I’ll be speaking at DevIntersection this fall in Vegas. The conference is co-located with AngleBrackets.

This is the fall conference you want to attend with the best speakers in our industry (that’s not just .NET and SQL but Javascript galore!) including Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Kimberly Tripp, John Papa, Dan Wahlin, Carl Franklin, Richard Campbell, Douglas Crockford, Michel Leroux Bustamante, Kathleen Dollard , Billy Hollis and on and on. I’m again, honored to be included.

You can get a $50 discount off of the registration using my last name (LERMAN) as a discount code. You’ll see that the speakers are all competing to get you to use their code. That’s because the speaker with the most registrations tied to their names gets a nice little reward and our conference organizers know how we *love* a good little competition! 🙂 So I jump into the fray with “ME! ME!” 🙂

Here are the talks I’ll be doing:

VS17: A Practical Look at Entity Framework in Domain Driven Architecture

Considering how your data will get persisted is not a concern with Domain Driven Design (DDD), but at some point you will have to persist your data somewhere, somehow. This session is for developers who use Entity Framework and want to know how some of the key DDD concepts such as aggregate roots, bounded contexts and value objects work out when it’s time to add in your data layer. We’ll talk about some of the struggles you may go through trying to change your perspective from data first to domain first from someone who has experienced this brain shift first hand.

VS15: Entity Framework 6 – Ninja Edition

Entity Framework 6, the first iteration of EF as an open-source project, is no longer just a pretty little unicorn. EF6 addresses many of the productivity issues that developers have requested to really make it shine as an ORM. While there are a number of new features that will be core to any EF development – such as async support, stored procedure support for code first, improved warm-up time – many of the new features are for developers who fall in the "ninja" category. In this session we’ll run through many of these features like the return of custom code first conventions, query interception and SQL logging, connection resiliency, transaction improvements and more.

VS18: Entity Framework in the Enterprise

Demoware is great for getting your head around a new topic but we’ve been seeing Entity Framework demoware for 5 years now. You’re probably not writing an application to manage your music collection or composing yet another Twitter client. You build big applications for your businesses and you need to know how to integrate Entity Framework in serious architectures. In this session, we’ll look at breaking up your models following the Domain Driven Design Bounded Context pattern, designing repositories and units of work that are relevant to EF DbContext and DbSets. You’ll also see how to build automated tests around code that involves Entity Framework, whether they be integration tests or strictly unit tests where Entity Framework seems to get in the way.

Finally the spring conference season is behind me. Yes, it lasted until July 13th! (I don’t like to leave Vermont in the summer so I lumped the last bunch of commitments – DDDSummit, TechEd North America, TechEd Europe and CodeStock) into my “spring travel” plans.

The next conferences I’ll be speaking at are in the late fall.

DevIntersection

http://devintersection.com/

October 27-31 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas

DevIntersection is 5 conferences in one: Visual Studio, SQL, ASP.NET, Sharepoint and WIndows Azure

It is also co-located with the <anglebrackets> conference (http://anglebrackets.org/)

You can use my last name (LERMAN) for a discount when registering. Each speaker has a discount code and we are in *competition* for who gets the most registrations using their code. And yes of course, the winner is rewarded – Vegas style! 🙂 So consider the gauntlet thrown. 🙂

I’ll be presenting 3 talks:

VS17: A Practical Look at Entity Framework in Domain Driven Architecture

Considering how your data will get persisted is not a concern with Domain Driven Design (DDD), but at some point you will have to persist your data somewhere, somehow. This session is for developers who use Entity Framework and want to know how some of the key DDD concepts such as aggregate roots, bounded contexts and value objects work out when it’s time to add in your data layer. We’ll talk about some of the struggles you may go through trying to change your perspective from data first to domain first from someone who has experienced this brain shift first hand.

