TONIGHT (Tuesday): Club AJAX - Is Knockout JS Your Next JavaScript Framework? - Derek Lane & Sergey Rathon

[Bob Byron]

Derek Lane & Sergey Rathon Is Knockout JS Your Next JavaScript Framework? Face it. There are a lot of MVC frameworks for JavaScript out there; each with their own respective pros and cons. But what if you find yourself in the situation where you just need to whip up some web pages, and you happen to like the idea of having your data from the server mapped directly to associated fields on the screen? You also like the idea of keeping the models and views of your web app separated, and you don’t want to spend a lot of time keeping them in sync. This session will explore KnockoutJS, which might just be the ticket for you. In addition, we’ll demonstrate how to test your JavaScript and how to get a feel for what kind of confidence your tests should give you.
Derek Lane Derek Lane is an Enterprise Architect at Thomson Reuters. He has worn various hats in his career including mentor, coach, architect, manager, developer, trainer,methodologist, entrepreneur, and consultant, and is known as someone who challenges others to constantly improve themselves, many times through unconventional methods. Derek is a contributor to various projects as author, presenter, committer, and technical reviewer, and winner of the 2011 International Agile Games Tournament. Derek has helped found several technology based user groups including the Oklahoma City Java User Group (OKCJUG), the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas MicroJava User Group, The Next Big JDK Thing user group in Dallas, Texas, and most recently the DFW Groovy & Grails User Group; and has been active as a member, presenter, and mentor for over a decade at various technology user groups across the Midwest and Southern US. Derek can also be found plying his zanypresentation skills at various conferences including the No Fluff Just Stuff Tour, the Dallas Day of Dot Net and the Dallas and Tulsa Tech Fests. Derek can on occasion be found utilizing his background in engineering, Virtual Reality and 3D graphics to think in four or more dimensions - some of whichhave yet to be independently verified. When not exploring the mind numbing edge of technology, he can be found listening to Bluegrass music and watching old Kung Fu movies - a dangerous combination from any point of view. Sergey Rathon  is a Principal Consultant at Improving Enterprises. His career has taken him through a diverse set of industries: 3D Rendering done in Irix/C++, Geo-information systems in Delphi, router test tools in C# and Web UIs in PHP, ASP,  Javascript, and a diverse set of roles: from QA engineer to a lead of a large software project to Principal Engineer. Scars from his days in management made Sergey an enthusiastic supporter of Agile methodologies, including Scrum and TDD. Outside of work Sergey can be found watching a movie with his son and daughter, 11 and 9, or riding his motorcycle hundreds of miles away from home in a multi-year pursuit to visit all 50 states on a bike.
The Place
We are meeting at Improving! When: Tuesday, April 3, 2012 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM (Social: 6:30 PM) Where: 1 Hanover Park 16633 Dallas Pkwy Dallas, TX 75248 (972) 200-0028 First Floor Suite #11 Map: http://clubajax.org/community/directions/
The Site
Club AJAX is a blog and news focused site providing information about AJAX!  The site is run by Bob Byron and Mike Wilcox.  In addition to our blog and news, we provide resources from our monthly Club AJAX user group meetings. Most of the meetings are recorded and available in the Videos section. Depending on the format, the Presentations themselves will be posted, or linked to if possible. And any code-alongs, demos, or examples will be available in our Examples section. If you live in the area, come to the meetings!  Show up early and we can talk and eat free pizza provided by our sponsor - Improving!