Gabriel Schenker introduction to NHibernate and Fluent NHibernate Part 2

Topic
I will present an introduction to NHibernate and Fluent NHibernate. This introduction will not only discuss NHibernate in isolation but show its usage embedded in a realistic yet simple WPF application. All aspects of how to setup, run and extend such an application will be discussed. An important focus will be put on the differences between testing and running the application. 

Bio
After receiving my Ph.D. of Physics at the Federal Institute of Technologies in Zurich, Switzerland, I worked for some time in building physics, and subsequently moved to behavioral science. Among other things, I was involved in training expert examiners of different industries in how to write and take exams that are fair and really test the relevant aspects of their profession.
In 1996, I started as an independent consultant, mentor, trainer and developer. In 2001, a partner and I founded a small software company. We have been writing customer specific software for all kinds of industries as well as for the government.
Since March 2009, I have been working as a senior software architect for TOPAZ Technologies in Austin, TX. I moved to Austin in October 2009.

I have been working on the .NET platform in my professional work since 2000. I am the author of the NHibernate FAQ blog and am a member of "Los Techies". I have also published several articles on DotNetSlackers about NHibernate and Fluent NHibernate.

What is VAN?

Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) is the online gathering place of the ALT.NET community. Through conversations, presentations, pair programming and programming dojo’s, we strive to improve, explore, and challenge the way we create software. Using net conferencing technology such as Skype and LiveMeeting, we hold regular meetings, open to anyone, usually taking the form of a presentation or an Open Space Technology-style conversation.

Please see the Calendar to find a VAN group that meets at a time
convenient to you, and feel welcome to join a meeting. Past sessions can be found on the Recording page.

To stay informed about VAN activities, you can subscribe to the Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) Google Group and follow the Virtual ALT.NET blog.

Times below are Central Standard Time
Start Time: Wed, November 18, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -6 hours
End Time: Wed, November 18, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -6 hours
Attendee URL: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/van

Gabriel Schenker introduction to NHibernate and Fluent NHibernate.

Topic
I will present an introduction to NHibernate and Fluent NHibernate. This introduction will not only discuss NHibernate in isolation but show its usage embedded in a realistic yet simple WPF application. All aspects of how to setup, run and extend such an application will be discussed. An important focus will be put on the differences between testing and running the application. 

Bio
After receiving my Ph.D. of Physics at the Federal Institute of Technologies in Zurich, Switzerland, I worked for some time in building physics, and subsequently moved to behavioral science. Among other things, I was involved in training expert examiners of different industries in how to write and take exams that are fair and really test the relevant aspects of their profession.
In 1996, I started as an independent consultant, mentor, trainer and developer. In 2001, a partner and I founded a small software company. We have been writing customer specific software for all kinds of industries as well as for the government.
Since March 2009, I have been working as a senior software architect for TOPAZ Technologies in Austin, TX. I moved to Austin in October 2009.

I have been working on the .NET platform in my professional work since 2000. I am the author of the NHibernate FAQ blog and am a member of "Los Techies". I have also published several articles on DotNetSlackers about NHibernate and Fluent NHibernate.

Times below are Central Standard Time
Start Time: Wed, November 11, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -6 hours
End Time: Wed, November 11, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -6 hours
Attendee URL: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/van

VAN Recordings have been updated

Check out the lastest VAN postings.  http://www.virtualaltnet.com/Recordings

Billy McCafferty talking about S#arp Architecture on Nov 4

Billy McCafferty will join us once again on the heels of releasing
Service Pack 1 for S#arp Architecture version 1. He will spend some time reviewing feature improvements, changes and add more context tot he framework where time was not permitted in the first meeting. If you have any specific questions you would like addressed during the evening please let the thread begin...

Time and location of the meetings Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Nov 4, Each week 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Nov 4, Each week 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours Attendee URL: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/van

We have Ayende Rahien talking again tonight!

Topic
A three way conversation with the main collaborators who created NH Profiler. This tool enables developers to gain a deeper insight into profiling their applications communication from NHibernate(.Net) and Hibernate(Java) through to the database.

