May 28 - Practical DDD and Code Perspective

We have two talks for you this month, and without further ado here they are:

Practical Domain Driven Design - Mohammed Abed (@moh_abed)

Mohammed will be sharing simple, yet practical, practices that can help you to gradually move toward a richer domain model and as a result create a more understandable and maintainable application.

CodePerspective - Brendan Forster (@shiftkey)

CodePerspective is an open-source tool for inspecting your .NET applications (both web and desktop applications) and viewing their behaviour in real-time with some great and some crazy visualisations. I’ll show you how to get started with it, explain how it works and the various things it can teach you about your application. And even more.


Get yourself a free ticket for the event and we look forward to seeing you and your friends on the night!

April 30 - Talking Weinre and Xamarin 2.0

Puns and innuendo ahoy! Well, maybe just little one's (sorry!) This month we've got a small talk about Wienre, as well as a returning guest all the way from the US of A for a chat about Xamarin 2.0 and the goodness it brings for cross platform dev.

Also, as mentioned at the last group, we're trialling Eventbrite for RSVP'ing so click away and book yourself a spot for this months meeting.

Come and Check out Wienre - Craig Richards (@richardscraig)

weinre stands for WEb INspector REmote. Pronounced like the word "winery". Or maybe like the word "weiner". Who knows, really.

weinre is a debugger for web pages, like FireBug and Web Inspector except it's designed to work remotely and, in particular, to allow you debug web pages on a mobile device such as a phone.

So come and check it out! (cue childish giggling)

Xamarin 2.0 - Craig Dunn (@conceptdev)

All your mobile app development in one language (C#), in one place (Visual Studio). iOS, Android & WinPhone+Store: What's not to love?



So there we have it and with double the Craig's it'll be double the fun! RSVP and we'll see you there!

March 2013 - Scripting and Glimpsing

This month we have a double act for your entertainment, and maybe even for you education and enlightenment, though the promoters accept no responsibility for this actually occurring :-)

RSVP via the poll on the web site, tell your friends and colleagues to come along, spam Twitter and Facebook about it and don't forget to get your best Hawaiian shirt ready for the night. We'll see you next week!

Oh yeah, here's the talks you'll have coming your way:

Glimpse - Aaron Powell (@slace)

Diagnostics aren’t the sexiest of topics to cover but at some point in every project they become invaluable. This is when it’s Glimpse to the rescue. Come learn what you can do if you want to have a glimpse under the hood at your ASP.Net application.



Scripting for evil and profit - Luke Drumm (@lzcd)

Adding scripting support to your windows / web / phone application is (almost) always a winning tactic.
Not a believer? Join Luke as he gesticulates wildly on the subject, citing extremely convincing hearsay and rumor, displaying a wide selection of vaguely inappropriate examples (with matching hand gestures) and generally being disgustingly optimistic about the whole subject.
Learn how the addition of scripting support to your applications can lead to happier users, developers, puppies and businesses.
Be amazed at how passionate you too can be about adding scripting support to *everything* upon seeing this presentation.
(Disclaimer: May require additional caffeine and sugar to attain scripting passion. May not be legal in all states).

February Meeting

Due to travel commitments Richard has been a bit behind on getting the word out about this month's talks.

Never fear though for we have the following talks this month for you:

Developer Productivity with CodeRush by Justin King (@zerohash)

This talk is a nonstop demo fest of all  the great (well as many as we can cover) features of DevExpresses best tool CodeRush and Refactor Pro. Most developers I meet use Resharper (R#) however I've used CodeRush for over 7 years. It's been around a lot longer and every major release has added some kick ass features. Here are some of the great features will cover on top of the refactoring and coding assistance - Debug Visualiser, Code De-duplication, Code Metrics, Unit Test Runners and Code Analysis. Get your game on and get productive!

Angular JS by James Sadler (@freshtonic)

[no blurb - expect a general introduction, followed by some examples in code and then a section on testing and dependency injection]

RSVP via the site as per usual, and if you could help us out be spreading the word before Tuesday that would be great!!

See you there.

Jan 29 - Soft Skills and NServiceBus New Bits

A big welcome back for the New Year to everyone. To kick the year off for you we have the following topics for your entertainment so RSVP via the poll on the site and we'll see you on the 29th!

What's New in NServiceBus? - Hadi Eskandari

This talk is about NServiceBus, an open-source enterprise service bus on .NET platform. With all the web services around we'll see why and where it is relevant to use a service bus. We'll quickly create a solution based on NSB which would get you up to speed with the technology and also see new features and functionalities introduced in the latest version and have a sneak peek at what would be available in next versions.

Soft Skills for Technical People - Richard Banks

Sometimes you need to communicate with people using more than a keyboard. Sometimes you actually have to go and talk to someone in person. Egads! I know! What are you going to do when that happens?
All joking aside, we'll be running through of some of the soft skills and techniques you need to improve your interactions with other people. Skills that will help you better understand what they want and skills to help you convey your thinking, ideas and opinions to others in a way that they will 'get'.


Don't like the talks here? That's fine, this group is for you, so why don't you submit a topic idea on UserVoice and we'll see what we can do for you.

Nov 27 - Security and Responsive Layouts

It's our last meeting for the year, so make sure you come out for it.  This should be good!

We have two talks as follows:

Breaking the Interwebs - Troy Hunt

Building the next generation of web apps is great, but you know what’s really interesting? Breaking them! In a nice way of course, which is entirely different to the very unfriendly ways we see web apps being broken at what seems to be unprecedented frequency these days. But it’s no wonder when you look at how these exploits are happening and that’s what I’d like to show you. In fact I’d like to show you not just how well publicised exploits have taken place, but some of the massive vulnerabilities and simple exploits that are yet to really hit the news. This will be a pretty candid look at direct risks and exploit techniques that you take home and apply right away (in a nice way, of course!)

Responsive Layout with HTML5 - James Crisp

Want to build a web application which dynamically changes layout to best suit the client, be it mobile, tablet or desktop with the same HTML? Fun times with HTML5, Bootstrap, HAML and Sass. You'll get to see it in action, and the code behind the magic.

Soft skills for technical leaders 

Due to work related travel, Richard's had to pull out this month.  Look for this talk to happen early in the new year.

RSVP

Let us know you're coming by responding to the poll on the right hand side of the site, or by responding to the event in Facebook.

We'll see you there!

October 30 - Typescript

For the month of October we have scoured the far corners of the interwebz to find you something special, just for you. We bring you subjects designed to create and endless supply of hyperbole, tim tams and coconuts and to provide for your personal edification, education and entertainment! Maybe we're overplaying it a little, maybe we're not. The only way to know for sure is to come along on the night!

This month we have a full length talk:

Something, something, Typescript

Aaron Powell

TypeScript is Microsoft's answer to the new-age problem of Something-to-JavaScript compilation, or as Brendan Eich calls it, transpilation.

Through all the fluffy words like "application scale" is there anything that's really going to make you excited? What problems is TypeScript going to solve for your average web application project and more importantly what problems is it going to introduce?

Remember to RSVP

No need to register to come but we would appreciate you RSVP'ing via the poll on the site so we can get the right amount of food ordered. Oh, don't forget to keep those UserVoice ideas coming! Submit one now :-)