VS15: Entity Framework 6 – Ninja Edition

Entity Framework 6, the first iteration of EF as an open-source project, is no longer just a pretty little unicorn. EF6 addresses many of the productivity issues that developers have requested to really make it shine as an ORM. While there are a number of new features that will be core to any EF development – such as async support, stored procedure support for code first, improved warm-up time – many of the new features are for developers who fall in the "ninja" category. In this session we’ll run through many of these features like the return of custom code first conventions, query interception and SQL logging, connection resiliency, transaction improvements and more.

VS18: Entity Framework in the Enterprise

Demoware is great for getting your head around a new topic but we’ve been seeing Entity Framework demoware for 5 years now. You’re probably not writing an application to manage your music collection or composing yet another Twitter client. You build big applications for your businesses and you need to know how to integrate Entity Framework in serious architectures. In this session, we’ll look at breaking up your models following the Domain Driven Design Bounded Context pattern, designing repositories and units of work that are relevant to EF DbContext and DbSets. You’ll also see how to build automated tests around code that involves Entity Framework, whether they be integration tests or strictly unit tests where Entity Framework seems to get in the way.

Øredev 2013

http://oredev.org/2013

November 4-8

Malmo, Sweden

I’ll be presenting one session:

Entity Framework in Core-Business Applications that Leverage DDD

In this session we’ll look at breaking up your domain-models following the Domain Driven Design Bounded-Context pattern, splitting and defining entities and aggregates properly in the different domain models and implementing repositories and units of work that are relevant to EF DbContext and DbSets, in the data persistence infrastructure layer.

I’m just home from attending & speaking at CodeStock 2013 in Knoxville, TN.

I’ve always heard what a great conference it is…though most of the legends were around parties at Alan Stevens’ house! After CodeStock 2012, Alan pinged me and asked me to give the keynote for the next one. I’m reluctant to leave home in the summer and …haha right….me giving a keynote! But when Alan said his idea was for me to talk not about a technology but about some of my experiences as a developer of nearly 25 years. I think at the time he had in mind something about how I had made my recent journey into Domain Driven Development. Though over year since then and with encouragement from Nathan Blevins and conversations with many, I evolved this into a talk which I titled “Disrupt Your Comfort Zone”.

When the call for abstracts was announced, I decided not to rest on my keynote laurels and submitted two abstracts on some topics I am currently passionate about sharing: one is a talk about where Entity Framework and DDD intersect (a talk that has been evolving over time from my EF in the Enterprise session) and the other is a short version of my Automated Testing for Fraidy Cats Like Me course on Pluralsight.  The intention behind the keynote and both talks was to help alleviate fear & trepidation many of us developers have about learning new, possibly daunting (ala TDD) and possibly huge (ala DDD) topics.

I was surprised that both of my session submissions were accepted. I was going to be a busy girl.

Alan, Nathan and the other organizers (Andrew May and Don Den Uyl (sounds like" “denial” 🙂 )) were very generous with their time and energy and support. I was pretty nervous about the keynote. I wanted it to be great and I wanted them to be happy they had asked me to do it and I wanted attendees to walk away inspired and feeling great about themselves. (yes a tall order, but …. “go big or go home”). I even spent time with the wonderful Deborah Hartmann Preuss who is an agile coach and a life coach who helped me deal with the vast amount of ideas I had spinning around my head and figure out how to find a thread… a path through this talk.

Alan and his fantabulous wife, Michele, let me stay at their house. (Please don’t tell Sampson about my new-found love for their dog, Malcom!) Rachel Reese was there too (just from LambdaJam and doing a well-received F# talk) and (I’m laughing) she had driven down from Chicago (don’t ask) so I managed to get carted around the whole time by one friend or another.

I *think* the keynote went well (if you thought it sucked and don’t want to look like a jerk for saying so, feel free to contact me privately). Just having a handful of people tell me afterwards (& on twitter) that they were inspired, and learning that I also am most always overwhelmed by the challenges of learning made them feel better (ala “I am not alone”) was enough to make me ecstatic. I don’t imagine I was able to do that for everyone in the room, but knowing that I was able to give something useful to those who I heard from makes me a little verklempt.