Who they are Ayende Rahien contributed efforts on the back-end development.

Chris Bennage and Rob Eisenberg contributed their efforts to the front- end.

Time and location of the meetings Times below are Central Daylight Time Start Time: Oct 28, Each week 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours End Time: Oct 28, Each week 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours Attendee URL: http://www.virtualaltnet.com/van

This week on VAN: Ayende Rahien talks about NH Profiler

Topic

A three way conversation with the main collaborators who created NH Profiler. This tool enables developers to gain a deeper insight into profiling their applications communication from NHibernate(.Net) and Hibernate(Java) through to the database.

Who they are

Ayende Rahien contributed efforts on the back-end development.

Chris Bennage and Rob Eisenberg contributed their efforts to the front-end.

Time and location of the meetings

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Oct 21 and 28, Each week 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Oct 21 and 28, Each week 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

VAN: An evening of Questions and Sharing of group opinions regarding DDD pragmatic concepts facilitated by David Laribee October 14, 2009

Topic

In the spirit of Open Spaces we will be bringing in David Laribee to facilitate a discussion of opinions on Domain Driven Design.a

Who is Dave?

He is a coach for the product development team at VersionOne. He has 12 years experience designing and developing enterprise applications and coaching Agile teams. David has worked on internal IT, product development, consulting, and rapid prototyping teams across a wide variety of industries. David is a frequent speaker at local and national developer events. He was awarded a Microsoft Architecture MVP for 2007 and 2008 and writes about Agile and Lean methods, coaching, and software design on the CodeBetter blog network.

Meeting Details

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Wed, Oct 14, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Wed, Oct 14, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

VAN:S#arp Architecture Revisited – Advanced Techniques – November 4, 2009

Topic

Billy McCafferty will join us once again on the heels of releasing Service Pack 1 for S#arp Architecture version 1. He will spend some time reviewing feature improvements, changes and add more context to the framework where time was not permitted in the first meeting. If you have any specific questions you would like addressed during the evening please add a question to our group and we will make sure Billy is ready to answer it.

Bio

Who is and what makes this Billy McCafferty guy tick? Well he is a long time developer and a hopeless romantic when it comes to writing beautiful software. Billy currently leads a double life between helping to run the world's greatest IT training school at http://www.itsamuraischool.com/ and filling the part-time role of lead developer and architect with Parsons Brinckerhoff.  Billy is enjoying getting a bit of his life back after the recent release S#arp Architecture 1.0 and is currently hard at work on the first quarterly release later in September of 2009.

What is VAN?

Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) is the online gathering place of the ALT.NET community. Through conversations, presentations, pair programming and programming dojo’s, we strive to improve, explore, and challenge the way we create software. Using net conferencing technology such as Skype and LiveMeeting, we hold regular meetings, open to anyone, usually taking the form of a presentation or an Open Space Technology-style conversation.

Please see the Calendar to find a VAN group that meets at a time
convenient to you, and feel welcome to join a meeting. Past sessions can be found on the Recording page.

To stay informed about VAN activities, you can subscribe to the Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) Google Group and follow the Virtual ALT.NET blog.

Meeting Details

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Wed, November 4, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Wed, November 4, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

Reminder: VAN: Claudio Lassala presents the S in SOLID Hide options

Tonight Claudio Lassala will be commencing his month long presentation beginning with The Single Responsibility Principle. See you all there for some enlightening discussion.

Zach and John

Weekly meeting cancellations August 26 and September 2, 2009

With the heat of the summer winding down and without any firm commitments from speakers we have decided to cancel these two evenings. See you all in September with Claudio and SOLID.

Zach and John

VAN: Jeremy Miller on Screen Architectures and Separated Presentation patterns on Aug 12

Topic

Jeremy Miller will be speaking again on Virtual ALT.NET this Wednesday (Aug 12, 2009), but this time on Screen Architectures and Separated Presentation patterns (MVP, MVVM). 

