Monday, September 28, 2015

Microsoft Ignite 2015 Round Up / Summary

I've summarised some of the most interesting/important parts of my TechEd 2015 NZ notes in this post.

The top five sessions for the conference based on session feedback:

  1. The Secret to Telling Awesome Stories from Microsoft's Chief Storyteller
  2. The Microsoft DevOps Vision
  3. Aligning Architecture to Organisation
  4. Public Speaking Skills for Quiet People
  5. Torment Your Colleagues with the 'Roslyn' .NET Compiler Platform

My top sessions, in no particular order

Great Artists Steal: Build better software by applying patterns and ideas from different languages

Orion Edwards - @borland

github.com/borlande/Ignite2015

  • Ruby
  • C# Scoping lambda for locks and transactions, building up and then committing.
  • Consider the parameter naming. Try and form a phrase. C# named parameters.
  • Swift
  • if let - unwarps null references in if/else.
  • C# - Create Optional generic type. Implicitly converts from null. Unwrap to take lamba to handle existing and null cases. Not great for input parameters.
  • Also, HtmlEncoded, Atomic, Tainted, Either
  • C++ - Zero Cost Abstraction
  • Can be used with struct in C# as well.
  • System.DateTime is an example. Useful for multiple data types in combination. When unit of measure is important.
  • If you can get a Haskell program to compile, it is probably free of bugs.
  • Grand Central Dispatch - from Apple
  • Queues are lightweight threads. You "dispatch" lambda functions to them.
  • Like Dispatcher in C#
  • Serial Queue. Jobs won't run in parallel.
  • github.com/borland/SerialQueue
  • Go
  • goroutines and channels
  • Channel with send and receive.

Torment Your Colleagues with "Roslyn" .NET Compiler Platform

Ivan Towlson

"The Duke Nukem Forever of compilers"
  • C# and Visual Basic compilers
  • Syntax trees for code
  • Semantic model
  • Visual Studio editor integration.
  • Roslyn Overview on dotnet github.
  • Syntax Visualizer - browse the entire tree.

The Secret to Telling Awesome Stories from Microsoft's Chief Storyteller

The Internet of Hackable Things

Kirk Jackson @kirkj - Felix Shi @comradpara

Project Premonition: Mosquito seeking drones and Microsoft Azure

So You Want to Present at Ignite

Chris Jackson

  • 60 seconds to get their attention. Then got to land the point.
  • How to be effective as an influencer.
  • Preparing your submission - earning the right to be heard.
  • Build your reputation. Humans make the decision on who gets the cut. Who is the person, are they credible.
  • Be authenticate.
  • Volunteer to speak. Start a blog if writing is your thing.
  • Less likely to pick the total unknown.
  • Understand the goal of the track. What is the story they are trying to tell.
  • Sell yourself to the track lead.
  • Preparing for your talk.
  • Presentation design and presentation aids.
  • What do the track owners looks for.
  • What is on the screen should only be there to pull people back on track.
  • Keep the number of words on the slide to a minimum.
  • Max 5 words on 5 lines.
  • Make it real with demos.
  • You already know the material. You don't remember what it is like to not know.
  • The first 60 seconds. If it sounds awkward and unrehearsed with it's unrehearsed.
  • Practice the first 60 seconds the most.
  • What is shipping and what are the trends.
  • Inspire, don't teach. Take an action at the end of 60 minutes. One to three things tops.
  • Tell Stories. List of facts do little to inspire us.
  • How do I make this real.
  • Pillars and organization. How do you support the primary objective of the talk. Is it driving the outcome you want.
  • Stick your landing. Try to avoid ending on Q&A
  • Get speaker training. Someone who will tell you stuff you need to hear.

The Cinematic Cloud - Pixar Studios

Developing Cross Platform Mobile Apps with XAML and MVVM

See Also: