THIS IS THE 2007 CONTENT. TO SEE THE CURRENT CONTENT GO TO www.codemash.org.

Session List

We have received more topic submissions than we ever dreamed of. We aren't even done reviewing and approving all of them yet. Please take a look at the speakers and sessions we have confirmed. Sessions available, and their content, are subject to change.

Abstract: It seems like a the software development community has always been in a constant argument over the best way to do things. Are we even asking the right questions and looking at the right data? Might there even be fundamental flaws in the way that we think about problem solving with computers? This presentation explores issues of design in software development, from a more philosophical standpoint, questioning why we do what we do, and suggesting that, by changing our perspective including some fundamental preconceptions, we might end up being more productive.

Presented By: Bruce Eckel Website/blog: http://mindview.net/

About the Speaker: Bruce Eckel is the author of Thinking in Java (Prentice-Hall, 1998, 2nd Edition, 2000, 3rd Edition, 2003, 4th Edition, 2006), the Hands-On Java Seminar CD ROM (available on the Web site), Thinking in C++ (PH 1995; 2nd edition 2000, Volume 2 with Chuck Allison, 2003), C++ Inside & Out (Osborne/McGraw-Hill 1993), among others. He's given hundreds of presentations throughout the world, published over 150 articles in numerous magazines, was a founding member of the ANSI/ISO C++ committee and speaks regularly at conferences. He provides public and private seminars & design consulting in C++, Java and Python.

Abstract: In this session you will learn a practical and best practices approach to building and deploying Smart Clients in the Enterprise. Maybe you’ve heard of Smart Clients and maybe you haven’t. Or maybe you are an Asp.Net developer who has come to realize you spend 5% of your time writing logic for your web application, and the remaining 95% of your time trying to make it function like a Smart Client. Whatever the case is, the fact remains that we use Smart Clients everyday and they are here to stay. In this session we’ll cover what exactly is a Smart Client and how they are built using Visual Studio 2005. Once we learn how to build them, we’ll cover how to deploy these applications as simple as a web application throughout the Enterprise.

Presented By: Keith Elder Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Keith Elder is a Sr. Software Engineer for Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online mortgage lender based in Livonia, MI. At Quicken Loans he is the lead developer and architect for a custom built in-house Smart Client CRM application. He is an experienced educator who has logged thousands of hours in front of the classroom teaching students of varying ages from the 6th grade to the college level. He has also trained countless developers from various business sectors ranging from the top auto manufactures to Fortune 500 companies as well as Universities. His technical expertise combined with his outgoing common sense friendly southern attitude allows him to explain technical information so even your grandmother can understand it. He is also the leader of the internal Quicken Loans .Net User Group where upwards of 100 team members get together monthly. He now resides in Hattiesburg, Ms with his wife and three dogs where he continues to unthaw after residing in Michigan for eight years.

Abstract: Learn about the new LINQ data access features that Microsoft is delivering later this year. This technology will dramatically improve how you perform data access within .NET, and provides both a much more productive and more powerful data access model. This talk will provide an in-depth look at the new LINQ technology, as well as how to integrate and apply it within ASP.NET.

Presented By: Scott Guthrie Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Scott Guthrie co-founded the ASP.NET Team, and leads the design team responsible for architecting the product. His individual technical contributions include: ASP.NET Web Forms page Architecture, ASP.NET Web services infrastructure, ASP.NET compilation system, ASP.NET distributed session state infrastructure, ASP+ deployment architecture, ASP.NET reliability system, and the ASP.NET HTTP runtime architecture. Prior to ASP.NET, Scott was a member of the IIS and Windows NT development teams.

Abstract: This fast-paced talk covers a number of great techniques you can use to maximize your web development using ASP.NET.

Presented By: Scott Guthrie Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Scott Guthrie co-founded the ASP.NET Team, and leads the design team responsible for architecting the product. His individual technical contributions include: ASP.NET Web Forms page Architecture, ASP.NET Web services infrastructure, ASP.NET compilation system, ASP.NET distributed session state infrastructure, ASP+ deployment architecture, ASP.NET reliability system, and the ASP.NET HTTP runtime architecture. Prior to ASP.NET, Scott was a member of the IIS and Windows NT development teams.