Who is Jeremy Miller?

Jeremy is the Chief Software Architect at Dovetail Software, the coolest shop in all of Austin. Jeremy is also the author of the open source StructureMap tool for Dependency Injection with .Net and the forthcoming StoryTeller tool for supercharged acceptance testing in .Net. Jeremy is also the author of the Patterns in Practice column in MSDN Magazine. Jeremy's thoughts on just about everything software related can be found on his weblog The Shade Tree Developer part of the popular CodeBetter site. Jeremy is a Microsoft MVP for C#, and very active within the ALT.NET community.

What is VAN?

Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) is the online gathering place of the ALT.NET community. Through conversations, presentations, pair programming and dojos, we strive to improve, explore, and challenge the way we create software. Using net conferencing technology such as Skype and LiveMeeting, we hold regular meetings, open to anyone, usually taking the form of a presentation or an Open Space Technology-style conversation.

Please see the Calendar to find a VAN group that meets at a time convenient to you, and feel welcome to join a meeting. Past sessions can be found on the Recording page.

To stay informed about VAN activities, you can subscribe to the Virtual ALT.NET Google Group and follow the Virtual ALT.NET blog.

Meeting Details

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Wed, August 12, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Wed, August 12, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

[kickit]

VAN: Jeremy Miller talking about Screen Activation Lifecycle August 5th

Topic

Jeremy Miller will be talking about Screen Activation Lifecycle.  On his blog he posted the following about the talk:

I will be presenting some preliminary material from my "Presentation Patterns" book on Virtual ALT.NET during the first two weeks of August.  For August 5th I'm going to talk about what I call the "Screen Activation Lifecycle."  Think of an application like Visual Studio that is constantly loading and destroying screens.  How can we activate a new screen and synchronize the application shell to reflect the options for the new screen?  How do you locate and activate an existing screen for a requested subject instead of opening a duplicate screen?  How do you remember state to do web browser type navigation?  And oh yeah, how can you do this in a way that enables you to easily add all new screens later (OCP baby!)?  To start some answers going, I'd like to present some reocurring design patterns I've found useful for these problems.  I'll definitely be talking about a "Tabbed MDI" application shell for the first talk and maybe a web browser style shell (depends on how I do in prepping).  I'll also touch on "View First" vs "Presenter/ViewModel First."

I'm really hoping for some feedback on the material here and I'd love to have any and all criticism or suggestions.  I've got 5 days to prepare as well, so if there's anything in specific about this topic that you're interested, please drop me a comment and I'll see what I can do.  I'm thinking that the second week of August to talk about Separated Presentation patterns.  There's an almost infinite store of good content on these patterns and the important differences between them, but not many developers have a strong understanding of these differences.  I think I'm going to give up and go with MVVM in my nomenclature.  I do think it just MS's renaming of Presentation Model, but I think far more people are familiar with the term MVVM and well, that matters. 

Who is Jeremy Miller?

Jeremy is the Chief Software Architect at Dovetail Software, the coolest shop in all of Austin. Jeremy is also the author of the open source StructureMap tool for Dependency Injection with .Net and the forthcoming StoryTeller tool for supercharged acceptance testing in .Net. Jeremy is also the author of the Patterns in Practice column in MSDN Magazine. Jeremy's thoughts on just about everything software related can be found on his weblog The Shade Tree Developer part of the popular CodeBetter site. Jeremy is a Microsoft MVP for C#, and very active within the ALT.NET community.

What is VAN?

Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) is the online gathering place of the ALT.NET community. Through conversations, presentations, pair programming and dojos, we strive to improve, explore, and challenge the way we create software. Using net conferencing technology such as Skype and LiveMeeting, we hold regular meetings, open to anyone, usually taking the form of a presentation or an Open Space Technology-style conversation.

Please see the Calendar to find a VAN group that meets at a time convenient to you, and feel welcome to join a meeting. Past sessions can be found on the Recording page.

To stay informed about VAN activities, you can subscribe to the Virtual ALT.NET Google Group and follow the Virtual ALT.NET blog.

