Nathaniel Schutta

Hacking Your Body for Fun and Profit

8:30 PM MDT

Beyond our typing skills, physical prowess is rarely part of our job qualifications but recent studies prove exercise is a key to a healthy brain. While we don't need to train like an Olympic athlete we can't be the stereotypical sedentary heliophobic programmer and expect to excel at our jobs. In this talk, we'll discuss the implications of research connecting exercise and brain health. We'll look at ways to weave activity into your day, see how technology can help us “geek out on our workouts” and touch on how diet fits into the picture. The impact a mere 20 minute walk can have our our abilities can be astounding; don't worry, the Internet will still be there when you get back!

Beyond our typing skills, physical prowess is rarely part of our job qualifications but recent studies prove exercise is a key to a healthy brain. While we don't need to train like an Olympic athlete we can't be the stereotypical sedentary heliophobic programmer and expect to excel at our jobs. In this talk, we'll discuss the implications of research connecting exercise and brain health. We'll look at ways to weave activity into your day, see how technology can help us “geek out on our workouts” and touch on how diet fits into the picture. The impact a mere 20 minute walk can have our our abilities can be astounding; don't worry, the Internet will still be there when you get back!

JavaScript Framework Face off

9:00 AM MDT

Developers are flocking to client side frameworks and, as a result, there are more and more JavaScript libraries attempting to solve the rich internet application problem. In a space where new libraries seem to spring up weekly, what framework should you choose for your next project? While there is consensus around basic ideas like Model View Whatever, there are some strong philosophical differences amongst the various libraries. In this talk, we'll look at the similarities and the differences of some emerging JavaScript libraries discussing why you need to be aware of this rapidly evolving aspect of software development.

Developers are flocking to client side frameworks and, as a result, there are more and more JavaScript libraries attempting to solve the rich internet application problem. In a space where new libraries seem to spring up weekly, what framework should you choose for your next project? While there is consensus around basic ideas like Model View Whatever, there are some strong philosophical differences amongst the various libraries. In this talk, we'll look at the similarities and the differences of some emerging JavaScript libraries discussing why you need to be aware of this rapidly evolving aspect of software development.

The JavaScript Developer's Toolchain

11:00 AM MDT

Back in the day, web developers had to rely on their wits and a plethora of alert statements - to say our toolkit was spartan would be an understatement. But with the increased importance of web front ends and the rise of JavaScript MVC frameworks, a modern web developer toolkit is finally emerging.

We've evolved from text editors to full fledged IDE's with code completion and refactoring tools but our toolchain doesn't end there. With multiple testing libraries, mocking frameworks, test drivers and even code coverage tools, today's web developer gets to walk downhill on a sunny day.

Bulletproof JavaScript Workshop

1:30 PM MDT

Take a look at your codebase. Go ahead, this abstract will wait. Notice anything? Perhaps a few more lines of JavaScript than years past? JavaScript is no longer an outlier, a language for the interns, something we can just mash together. Today, JavaScript is a first class citizen. As such, we need to treat it will all the care and feeding we extend our server side languages. This hands on workshop will introduce you to a set of tools that will help you write bulletproof JavaScript.

Step one, make sure we aren't making any basic mistakes like using == when we really mean ===. To remedy these types of bugs, we'll leverage JSHint to statically analyze our code. In addition to walking through the setup, we'll discuss how to ratchet up the rules as you improve your codebase. Just like Java or C#, we also need to test our JavaScript code. We'll introduce Jasmine, a BDD style testing tool as well as other tools that make help in the testing process. Last but not least, we'll take a tour of Plato, a JavaScript source code visualizer. Taken together, these tools can go a long way to improve your JavaScript code.

Bulletproof JavaScript Workshop

3:15 PM MDT

Take a look at your codebase. Go ahead, this abstract will wait. Notice anything? Perhaps a few more lines of JavaScript than years past? JavaScript is no longer an outlier, a language for the interns, something we can just mash together. Today, JavaScript is a first class citizen. As such, we need to treat it will all the care and feeding we extend our server side languages. This hands on workshop will introduce you to a set of tools that will help you write bulletproof JavaScript.

Step one, make sure we aren't making any basic mistakes like using == when we really mean ===. To remedy these types of bugs, we'll leverage JSHint to statically analyze our code. In addition to walking through the setup, we'll discuss how to ratchet up the rules as you improve your codebase. Just like Java or C#, we also need to test our JavaScript code. We'll introduce Jasmine, a BDD style testing tool as well as other tools that make help in the testing process. Last but not least, we'll take a tour of Plato, a JavaScript source code visualizer. Taken together, these tools can go a long way to improve your JavaScript code.

Leading Technical Change

5:00 PM MDT

Technology changes, it's a fact of life. And while many developers are attracted to the challenge of change, many organizations do a particularly poor job of adapting. We've all worked on projects with, ahem, less than new technologies even though newer approaches would better serve the business. But how do we convince those holding the purse strings to pony up the cash when things are “working” today? At a personal, how do we keep up with the change in our industry?

This talk will explore ways to stay sharp as a software professional. We'll talk about how a technology radar can help you stay marketable (and enjoying your career) and how we can use the same technique to help our companies keep abreast of important changes in the technology landscape. Of course it isn't enough to just be aware, we have to drive change - but how? This talk will consider ways we can influence others and lead change in our organizations.

Communication for Architects

10:45 AM MDT

At the end of the day, an architect's primary job is to communicate. Not only do we need to make sure our teams understand the design of the system well enough to implement it, we must be able to explain our decisions to an audience that isn't impressed with how many TLAs you can rattle off in one sentence. Successful architects need to seamlessly transition from in depth technical conversations to budget meetings to discussions with end users adjusting the message to fit the audience.

While oral communication is key, good architects also spend a good deal of time putting pixel to screen via email, IM and various architectural documents we're expected to create. We need to write clearly and concisely while also knowing when the best course of action is to pick up the phone or walk to someone's desk.

In this talk, we'll explore the various methods that we as architects use to communicate with our stakeholders. We'll talk about knowing our audience, being able to present as well as how to run a good meeting. We'll discuss various patterns (and antipatterns) of presenting along with some concrete advice on how to do it better. At the end of the day, our job is to tell effectively tell a story - this talk will look at ways to do that.

Modeling for Architects

1:30 PM MDT

In some organizations, architects are dismissed as people that draw box and arrow diagrams - the dreaded whiteboard architect. While we don't want to foster that stereotype, it is important for an architect to be able to construct basic architectural diagrams. An architect must also be able to separate the wheat from the chaff eliminating those models that don't help tell the story while fully leveraging those that do.

In this workshop, we'll discuss the various diagrams at our disposal. We'll walk through a case study and as we go, we'll construct a set of diagrams that will help us effectively communicate our design. We'll talk about stakeholders and who might benefit from each typ of diagram. Additionally we'll discuss how to constructively review an architectural model.

Modeling for Architects

3:15 PM MDT

In some organizations, architects are dismissed as people that draw box and arrow diagrams - the dreaded whiteboard architect. While we don't want to foster that stereotype, it is important for an architect to be able to construct basic architectural diagrams. An architect must also be able to separate the wheat from the chaff eliminating those models that don't help tell the story while fully leveraging those that do.

In this workshop, we'll discuss the various diagrams at our disposal. We'll walk through a case study and as we go, we'll construct a set of diagrams that will help us effectively communicate our design. We'll talk about stakeholders and who might benefit from each typ of diagram. Additionally we'll discuss how to constructively review an architectural model.