May 30th 2009 - Developer Day Falls Church

Staying current with the ever-evolving technological possibilities can be challenging, but you love trying. Why? Because you’re a fantastic web developer who loves building things, (and, frankly, that’s just how you roll).

Which is why this conference is perfect for you.

Hear seven presentations given by active practitioners on topics ranging from Ruby 1.9 to browser-based programming, and advanced acceptance testing to front-end development. Each is tailored to give you insight into various topics that may positively influence how you work, regardless of your specialization.

Registration is closed for May 30th — but keep your eyes peeled for Developer Days in other cities!

If you were there, don't forget to rate the talks at SpeakerRate!

TALK SCHEDULE

8:30 - 9:00	Registration and Breakfast
9:00 - 9:40	Opening Keynote speakerrate Jay Virdy Jay is an entrepreneur with a passion for developing search and discovery systems. He was co-founder and CEO of Summize, a realtime search engine acquired by Twitter in 2008. His first company, LocalEyes, was a local search engine acquired by AOL in 2000. Today he is actively making plans for his third DC-based startup.
9:45 - 10:25	Give Your Sites a Push with Comet Online applications are trending towards collaborative and instantaneous. Learn about some of the push technologies available to us in modern web apps, how to use them, and what their limitations are. speakerrate Dan Drinkard Dan is a creative web developer at nclud, where he implements efficient and beautiful designs that solve problems for clients. He's been coding on the Web since 2001 and loves all things PHP, ExpressionEngine, jQuery and standards.
10:25 - 10:45	Break
10:45 - 11:25	Make Everyone a Tester: Natural Language Acceptance Testing Application testing has traditionally been the responsibility of those in formal QA roles or, more recently, the application developers themselves. Is being a programmer or tester really a requirement for effectively testing your web application? Discover ways to enable your existing team to write human-readable tests they can run in their own browser. speakerrate \| slides Patrick Reagan Patrick Reagan has been building awe-inspiring applications and working with the latest technologies at Viget Labs since 2000. As the Development Director, he’s been instrumental in helping us standardize on Ruby on Rails and recruiting top talent to be a part of that movement.
11:30 - 12:10	From Paralysis to Static Analysis: A Ruby 1.9 Case Study on Upgrading RCov With Ruby 1.9 on everyone’s mind, Aaron will walk you through the real-life example of updating RCov to work with the new platform. speakerrate Aaron Bedra Aaron brings the ability to quickly ninja any application. His passion for spreading the security word via his blog is kicking off a new wave of security consciousness throughout the Ruby community and creating an avalanche of better development practices. His passion for exploring new technologies and traveling new roads has quickly shot him up through the Ruby industry and on to the Relevance team.
12:10 - 1:00	Lunch
1:00 - 1:40	Lightning Talks There's a lot of great work being done locally, and we always love to hear about it — so we're adding a slot for lightning talks to the agenda. Come prepared to chat about what you're working on or are interested in!
1:45 - 2:25	Beyond Thunderdome: Browser-Based Visual Programming with Lily and the Monome Ever wanted to mashup some APIs with an interactive sound generator and control it all with an external physical interface? Ever wanted to do it all without writing a single line of code? We'll pit the NY Times DOM against Lily, a browser baser visual programming environment, and the Monome, an external physical computing interface, for the ultimate audio-visual Thunderdome. speakerrate \| slides \| recap Justin Marney An engineer by birth, Justin Marney is no stranger to technology. Repeatedly caught dismantling toys as soon he could pick up a screwdriver, his parents were financially driven to provide an outlet for his curiosity in the form of a Commodore64. Unbeknownst to them, this gift would lead Justin down a path far from any chance at obtaining reasonable social skills and towards a Computer Science degree from George Mason University and a healthy obsession with programming. When Justin isn't hacking the Gibson, he spends his time making electronic music or backpacking across the Shenandoah Mountains. His enjoyment of the dichotomy between these two pastimes accurately portraits his neurosis.
2:30 - 3:10	JavaScript Testing in Rails: Fast, Headless, In-Browser. Pick Any Three. You wouldn’t consider developing a Rails application without having a solid test suite for your Ruby code, but you’ve somehow convinced yourself to cross your fingers and look the other way when it comes to JavaScript. It doesn’t have to be that way. In this session, you’ll learn how to apply test-driven and behavior-driven development to your unobtrusive JavaScript code in a Rails-friendly manner. Historically, when selecting a JavaScript testing solution, you were forced to choose whether you wanted a framework that could run your tests in the browser or one that could only run your tests in a headless fashion. With the right combination of tools, you can enjoy the best of both worlds: fast, automation-friendly, and headless testing plus the ability to run your tests in whichever browser is acting up on any given day. speakerrate Larry Karnowski Larry Karnowski has been designing and developing software applications—mostly network management tools—for almost fifteen years. His biggest passion is solving problems for real people—creating user interfaces that let users kick ass. In addition to hard technical skills like Ruby, Java, etc., he brings experience in usability, product design, and uncovering what users really need to his work at Relevance.
3:10 - 3:30	Break
3:30 - 4:10	import antigravity: Making Life More Enjoyable With Python No matter how much we love writing software, there are times it makes us want to set fire to our keyboards. We'll take a look at virtualenv, WSGI, and other Python-related technologies that make life a more enjoyable experience. speakerrate \| github Jeremy Carbaugh Jeremy Carbaugh is a web developer with Sunlight Labs where he uses Python to bring transparency to the federal government. By opening up the government, Jeremy is paying penance for his time spent writing enterprise Java applications for the IRS, VA, and FBI. He is a stickler for elegant code, promotes web standards, and has yet to anger the designers he works with. Jeremy is also a member of 200 OK, a DC-based web development collective.
4:15 - 4:55	Programming In Interesting Times For the first time in a very long time, programmers are again confronted by a very basic question: Which programming language should I use? The last few years have seen the emergence of a whole variety of programming languages, everything from Ruby and Scala to a renewed interest in Python and LISP. Why is this happening now? What makes one programming language successful and another a footnote? And what does all this mean to engineers who just want to hit next week's deadline? speakerrate Russ Olsen Russ Olsen's career spans a couple of decades, during which he has written everything from graphics device drivers to document management applications. These days, Russ diligently codes away at GIS systems, web service security and process automation solutions with both J2EE and Rails. Russ spends a lot of his otherwise free time talking and writing about programming, especially Ruby. Russ is the author of Design Patterns In Ruby and the Technology As If People Mattered blog. Russ' technical pontifications have been translated into six languages and Russ has spoken at various conferences including Paris On Rails, RubyNation and the VTM Professional Ruby Conference.
5:00 - 7:00	Happy Hour Dogwood Tavern