Meeting Details

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Wed, August 5, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Wed, August 5, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

[kickit]

VAN: Lessons learned building NH Profiler with Ayende Rahien, Christopher Bennage and Rob Eisenberg Oct 21 and Oct 28, 2009

Topic

A three way conversation with the main collaborators who created NH Profiler. This tool enables developers to gain a deeper insight into profiling their applications communication from NHibernate(.Net) and Hibernate(Java) through to the database.

Who they are

Ayende Rahien contributed efforts on the back-end development.

Chris Bennage and Rob Eisenberg contributed their efforts to the front-end.

Time and location of the meetings

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Oct 21 and 28, Each week 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Oct 21 and 28, Each week 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

VAN: Claudio Lassala presents a series on the SOLID Principles to Virtual ALT.NET

Details

Claudio will be presenting five consecutive meetings discussing each principle outlined below with samples and then open discussion. It is hoped that we can have an active discussion on each of the topics with an open sharing of sample code, experiences and thoughts. He would like you to contact him through his blog if you have suggestions and ideas that can make the meetings as valuable as possible. More details to follow so stay tuned.

Who is Claudio?

Claudio Lassala is a Senior Developer at EPS Software Corp. He has presented several lectures at Microsoft events such as PDC Brazil and various other Microsoft seminars, as well as several conferences and user groups across North America and Brazil. He is a multiple winner of the Microsoft MVP Award since 2001 (for Visual FoxPro in 2001-2002, and for C# every since), an INETA speaker, and also holds the MCSD for .NET certification. He has articles published on several magazines, such as MSDN Brazil Magazine, CoDe Magazine, UTMag, Developers Magazine, and FoxPro Advisor. More detailed information regarding his presentations and articles can be found in his MVP Profile.

Summary of dates and Meeting topic

• Sept 9: SRP (Single Responsibility Principle)
• Sept 16: OCP (Open Closed Principle)
• Sept 23: LSP (Liskov Substitution Principle)
• Sept 30: ISP (Interface Segregation Principle)
• Oct 7: DIP (Dependency Inversion Principle)

Time and location of the meetings

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Wed, Each week 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Wed, Each week 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

VAN: Jeremy Miller discusses Presentation Patterns for Virtual ALT.NET in August 2009

Topic

Still being fleshed out. Jeremy would like your votes on the content. Here is the list of topics as a start. Check out his post and add your vote and comments.

1. Separated Presentation patterns. You know, what are your options, why are they different, and when would you choose one or another for a particular scenario. Model View Presenter variants and Presentation Model (MVVM).
2. "Screen Activation Lifecycle" -- Design patterns and the system responsibilities for systems composed of multiple screens
3. DSL development within a desktop application.
4. Test Automation strategies. How testability impacts design
5. Event Aggregation
6. Managing the application shell
7. Using an IoC tool within a desktop application for extensibility

Who is Jeremy Miller?

Jeremy is the Chief Software Architect at Dovetail Software, the coolest shop in all of Austin. Jeremy is also the author of the open source StructureMap tool for Dependency Injection with .Net and the forthcoming StoryTeller tool for supercharged acceptance testing in .Net. Jeremy is also the author of the Patterns in Practice column in MSDN Magazine. Jeremy's thoughts on just about everything software related can be found on his weblog The Shade Tree Developer part of the popular CodeBetter site. Jeremy is a Microsoft MVP for C#, and very active within the ALT.NET community.

Meeting Detail

The month of August. Exact dates and times will be confirmed in a few days.

VAN: An evening with Scott Bellware discussing the myth of developer productivity August 19, 2009

Topic

The myth of developer productivity.

Scott’s Bio

Scott Bellware is a software product designer, developer, manager, and agile coach living in Austin, TX. He speaks at software industry conferences and teaches agile development practices and software production methodologies in workshops in the US, Canada, and Europe. He is the founder of the Lean Software Austin and the AgileATX communities of software practitioners. He is the organizer of the upcoming MonoSpace, ALT.NET Open Space, and Continuous Improvement conferences in Austin, and has served as the content chairman for the agile development track at the DevTeach conferences, as well as the chairman of the INETA Speaker Committee. He is the recipient of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional award.