The keynote began with this video:

And ended with this image:

It also included bird-murdering cats.

I also truly enjoyed giving my other talks. The first was in a very small room with people standing in the hallway…others giving up and going off to other talks. I loved that on twitter, there was an impression of a standing-room only, overflowing attendance. But the truth is that there were only 22 chairs in the room and maybe 35 people were able to squeeze in. It wasn’t that hundreds were trying to attend. 😉

That session, the keynote and the Women in IT panel were all on Friday. The WIT panel was co-organized by the amazing gals, Corinna Brock and Arlene Gray (best twitter handle ever: @WhimSQL). The three of us made up the panel. And OMG! It turns out that Corinna was a 2003 grad of the same VERY SMALL very special liberal arts college (Wells College) that I graduated from (so many years ago that I’m not even going to put that down).

That night I managed to lose my laptop. (In the end, it turned out that I had left it behind in the vendor area when Rachel (it’s her fault, I swear) called to me from the elevator to hurry up (her fault! her fault!)). I didn’t notice how light my bag was until 1 restaurant, 1 ice cream parlor, 1 after party and then all the way back to Alan’s house. I chose not to freak out (thank you crashplan) and was only worried about how I was going to prepare for my Testing for Fraidy Cats talk the next day. So yeah, I got there early on Saturday and got my laptop and hid out to prepare for a few hours.

In the afternoon, I left the conference to go take a quick peek at the Smoky Mountains with Srinu Tulluri and fellow Pluralsight author, Michael Perry. Then we dropped Michael at the airport and I got his rental car since I was staying for another 24 hours.

I had another wonderful night at Alan & Michele’s. I watched a movie with Michele and their son while Alan, Chapman Smith, Srinu and Spede Bryan, spouted off  and had a grand old time (with the help of a bottle of bourbon) on the porch. 🙂

As if this wasn’t already a wonderful weekend, the next day was even more beautiful for me. After pancakes and another git lesson, I drove out to Oak Ridge to visit my 96 year old Great Aunt and Uncle. (He’s a real character with an incredible history and was featured recently on the local t.v. station). I haven’t seen them in too many years. I cried when I arrived. I cried when I left. I captured lots of video and family stories to share with the rest of my family. So thank you thank you, CodeStock, for this gift. Notice that my 96 year old Auntie’s hair isn’t even white. It’s still got a lot of brunette in it. Darn…I don’t have those genes. However, Uncle Josh has a full head of hair at 96 and on my father’s side, his dad had a full head of hair still in his late 80’s when he passed away. Of course there are more important things that I have acquired from them genetically, but still… And Aunt Grace got a huge kick out of my green fingernail and toenail polish.

I’m thrilled to have been invited to deliver the keynote talk at CodeStock 2013 in Knoxville this July. I’ll be talking about how Domain Driven Design (DDD) has inspired me a-new after almost 25 years of software development. And I hope to inspire others to take a closer look at DDD as well.

In addition to the keynote, I submitted two conference sessions and sessions are selected by a voting process where registered attendees vote for the talks they want to hear. Such a cool idea.

I feel a little guilty submitting sessions since I already will be presenting the keynote and there are so many awesome abstracts including some on EF and DDD.

Here are the two talks I submitted if you’re planning to attend CodeStock and interested in hearing me go on about them. But if that’s the case, you’ll need to go vote.

Entity Framework in Core-Business Applications

Demo-ware is great for getting your head around a new topic but we’ve been seeing Entity Framework demo ware for 5 years now. You’re probably not writing an application to manage your music collection or composing yet another Twitter client. You need to build complex applications related to the Core-Domain in the enterprise and therefore you need to know how to integrate Entity Framework in serious and decoupled architectures. In this session we’ll look at breaking up your domain-models following the Domain Driven Design Bounded-Context pattern, splitting and defining entities and aggregates properly in the different domain models and implementing repositories and units of work that are relevant to EF DbContext and DbSets, in the data persistence infrastructure layer. You’ll also see how to build automated tests around code that involves Entity Framework, whether they be integration tests or strictly unit tests where Entity Framework seems to get in the way.

