evening space in a nearby tavern of hearty repute.

The event is free, but we are strictly limited to twenty places: if you want a place you’ll have to be quick.

You can book tickets here: http://coderetreatscotland.eventbrite.com/?ref=ecount

As lead developer you’ll be responsible for architecting, specifying, documenting and implementing innovative, world-class digital projects within the .NET framework.

We’re looking for a minimum of 4 years experience of the complete cycle of .NET C# applications. You’ll also be experienced in leading and mentoring your team members, preferably in a digital agency where design and interactivity plays a big part. As part of an innovative company you should be eager to learn the latest technologies, inside and outside of the .NET framework and constantly develop skills which can be shared with other members of your team.

Main Responsibilities

• Lead specification, development and execution of new web applications
• Write and oversee a variety of applications and deploy them on various digital platforms
• Ensure conformance to architectural guidelines and development standards
• Create documentation necessary to brief the team and specify and substantiate the development
• Maintain legacy web applications
• Develop Content Management Systems
• Help maintain and administrate server environments
• Ensure strong attention to usability and design detail

Skills

• Superb understanding of the ASP.NET C# Framework
• Excellent grasp of OOP
• SQL Server 2000/2005, T-SQL
• Database architecture and design
• Web Services
• XML/XSLT
• Good understanding of XHTML/DHTML/CSS, web standards, cross-browser/platform delivery, JavaScript and AJAX

Other Stuff

• Understand additional disciplines such as Actionscript, mobile deployment, third party API’s, etc.
• Help develop reusable components to build a library of back-end tools

Further Information
www.chunk.co.uk

Follow Chunk on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/chunktwits

To think, they paid staff to put those signs up…in every single aisle. How long would that take?

Tesco: 4,984 more “Price Cuts” signs than Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons…put together.

Finding somewhere to host the videos has been a worry for me / us. Then, the very generous Ben Nunney offered us space and a huge amount of bandwidth, which should solve our problem. The videos are about 300MB each. Huge thanks to Ben for sorting that out for us!

Wire in…go nuts:

A Developers Guide to Network Admin – Part 1_low.wmv
and A Developers Guide to Network Admin – Part 2_low.wmv – Dave McMahon
ASP.NET 4.0 – TOP SECRET_low.wmv – Dave Sussman & Phil Winstanley
ASP.NET MVC – Show Me the Code_low.wmv – Steven Sanderson
Concurrent Software in .NET_low.wmv – Nick Butler
How to Develop .NET on Linux using Ubuntu Distro_low.wmv – Toby Henderson
Implementing LINQ to Objects in 60 Minutes_low.wmv – Jon Skeet
Make the Most of Your Cores – Parallel Extensions for .NET_low.wmv – Ben Lamb
Microsoft Pex – The Future of Unit Testing_low.wmv – Ben Hall
Oslo, Microsofts Vision for the Future of Modelling_low.wmv – Robert Hogg
TDD and Hard-To-Test Code_low.wmv – Ian Cooper
The Bleeding Edge of Web_low.wmv -Helen Emerson
This One Goes Up to 11, or How to Write Scalable ASP.NET_low.wmv – Phil Pursglove
Top 10 WCF Tips_low.wmv – Barry Dorrans
Trust me, I Know What You Want!_low.wmv – Beverley Hatchard
Using an Inversion of Control Container in a Real Word Application_low.wmv – Mike Hadlow
Virtualisation for Developers – What, Why, Where_low.wmv – Liam Westley
Welcome to the Cloud – Chris Hay
WPF Tips ‘n’ Tricks_low.wmv - Sebastien Lambla

We managed to record the session, which includes an excellent practical demonstration that is well worth watching. Rob’s an excellent speaker, he fills 60 minutes with great content and humour.

The application of Lean principles, Kanban and pull-systems theory along with Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints revolutionised the manufacturing world in the second half of the twentieth century. Belatedly, the software world is waking up to the transformative effects these tools can have. There are still no silver bullets in the software world, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t improve our aim.

Having applied these principles and practices to many real-world, commercially-motivated projects, Rob speaks from the perspective of a practitioner not a theorist.

Although each of the three topics is a whole field of study unto itself, Rob’s goal is to communicate some of the key lessons from each, and have attendees leave with concrete ideas that they can use to improve their organisation.

No M&Ms were hurt in the making of this video, however some were eaten. Of course, if other confectioners wish to offer their “colour-coded” products for future demonstrations, please leave a comment here: but be warned, we will only deal in large quantities

Rob Lally @ epicenter 2009, Dublin from Craig Murphy on Vimeo.

http://www.netidme.com

We are looking for a lead C# .Net developer that wants to start working for a cutting edge, dynamic, fast moving company and join our team that develops exciting products in the area of online age and identity verification.

You must be able to demonstrate the following skills and experience:

• At least 3+ years development experience as a team lead
• C# and ASP.NET
• A strong grasp of object-oriented design
• A strong desire to produce quality code across all layers of an application stack

We work in a lot of exciting areas, so having demonstrable experience in any of the following areas will prove advantageous:

• OpenID Information Cards
• OAuth
• OpenSocial
• ASP.NET MVC
• TDD
• nHibernate
• Castle Project
• Objective-C
• Facebook API

NetIDme provides a suite of online age and identity verification solutions for businesses operating in Remote Gambling, iGaming, eRetail and Online Community markets seeking to establish robust automatic online age and identity verification processes to adhere to current and pending UK, European and USA legislation.

Interested?

Send your CV and cover letter to: recruitment@netidme.com

Please Note: All prospective employees must undergo a Disclosure Scotland check

NO 3RD PARTY REFERRALS PLEASE