Meeting Details

Times below are expressed in Central Daylight Time

Start Time: Wed, August 19, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time: Wed, August 19, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

VAN: An evening of Questions and Sharing of group opinions regarding DDD pragmatic concepts facilitated by David Laribee July 29, 2009

Topic

In the spirit of Open Spaces we will be bringing in David Laribee to facilitate a discussion of opinions on Domain Driven Design.

Who is Dave?

He is a coach for the product development team at VersionOne. He has 12 years experience designing and developing enterprise applications and coaching Agile teams. David has worked on internal IT, product development, consulting, and rapid prototyping teams across a wide variety of industries. David is a frequent speaker at local and national developer events. He was awarded a Microsoft Architecture MVP for 2007 and 2008 and writes about Agile and Lean methods, coaching, and software design on the CodeBetter blog network.

Meeting Details

Times below are Central Daylight Time
Start Time: Wed, July 29, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
End Time: Wed, July 29, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours
Attendee URL: Attend the meeting (Live Meeting)

VAN: Jean-Paul Sylvain Boodhoo in Town for July 15

Lets discuss elements of our jobs...environments..and even personalities which can prevent us from achieving levels of productivity that we strive for but all to often fail to meet. I hope to offer suggestions that can remove the brakes and add the much needed nitrous oxide that can propel us forward.

JP is an independent consultant that spends most of my days helping teams realize success throught the adoption and applicaiton of pragmatic development practices.

JP has a passion for sharing information with the development community which he does primarily through training and secondarily with my blog.

When not developing he can be found relaxing with his amazing wife and our four beautiful kids.

Central Daylight Time

Start Time: Wed, July 15, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time: Wed, July 15, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) is the online gathering place of the ALT.NET community. Through conversations, presentations, pair programming and dojos, we strive to improve, explore, and challenge the way we create software. Using net conferencing technology such as Skype and LiveMeeting, we hold regular meetings, open to anyone, usually taking the form of a presentation or an Open Space Technology-style conversation.

Please see the Calendar to find a VAN group that meets at a time convenient to you, and feel welcome to join a meeting. Past sessions can be found on the Recording page.

To stay informed about VAN activities, you can subscribe to the Virtual ALT.NET Google Group and follow the Virtual ALT.NET blog.

VAN: Web Development using Castle with Ryan Svihla

Virtual ALT.NET (VAN) is the online gathering place of the ALT.NET community. Through conversations, presentations, pair programming and dojos, we strive to improve, explore, and challenge the way we create software. Using net conferencing technology such as Skype and LiveMeeting, we hold regular meetings, open to anyone, usually taking the form of a presentation or an Open Space Technology-style conversation.

Please see the Calendar to find a VAN group that meets at a time convenient to you, and feel welcome to join a meeting. Past sessions can be found on the Recording page.

To stay informed about VAN activities, you can subscribe to the Virtual ALT.NET Google Group and follow the Virtual ALT.NET blog.

Ryan Svihla has been working as a C# developer Farm Bureau Bank in San Antonio since September 2007. Before that he worked as a Consultant in Lincoln, NE for 3 years, where he had working experience with Php, some Perl, Python and of course C#. Attempting Agile since early 2008 as an eager student with a focus on making programming more useful and relevant for the end user.

Have a look at the first popular MVC .Net based web framework. Also will be covering persistence with ActiveRecord, and view templates using Brail. Bonus, will demo a plug-in framework for building CMS like applications.

Central Daylight Time

Start Time: Web, July 8, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time: Web, July 8, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

Give VAN some BUZZ

Ok everybody, I want to ask everyone to create a little BUZZ for VAN.  Starting Sunday I want everyone to do something to get the word about what we are doing with VAN.  There are still thousands of people who have never heard of Virtual ALT.NET.

