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CodeMash: Day 2

Well done! Well done. CodeMash really delivered. Day 2, for me, could be summed up as Scott Guthrie Day. I'm not sure how he pulled off 3 knowledge-laden, engaging presentations...all while on Redmond time. I kept noticing the clock on his laptop. During his keynote at 9am, his clock read 6am. And he was still going strong during his 3-4:15 discussion. Impressive. I hope he gets/got a few hours of nap time on the flight to SeaTac.

Highlights:
  • Dave Donaldson's review of NHibernate. This guy just impresses me. He's not a rock star (as in unapproachable, full of himself) but more like the people's developer. Down to earth. Human. Wants to help. I'm excited about the prospect of NHibernate. I've used NetTiers with good success but never really pushed the limits. Although, LINQ may trump NHibernate...
  • LINQ. This Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) will revolutionize traditional data access tier development. The Microsoft developer community made solid progress in recent times through leveraging shared source tools such as Enterprise Library/Patterns & Practices and FxCop and open source tools like NUnit. Embracing agile and TDD also helps. But, I think LINQ will finally bring ORM to a place where developers feel comfortable implementing it and enterprises feel comfortable allowing it into their shops (there's still a reluctance to accept OSS in a lot of the bigger shops). Guthrie's demos and information nailed it on LINQ.
Overall, CodeMash delivered great value in a short period of time for a very reasonable price. Great work, guys. I look forward to next year.

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