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So You Think You Want To Write Code?

Career, Family, Kids, Software Career, Software Development, Software Engineering, Training, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

Intro

I had the opportunity to present a couple of sessions at the inaugural Dev Fest Fam conference today.

I’ll predict your next question: “Is this what has been keeping you from posting  the sequel to 2014 Developer Learning Guide Part 1?” The honest answer is no. I’ve been busy, it’s true, but I want the next installment of this post to be very good so I’ve been particular about publishing it until it is 100% ready.

#DevFestFam

http://devfestfam.com/#sessions

This conference is a fantastic idea! It was put on by a couple of local Google User Groups and hosted at Utah Valley University. For a first time conference, it was great and I have the feeling it will only get better. The beauty of it, was that coders/programmers/developers/engineers were to bring not only their spouse or significant other, but also their kids.

I took 3 of my own and they LOVED IT. My 10-year-old daughter coded all night long until it was time for her to go to bed after we came home! So cool!

My first session, “So You Think You Want To Write Code?” was a big hit and well attended:

session attendance
Almost a full house!

 

The second was at the end of the day and was titled: “Websites for Smarties”. It was a beginners hands-on-session teaching the basics of HTML. I used w3schools and Google Sites  as resources for teaching. I won’t post more on that here.

So You Think You Want To Write Code? Resources

The slides from my session “So You Think You Want to Write Code?” at Dev Fest Fam 2014 for kids age 8 and up.

 

The videos played:

 

I also handed out a flyer with the following information.

Online Resources
Code.org – code.org
Codecademy – codecademy.com
Pluralsight: Free Courses for Kids – http://www.pluralsight.com/training/Kids
Kids Ruby – kidsruby.com

Languages/Platforms
Scratch – scratch.mit.edu
Hopscotch – gethopscotch.com
Alice – alice.org

Other
BOOK: Snake Wrangling for Kids – http://briggs.net.nz/snake-wrangling-for-kids.html
GAME: Hakitzu Elite: Robot Hackers – Google Play and iTunes
MORE RESOURCES: http://happynerds.net/

C# Little Wonders: An Introduction

Uncategorized

csharplogoI’ve mentioned C# Little Wonders to engineers on various teams in recent years and several had expressed interest in the URL (when I successfully remembered/found it). I thought I would share it here and save some time.

James Micheal Hare (the series author) has added multiple posts to his blog over the past 3-4 years after switching from being a C++ engineer to C#. Given his background, Mr. Hare is very focused on efficiency. His concise approach and thoughts on why to use certain language features (or not) are very valuable.

If you are new to writing C# or have been doing so for many years, you’ll agree that it is a complex language. I have found and continue to find in C# Little Wonders much that I either didn’t know, had forgotten, or didn’t realize the value of.

C# Little Wonders
http://blackrabbitcoder.net/archive/2011/09/26/c.net-little-wonders-the-complete-collection.aspx

I hope you enjoy it as I do!