I feel the best way get to the word out is by word of mouth.  The following list is just some examples of what you could do.  You might choose to do all of them, or just one.  Maybe you have other ways. Be sure to include Virtual ALT.NET in your message.  Also create a Google Alert and let’s see what happens this week.

1. Write a blog about what is Virtual ALT.NET
2. Write a blog about Virtual ALT.NET becoming an INETA usergroup.
3. Write a blog about an upcoming event.
4. Write a blog about a past event you attended.
5. Send a tweet to your friends inventing them to attend the next meeting.
6. Tweet about the next meeting.
7. Tweet about us being a new INETA group.
8. Tweet, Tweet, Tweet, Tweet, Tweet anything about Virtual ALT.NET.
9. Start a discussion on you favorite email group about Virtual ALT.NET.
10. . Start a discussion on you favorite Facebook group about Virtual ALT.NET.
11. . Start a discussion on you favorite Linkedin group about Virtual ALT.NET
12.   Send out an email to your local user group.
13.   Tell someone at work about Virtual ATL.NET

 

What other ways can we use to get the word out about Virtual ALT.NET?

Virtual ALT.NET is an official INETA user group

On May 21th INETA approved Virtual ALT.NET as an official INETA user group.  INETA provides structured, peer-based organizational, educational, and promotional support to the growing worldwide community of Microsoft® .NET user groups.   At first I was thinking that I would not register VAN as a group with INETA.  But after talking with a few people I respect in the community I was encouraged to register VAN with INETA.  With this recognition we will be able benefit from a few of the following items.

• We will be able to request INETA speakers to speak to our different VAN groups.  Since the current speaker bureau for North America does have a lot ALT.NET speakers currently,  I'm hoping we can bridge the gap between North America INETA and the other INETA groups to bring in different speakers cross the global.

 

• Currently I'm using the LiveMeeting account that was provide to our local user group.  By having our own I will be able to let others have access to our own livemeeting account.  One of the task that I have been doing is posting the recordings,  by having our own I could delegete this task to others in VAN leadership.

 

• The website that we have created is currently hosted on my personal account at godaddy.  One of the benefits of being an INETA user group is being able to take advange of some the free web hosting offer to user groups.  Now that we are an official INETA user group I plan on moving the site to one of hosting providers that offer free hosting to use groups.  With this I would be able to also delegete the website constructions to others.

 

• The overhead for maintain our VAN groups is almost at zero cost.  But we have had a few expenses, one is the domain name that I purchased.  This was only $10.00 but I would like to be refunded at some point and also be able to pay for the domain in the future.  With INETA recognition we can request funds to pay for this and other needs we might have.  I have also thought about have a graphic designer create a really cool logo.

Development with Castle Project with Ryan Svihla July 1 and July 8

Ryan will be doing a two part series on the Castle Project. Mark your
calendar for some Castle Project fun.

Ryan Svihla has been working as a C# developer Farm Bureau Bank in San
Antonio since September 2007. Before that he worked as a Consultant
in Lincoln, NE for 3 years, where he had working experience with Php,
some Perl, Python and of course C#. Attemping Agile since early 2008
as an eager student with a focus on making programming more useful and
relevant for the end user.

IoC and Dip through Castle Windsor

Ever wonder what acronyms like IoC and Dip mean? If you know what they
mean do you wonder why anyone would use them in code? This talk aims
to deal primarily with those two questions through the use of Castle
Windsor IoC container. Intermediate level C# material with a couple
of more advanced demos at the end for fun and pleasure.

Central Daylight Time

Start Time: Web, July 1, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time: Web, July 1, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

Web Development with Castle Monorail, Active Record and Brail view
engine

Have a look at the first popular MVC .Net based web framework. Also
will be covering persistance with ActiveRecord, and view templates
using Brail. Bonus, will demo a plugin framework for building CMS
like applications.

