Desert Code Camp

November 15 2010

Last weekend was the Desert Code Camp in Chandler, AZ. This is a great code camp and is put on by my good friend Joe Guadagno. I was honored to be able to present my ASP.NET MVC and Entity Framework presentation, and I had a great time doing so. Fortunately for me, Joe scheduled my session for the last block, which allowed me to ramp up and really be prepared for the group. There were about 20 attendees in the session, with a wide variety of skill sets and experience. One of my favorite comments from an attendee was when I asked the crowd for a definition of an Entity Context. He responded with "an ecosystem" which prompted me to toss one of our infamous Carabineer key chains to him.

The group was great with lots of good questions and a real back and forth experience. Afterwards I got several positive comments and feedback from a few of the attendees, which made me feel like the whole thing was a success. My slides are on Slideshare.net at http://www.slideshare.net/latringo/aspnet-mvc-and-entity-framework-4

The code camp itself was a dead on success and Joe should be congratulated heartedly. Held at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, the Student Commons was the main staging place for both attendees and speakers. Wi-Fi was flowing freely, and there were tons of snacks and drinks during the day to keep everyone charged up. Afterwards was an after party hosted by Joe featuring hors d'oeuvres to gnosh on and some really nice local craft beers. It was a great way to wind down from a fast paced, tech filled day by talking to people I had never met, about all types of things.

Joe, you did a bang up job pulling this off and getting all the sponsors in line! This is one of the best Code Camps around.

Here's a few pictures