Chicago ALT.NET User Group

November 2011 Meeting

Poor Man's Kanban

An introduction to a lean-styled software development methodology

From Wikipedia:

Kanban, also spelled kamban, and literally meaning "signboard" or "billboard", is a concept related to lean and just-in-time (JIT) production. According to Taiichi Ohno, the man credited with developing Just-in-time, kanban is one means through which JIT is achieved. Kanban is not an inventory control system. Rather, it is a scheduling system that tells you what to produce, when to produce it, and how much to produce.

The need to maintain a high rate of improvements led Toyota to devise the kanban system. Kanban became an effective tool to support the running of the production system as a whole. In addition, it proved to be an excellent way for promoting improvements because reducing the number of kanban in circulation highlighted problem areas.

The presentation will give the basic elements of what kanban is about, and how it contrasts with traditional waterfall and scrum software methodologies.

Video

Slide deck

John Nuechterlein (a.k.a. Jdn) is an independent software consultant that has been in this industry for many years. He's a long standing member and one of the founders of the Chicago ALT.NET user group.

October 2011 Meeting

JavaScript MVVM with Knockout.js and jQuery Templates

Knockout.js is an MIT licensed, open-source all-Javascript framework that supports two way client-side data binding between a web UI and Javascript view-model. Knockout can be easily introduced into any new or existing website. Knockout substantially reduces the amount of data binding and event handling code you need to write to create dynamic or AJAX web apps. Knockout is compatible with any server side code.

In this presentation Jarrett will walk through getting started with Knockout, show its important features and cover how it relates to the MVVM pattern and jQuery Templates. Knockout is very powerful but only requires a basic understanding of Javascript to get started.

Video

Jarrett Widman is a Chicago based web developer and designer. He has a background in computer art and design from Savannah College of Art and Design, and a long term love of programming. Jarrett has worked as a designer, front and back end developer for many small businesses since 2002 through his own business, 24m2 LLC. His development focus is on ASP.NET and Javascript. Jarrett is also Director of Marketing at Sports Made Personal and Lacrosse America.

September 2011 Meeting

Objective-C and iOS for .NET Developers

iOS has become a very large target for application development with the popularity of Apple's mobile devices. It will become even more significant as it increasingly influences newer MacOS X versions. And even though there are several options to develop for iOS without knowing Objective-C, learning this native programming language allows you to use all the new technologies right away, without depending on third party developers.

In this presentation, Eduardo will be talking about what it is like for a .NET/C# developer to develop for iOS. The tools are different, and the language, and the platform, so knowing upfront what you will need can save you a lot of time.

Video

Eduardo Scoz is a software engineer/consultant/agilist based in Chicago, IL. With over 15 of experience developing business applications for the web, he currently works for Redpoint Technologies as a Senior Engineer and Agile Coach. During the last 6 years, Eduardo has worked on many different platforms, like .NET, Ruby on Rails, Adobe Flex, Objective-C and MonoTouch.