Central Daylight Time

Start Time: Web, July 8, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time: Web, July 8, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

Introduction to DDD with Steve Bohlen on June 10

This session will introduce the concepts, approaches, and
considerations that DDD brings to the table. We will define the
concepts, understand the terminology, and explore the role that DDD
plays in developing a software solution. In the follow-on discussion,
we will be able to discuss issues such as "when is DDD appropriate for
a software solution?" and "is it possible to use just *some* of the
DDD concepts effectively without applying them all at once?".

Central Daylight Time

Start Time: Web, June 10, 2009 8:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

End Time: Web, June 10, 2009 10:00 PM UTC/GMT -5 hours

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

Steve Bohlen presenting on DDD

Steve will be presenting on DDD the following sessions for 6/10 and
6/17.

Session 01 6/10/2009: Introduction to DDD
This session will introduce the concepts, approaches, and
considerations that DDD brings to the table. We will define the
concepts, understand the terminology, and explore the role that DDD
plays in developing a software solution. In the follow-on discussion,
we will be able to discuss issues such as "when is DDD appropriate for
a software solution?" and "is it possible to use just *some* of the
DDD concepts effectively without applying them all at once?".

Session 02 6/17/2009: Implementing DDD patterns and artifacts in .NET
Despite the fact that DDD is foremost about patterns where the role of
the actual code plays a very distant second, some of the patterns and
principles that DDD espouses can lead to some uncommon implementations
in code. Building on the prior week's session where we explore some
of the concepts of DDD, in this session we will look at several
different common patterns for implementing DDD constructs in .NET code
including Repostories, Entities, Value Objects, Services and more as
well as dig into a discussion about how they all relate and
interoperate together while respecting the values and principles of
DDD.

Steven BIO http://unhandled-exceptions.com/blog/index.php/official-bio/

Community Clip on LiveMeeting

Just found this site from Microsoft Community Clip doing howto videos
on LiveMeeting. Just thought I would share with everyone.

http://communityclips.officelabs.com/Search.aspx?cat=a27fff2460f24ac7888523e41003b7a7

Spring into Summer with a series of discussion on Domain Driven Design

For the month of June, we would like to do a series of meetings on
Domain Driven Design. We need volunteers to present. The series
should be a ramp up with the first one being a simple 101 level and
culminating with a big bang at the end.

Let me know which date and topic you would like to volunteer for. If
anyone knows Eric Evans or some other well know DDD expert please have
them contact us.

Dates

June 3
June 10
June 17
June 24
July 1

Zach and John

Notes from James Kovacs talk on pSake

Here is the link for the notes:

http://www.jameskovacs.com/blog/psakeAtVANWrapup.aspx

New start time for weekly meeting is now 8:00 pm CST

After tabulating the voting results, its unanimous meeting will now
begin an hour earlier each Wednesday.

Thanks for all your input on this.
John

Meeting Notes: Topic ideas for future meetings

The topics below are not ordered by importance but rather were noted
in order of discussion.

1. Rest topics and SOA architecture = Udi Dahan, Seb

2. Dynamic Languages - Harry Pierson. John Lam

3. Messaging - Mass Transit or Hibernating Rhinos ESB

4. DDD talks on specific use cases as a theme

5. Nhibernate best practices including Castle Active Record.

6. Horn from Alt.Net Scotland

7. Martin Fowler or Bob Martin or Eric Evans. Issac of the NY
Alt.Net group indicated he may have a contact to involve Eric Evans.
Zjelko would try to use his Thoughtworks contacts to snag Martin
Fowler.

8. Various patterns for good architecture.

Please add to these points for further refining ideas if you like.

Thanks John

Next European VAN on 06 May 2009

This time, we’re doing a regular presentation. Mark Nijhof, one of the
contributors of FubuMVC, will shed some light on this Front Controller
style MVC framework for building web applications. Here are the
details:

Start Time: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 06:00 PM GMT

End Time: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 08:00 PM GMT

Attendee URL: http://snipr.com/virtualaltnet (Live Meeting)

Please join us then as this is going to be an awesome presentation.
I’m personally looking forward to this one.