Utah Open Source Conference

[Mike Murray]

There is an Open Source conference slated for the first week of May here in Utah that is accepting session proposals until Saturday. The audience is unsurprisingly heavy in Linux influence, with most coming from backgrounds in languages like Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP, JavaScript, Java, and C/C++. In fact they don't even have C# as an option on the session submission form.

I could foresee having an interesting discussion with people from different platforms and languages about how FubuMVC differentiates itself from other web frameworks, especially its compositional focus and ability to utilize static typing. However, I could also foresee no one caring and it being a waste of time. But given the audience, it would have to have a different focus than any other Fubu presentation I've seen or given myself (which leads me to believe I'm not really the right person for the job).

I imagine the presentation would mostly focus on theories and principles and motivations, rather than a tutorial on how to begin using the framework or how it's different from ASP.NET MVC. I could see myself being the only .NET developer at the whole conference.

Perhaps one of you guys have given a Fubu presentation/elevator pitch to such an audience before, or just had a great discussion about the framework with someone from a different background? Where would you focus the presentation with this type of audience? Or will it turn out to be largely ignored and a fruitless venture? Is there really very much to gain by attempting to engage this type of audience at this point?

Thanks,

Mike Murray

[Jeremy D. Miller]

I can't imagine that I could attend, but I'd dearly love for FubuMVC to get in front of exactly those kinds of folks.

My target with FubuMVC is Rails/Django/Lift, not fighting asymmetric warfare against ASP.Net MVC.  

If we've got over a month to get ready, I'd be very happy to help craft something with you on this.
 

Jeremy D. Miller
The Shade Tree Developer
jeremy...@yahoo.com

---

From: Mike Murray <charlie...@gmail.com>
To: fubumv...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, March 22, 2012 11:15:18 AM
Subject: [fubumvc] Utah Open Source Conference

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[Michael Murray]

Much appreciated, Jeremy. The only thing I need in the immediate future is a session title and abstract that is convincing enough to that type of crowd.

"FubuMVC: Composing Web Apps via Conventions" -- too generic; will be glossed over on the schedule

"FubuMVC: Wait...you can do that static typing?!" -- will start flame war or turn off attention of dynamic language guys

What else do you guys got?

[Chad Myers]

I'm thinking that if you say "static typing" in the title, you can pretty much guarantee no one will come :)

How about "Tackling complexity in large web apps: conventional composition and FubuMVC"

Jeremy's said things to this effect before and it's appropriate here: HtmlTags are awesome and a good gateway drug to impress on folks the power of FubuMVC.  It's a common problem everyone has and HtmlTags offers an straightforward and powerful solution that makes people pause. Then you can pile on and show them the power of behaviors, HTML conventions, conventional model binding, etc. in FubuMVC proper.

-Chad

[Michael Murray]

So here are the title and session abstract I have drafted so far...

----------

Tackling Complexity in Web Apps: Conventions and Composition with FubuMVC

As web applications have become more and more sophisticated client-side, the need for a clean, supporting server-side architecture is paramount. You also don't want to be spending all of your time writing scaffolding and constantly repeating infrastructure code for cross-cutting concerns. You need to be able to set up conventions the way your team wants to work and compose pipelines of small modules that are decoupled and cohesive.

FubuMVC is a .NET open-source front-controller MVC web framework. Fubu (which stands for "for us, by us") focuses on configuration via conventions, composability, separation of concerns, DRY and SOLID principles, and other critical concepts of rapid, frictionless, and pain-free web development. The ability to create or replace conventions around any framework feature derives from the rich metadata available because of static typing. FubuMVC encourages compositional object-oriented design versus the typical inheritance-based approaches that are commonly offered in the .NET space.

----------

I'm on the fence about the sentence that referencing static typing. Maybe take it out altogether or reword it?

Also there are options for 30 min or 1 hour for the presentation length (there is also a 3 hour option, but good gravy no way!). I'm trying to decide if it'd be better to keep it more short and sweet or go a little more in-depth with the hour long duration.

I need some feedback before tomorrow so that I can submit it by the deadline. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks,

Mike Murray

[Dru Sellers]

I would just say "rich metadata made available by .net"

-d

[Michael Murray]

Oh, that is a bit better. What about mentioning reflection? Does that help any?

[Joshua Arnold]

I think metadata covers it, Mike. The mechanism from which the information is obtained is less important (in the abstract, that is). The compositional approach used by Fubu is one that everyone finds interesting and you can draw parallels with something like expressjs since they have a "pipeline" concept.

Splitting hairs on "STATIC TYPING IS BETTER" will only hurt your presentation, I think. I think it's ok if you say that you prefer it, or even imply it by pointing out how many cools things that we can do. But leave it up to the audience to make their own opinion ;)

[Dru Sellers]

I don't think so, it adds a word people may not be comfortable with too. Plus, ruby calls it one thing, python call it another, java might call it another - but everyone knows what meta data is.

-d

[Chad Myers]

You might also mention something about defining conventions your way (thus the 'for us, by us')

Looks good. Thanks Mike!

-Chad

[Michael Murray]

Keep it short at 30 mins? or go a little more in-depth with an hour?

[Chad Myers]

I don't know the audience very well. Maybe 30m just to whet their appetite to want to see more?

-Chad

[Michael Murray]

Yeah good point. I'm thinking the presentation will have to remain pretty high level, given the divide in platform/language. I should be able to gauge interest well enough after a 30 minute session to know if it had been worth the time and effort.

[Dru Sellers]

Yeah, go for 30 minutes. 

Force the talk to be fast and high paced and EXCITING!! :)

-d

[Michael Murray]

Here's the link you can click to vote for the session:  http://conference.utos.org/vote/ 

It remembers you voted, but it's remembering logic might be a bit overly aggressive in denying other people voting.

I also tweeted here if you want to give it some more visibility:  https://twitter.com/#!/mkmurray/status/185033725967470592 

Thanks,

Mike Murray

[Dru Sellers]

Done and Done!

Its got 14 votes, surely we can throw some more votes his way. Come on!!

-d