CodeStock 2015
I spent the last few days in beautiful Knoxville, TN at CodeStock 2015.
CodeStock is annual technology conference for developers, IT professionals, and entrepreneurs that lasts two full days and is packed with technical & entrepreneurial content. This was their 8th year. The keynote speaker was Scott Hanselman. Despite being eight-o’clock in the morning, Hanselman gave an engaging and entertaining talk. They even had a ‘Women & Tech Panel’ and guess what? It was comprised of all women. #doingitright.
A couple highlights from the conference.
React & Flux with Chris Keathley:
React seems to be very fast, however… in order to use it you will have to essentially create your own framework, which isn’t as fast. That could cause a high-barrier to entry, luckily Chris was nice enough to include a link to a great starter app on Github. Or you can download React’s very own starter-kit. Learn more about the why behind React here.
React high points:
- All you do is compose components. Everything is self-contained making separations of concerns easy.
- One-way data binding with Flux
- More of a functional style of programming rather than imperative.
“When the data changes, React conceptually hits the “refresh” button, and knows to only update the changed parts.”
A Big thanks to @ChrisKeathley for the introduction to React and for influencing me to dive in and see what it is all about.
Functional Programming Basics with Jeremy Fairbank:
But why?
- Declarative not imperative. Saying what I want the computer to do vs. Telling the computer how to do it.
- First Class Functions
- Referential Transparency and Purity
- Recusrion
- Currying
- Composition
- Focuses on keeping immutable data and idempotence
That said, I don’t know…, because we can. (Quite posible: you value elegance > efficiency, some examples.) He blew my mind. I intend on deep diving into this subject soon (and also tallying the speed). Here is his github repo for the talk, as well as the slides.
Presentation Crash Course: A proven method for perfect presentations with Scott Rouse:
Scott Rouse is a body language expert and head of the Pitch Department at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Check out his website — so many great things to find there. He was at CodeStock to help us make the perfect pitch to investors. The take-away: keep it simple, use pictures and tell a logical step by step story.
Ethos → Credibility
Pathos → Emotion
Logos → Logic
There is no way I could summarize how great his talk was, I encourage everyone to go watch some of his videos, and figure out how you body language is ratting you out.
All in all it was a great and educational weekend!