Automated Testing for ‘Fraidy Cats Like Me

Sometimes learning about Automated Testing from the testing gurus might be a little daunting. It’s hard for them to relate to the fears that developers who’ve never used automated tests before – especially those of us who have been coding for years and years. This will not be a "drink the unit testing or TDD Kool-Aid" session. Instead, I will share revelations that have helped me ease myself and clients into automated testing. Not only has it benefitted my development process, but looking at code from the perspective of "can I test this?" has resulted in a huge improvement in how I design my application architecture. Come dip your toe in the water and see if automated testing might be for you.

I’ve enjoyed staying home in Vermont for most of 2012 but the wanderlust is setting in. I’m scheduled to speak at two conferences in April:

DevIntersection April 8-12, Las Vegas

I’ll be doing 3 talks at this conference, but am not exactly sure which ones will be selected yet. And yes, there will be some entity framework involved. 🙂 This is going to be a great conference and I’m excited to be included in a great lineup of speakers!

Database Days, April 17-19 in Baden Switzerland

*Full Day Workshop April 17th : Hard Core Entity Framework for Enterprise Developers
During the conference proper, I’ll do two talks:
*One for developers: Entity Framework Code First Migrations
*One for DBAs: Entity Framework & Your Database: Not as Evil as You May Think

While at Database Days, I’m looking forward to seeing Baden, a beautiful and historic town.

Tomorrow I am planning to do something that has caused my husband to laugh uncontrollably. I’m going to get out of bed at 4am. Yes it’s true! That’s because I have a 6:30am flight that will take me first to O’Hare airport and then to San Francisco.

Why am I leaving beautiful Vermont just when the lovely ski-able snow  has returned?

Ill be attending and speaking at the Enterprise Software Development Conference March 1-3 in San Mateo and then co-presenting at the East Bay .NET User Group with my friend (and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, only because I haven’t met her two progeny who she says are smarter), Kathleen Dollard. Kathleen is presenting at ESDC as well.

ESDC is focused on agile development and I’ll be doing one talk on Agile Entity Framework 4 and a talk on using Entity Framework 4 with WCF. Kathleen will be presenting talks on the new Managed Extensibility Framework, aka MEF.

At the user group meeting, I’ll spend the pre-pizza half hour of the meeting showing off some fo the new features in the Entity Data Model designer in Visual Studio 2010. After the pizza, I’ll do an abbreviated version of the Agile EF4 focusing on a first look at the POCO support in EF and then Kathleen will be doing an intro talk on MEF.

It seems that the weather in SF is not much better than Vermont. It’s in the 40’s and 50’s, overcast and rainy. SO much for pretending that this is a vacation to sunny California. The tsunami warning should have passed by the time we arrive.

I”m looking forward to the conference as I’ll get a chance to meet some software legends like Kent Beck (maybe), see friends I haven’t seen in a while and finally return Kathleen’s Sigg bottle that she left behind at DevTeach in Vancouver last June and someone gave it to me because I live so close (vermont…colorado?). I actually spent a lot of time in November with Kathleen at another conference but had forgotten the bottle. It’s now on my kitchen counter waiting to go in my bag. I plan to fill that space on the way home with some Mrs. See’s chocolates. 🙂

The hard part about going from one conference to the next is the lack of closure. Not that Oredev was bad and I need closure, but I would like to process it a little bit.

This was my third conference in Sweden in the past 2 years, but the first that was in the cool small city of Malmo. Malmo is just across the Oresund Strait from Copenhagen. I took the train from the Copenhagen airport to downtown Malmo and because the train goes under the famous bridge and then through a tunnel, I really had no idea what an amazing trip I was taking.

We stayed downtown right off the old square that is the center of Malmo. The first night there, the speakers were treated to a dinner hosted in Malmo’s beautiful old city hall where we were also greeted by town officials and given a history lesson which was pretty cool. The dinner began with a traditional soup that was a little startling to many but delicious.

