In this techdays event we had a major challenge. (i say of we, because this year, as well as in techdays 2005, i didn't do the session alone. We presented the session as a duo (me and Bruno Câmara))
I think i could say our session in Techdays 2005 was well received by the audience. We had a crowded room (The room was small, but there were people standing up and others sitting on the floor during the entire session), people who responded to the questionnaire seemed to like our session.
What was the challenge then? First a little bit of history, let's go back to 2005. :-)
Our session was called As falácias e os desenganos no desenvolvimento de software (the facts and fallacies in software development), a theme which by itself isn't very exciting. To make a little more enjoyable, we went for a not very usual format (at least we had never seen it, but i'm sure we haven't invented this format :-)).
|  The format consisted of a little role playing with two characters.
We had the the Cowboy programmer, the macho programmer. For him, everything was trivial, could do any trick in the book and fix any problem in less than 30 seconds? architecture? abstractions? mere distractions everything could be resolved with a code editor (probably edlin :-)) and an compiler quite easily. He was not only full of BS but everything he said was a fallacy (surprise :-)). The other character was the pragmatic programmer, the one that had to constantly correct the cowboy, not only show him how he was wrong; explaining him why he was wrong and leading him into the right path. :-) You can see me on the left (the pragmatic programmer) and the cowboy on the right (full characterization). |
As i was saying, this year we had quite a challenge.
First, not only we had to came with a session that was (at least as) well received by the audience as the last one (but the goal was obviously one that was even better :-)).
We also had to come with an idea for the format that was even better than the previous one (not only better but totally original).
With such low goals, we could hardly fail. :-)
What format and theme we could came up with? some people speculated (perhaps even starting vicious rumours :-)), that we were going to appear on stage mounting a camel dressed as desert beduins. That didn't crossed our mind (it is not a bad idea), but i doubt the organization would let us bring live animals to the stage, i think we can rent one of this costumes, since it seems Hugo has already volunteered to wear it next year, we will only need another volunteer. <gr&d>.
We had a bunch of ideas, some good ones, some really bad. I won't reveal you the bad ones because of the embarrassment and i won't reveal the good ones, because, well we still might use them next time. :-)
So you are now thinking, enough crap, tell me what you did. :-)
Well, we wanted to do some architecture talk. But one that that people could relate to. Not something that Joel would call astronauts architecture, so we decided to go for a generic talk, talking about things that allways come up in a project while defining an architecture and then add some of the topics du jour (since the session only lasted one hour and fifteen minutes we could only lightly grasp a few topics).
We settled for this agenda:
- Where to place business logic?
- data access techniques: ORM vs Code Generation vs Manual Coding
- Code Generation and Software factories
- SOA: where are the news?
- WS-* vs REST
- Ajax: where is the rationality? XML vs JSON
- The acronims soup: ESB, EAI and BPM
- Software as as Service (SaaS)
We already settled on the topics,what could we do differently? something that was unheard of (or at least unseen by us :-)).
Someone suggested that we could a singing opening (or closing) act. Alas, this is not exactly new. Roy Osherove not only has been doing it this on his last presentations (eg Teched Barcelona, but this is already an old trick. After all in Barcelona's Teched 2002 Don Box and Pat Helland closed their session by singing the infamous Give soap a Chance.)
Even if was something that hadn't been tried before, we would never do it, To picture what i'm trying to say; go to youtube and search for "worst singer", after finding a really bad one, try to imagine someone even worse. That would be me singing :-)
Singing in a half full session room, would probably be considered a serious security risk, after 2 or 3 notes i have no doubt i a stampede would occuer. Not only people could be harmed while running for their lives, but it would be bad for our evaluation to perform a session with an empty room :-)).
So, after rejecting a the singing in the rain act, what could we do? we had this crazy idea, architects (sometimes at least) have a lot anguishes. So many paths to choose from and only one can be followed. Which ones are better? so many fads, so many opposing fields. So we go for the latest or stick withthe proven ones? Ah the anguishes of choices.
Who better than a psychoanalyst to try to help the architect with his anguishes?
That was our main thread, to pull this off we had a complete set, the patient laid down on a Le Corbusier Chaise Long, while the doctor sat on his couch with his note book and a pen. :-)
Who has this patient? The patient was our Techdays 2005 cowboy. The patient has evolved and progress. He is no longer a programmer and has becomed an architect.
All his arrogance and certainties are now gone, he is an anguished architects. Life doesn't seem so simple after all. :-)
We still had a problem to solve. Most of the people who were going to attend our session didn't attended our session in 2005. So we had to do something that could bridge the 2005 session with this year session.
For that we commissioned Gonçalo Chaves to produce a video that would be shown as the session introduction.
We explained our idea, gave him some media material and then sat back, while creativity flowed. No restrictions, full reigns.
We weren't dissapointed, the 3 minute video, was indeed a nice introduction.
Judge it, by yourself:
[Download this video 10.4Mb WMV File]
Chaves also did the introduction to the session, and then fun began. :-)
The session went well, but not without flaws. Since we did the session while seated (or lying down :-)), people in the back couldn't see us. We should have found a way to elevate us, so everybody could see us.
Evaluations were good, and comments ranged from [translated to English, hope the original meaning isn't lost] "this clowning was totally useless to me" to "the great quality of this session, is due to the fact of presenting a set of problematics in a relaxed way and out of the common".
More than 90% of the comments were positive, someone also reinforced things we already knew with a "Actors? Nah!!" comment. :-)
You can watch the Full session here
[Download the Video 400Mb WMV File]
Alternative Video, as filmed by PontonetPT the Portuguese .Net Community
All and all, i think it has been a very positive session, however not everything went as it should. We totally forgot to give credit to Gonçalo Chaves, who kindly made the introduction video. Unforgivable.
Posts that mention this session:
Tiago Carvalho with "Simply Delicious" kind comment
Ricardo Magalhães posts the sessions he attended. (we went to both our sessions. Nice :-))
Hugo Ribeiro with his "really (crazy) funny" session label. He seems to have enjoyed it.
"Excellent session" according to errr someone unidentified
I wonder what we will come up next year. :-)