Prior to dinner, Magnus Maartensen and his wife were generous enough to host a cocktail party in their apartment that was also in the historic square for the speakers in the .NET track. This was great since I got to see lots of friends (and as always, make some new ones).

Oredev is much bigger than many of the European conferences I have spoken at. To begin with there were 120 speakers, 14 tracks and I think about 1000 attendees. Fourteen tracks! And what I love is that this is much broader than a MS tech conference. .NET was just one of the 14 tracks. I met folks from the IPhone world, lots of Google employees, people who invent languages, people who invent software patterns.

I had breakfast with an IPhone speaker who said he wrote some IPhone apps for the company he works for. I checked his bio later. The company was AT&T and the guy has been on TED for god’s sake!

The meals during the conference were all served with sustainable plates and “silverware”. Plates were made of banana leaves. (We tried not to contemplate the carbon footprint of getting those to Sweden…) and the forks were wooden (?).

When I was first asked to submit talks to Oredev I was hesitant. I considered this a mecca for Agile and Domain Driven developers and thought I would get stoned because of my work with Entity Framework. But thanks to the big changes in EF4, I decided it would be the perfect venue to begin shifting my presentations to those about using EF in an agile way. So I accepted. Who knew what to expect?

Well, in addition to having a wonderful time doing my Agile Development with EF4 talk, something else really cool happened. I sat down with Oren Eini and
“helped” him create a version of his fabulous nHibernate and Linq to SQL profiler that would work with Entity Framework. Helped is in quotes because I mostly played the muse. Oren’s brain works much too fast for anyone  (well at least for me) to keep up with him. He’d show me an error message and as I was reading it, he would say “Oh I know!” and pull the laptop back in front of him and resume his mad coding. You can read more about EFProf on Oren’s blog.

Thanks to my new perspective on agile development, I’ve been getting more interested in MVC. It was cool to meet Trygve Reenskaug, the inventor of MVC. But I was also really happy to be able to spend some time talking with Scott Allen who has done a lot to help mere mortals understand ASP.NET MVC.

I returned from Oredev feeling the Agile love and getting more drawn into MVC as the way to develop well architected web applications. More to the point, now that I have my nice Repository pattern for EF, MVC makes it fun to plug it into! 🙂

And now,I’ve been home for two days, am just recovering from the jetlag, and head tomorrow to Las Vegas (3 hour time zone difference) for DevConnections. I love DevConnections which is why they are able to leave Vermont at a beautiful time of year to go to Vegas (which I don’t love).

I will be doing three talks – completely different than those I did at Oredev, but all on Entity Framework 4. I’ve already figured out which talk justifies showing off EFProf since I have the only build outside of Oren’s computer right on my laptop.

I have also told the organizers that if they find themselves with an empty slot, I’ll be happy to do my Agile EF4 talk.

I know I need a lot more links in this post but time to get back to prep for DevConnections!

Today has been an amazing day at PDC, and a very long one at that.

I think this morning’s keynote was four hours long. I have 16 pages of handrwitten (Tablet PC Journal) notes of this and as so much has happened since [read more …]

[A DevLife Post]

Posted from BLInk!

This is very cool news. Bill Vaughn has recently been added to the lineup for DevTeach 2005. He’ll be doing a morning session on ADO.NET and an afternoon session on SQL Server Stored Procedures. This will be a pre-con on Saturday, June 18th. There are also pre-con sessions by Rod Paddock, Jim Duffy and Carl Franklin. The conference is Sunday – Tuesday. Here is the info on the pre and post-cons for DevTeach.

http://www.AcehAid.org

You have 2 more weeks to submit sessions for Code Camp 3, Mar 12-13 in the Microsoft Waltham Office! We would love to see more people making their debut doing presentations here! Come one come all. I only see on other woman on the list, too. And I am only ASSUMING that someone named "Hilary" is a girl. I have met men named Hilary, you know!

http://www.AcehAid.org