Abstract: This session picks up where session 1 leaves off. It covers more detailed information which will show you how to architect an enterprise smart client application called Enterprise Desktop. In this session we will explore how to architect Smart Client applications using web services and a SOA architecture and how to overcome some of the challenges such as changing business rules and validation without having to redeploy our application. We'll also take a look at several application blocks of Enterprise Library and how they can be used in the application to save you time. And finally we will look at a lot of best practices and patterns for separating business and data logic.

Presented By: Keith Elder Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Keith Elder is a Sr. Software Engineer for Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online mortgage lender based in Livonia, MI. At Quicken Loans he is the lead developer and architect for a custom built in-house Smart Client CRM application. He is an experienced educator who has logged thousands of hours in front of the classroom teaching students of varying ages from the 6th grade to the college level. He has also trained countless developers from various business sectors ranging from the top auto manufactures to Fortune 500 companies as well as Universities. His technical expertise combined with his outgoing common sense friendly southern attitude allows him to explain technical information so even your grandmother can understand it. He is also the leader of the internal Quicken Loans .Net User Group where upwards of 100 team members get together monthly. He now resides in Hattiesburg, Ms with his wife and three dogs where he continues to unthaw after residing in Michigan for eight years.

Abstract: This session shows you how to become a more productive programmer every day by using tools that you didn't know you already had.

Presented By: Neal Ford Website/blog: http://www.nealford.com

About the Speaker: Neal is an Application Architect at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery. Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm. Neal has a degree in Computer Science from Georgia State University specializing in languages and compilers and a minor in mathematics specializing in statistical analysis. He is also the designer and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, video presentations, and author of the books Developing with Delphi: Object-Oriented Techniques (Prentice-Hall, 1996), JBuilder 3 Unleashed (Sams, 1999) (as the lead author), Art of Java Web Development (Manning, 2003), and No Fluff, Just Stuff Anthology: The 2006 Edition (editor and contributor). His language proficiencies include Java, C#/.NET, Ruby, Object Pascal, C++, and C. His primary consulting focus is the design and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. Neal has taught on-site classes nationally and internationally to all phases of the military and to many Fortune 500 companies. He is also an internationally acclaimed speaker, having spoken at numerous developer conferences worldwide.If you have an insatiable curiosity about Neal, visit his web site at http://www.nealford.com. He welcomes feedback and can be reached at nford@thoughtworks.com.

Abstract: Solid testing is vital to any development effort if you want stable software that does what the customer expects the software to do. Open source tools can help you get more out of your testing by enabling you to offload acceptance tests to your customers, simulate services you don’t have access to, debug tests inside your IDE, and automate web form testing. A wealth of other tools allows you to speed up your test execution and get more information from your tests. Learn how tools such as Watir, Rhino.Mocks, and Fitnesse can boost your testing accuracy and productivity. Examples in C#, Ruby, and Java.

Presented By: Jim Holmes Website/blog: http://www.frazzleddad.com

About the Speaker: Jim Holmes is a Principal Consultant with NuSoft Solutions. He has nearly 25 years experience in the IT domain scattered across a wide range of disciplines including telephone hotline support, network management, systems analysis, and software development. He’s the founder of the Dayton .NET Developers Group and has written regular columns for VisualStudioHacks.com. He’s also the co-author of "Windows Developer Power Tools," forthcoming in December, 2006 from O’Reilly publications. In his spare time he can be found hiking with his family, roasting coffee, working in his rose garden, or trying to find a quiet corner in the house where he can take a nap.

Abstract: Trails is a POJO-based agile web application framework that brings to Java the power of convention over configuration like the popular Ruby on Rails framework and domain driven development like the Naked Object framework. Trails combines these powerful ideas with the solid infrastructure provided by project like Tapestry, Spring and Hibernate. Come and learn how Trails can streamline the development of Java Web applications.

Presented By: Brian Sam-Bodden Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Brian Sam-Bodden has spent over ten years working with object technologies, with an emphasis on the Java platform. He holds dual bachelor degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University in computer science and physics and is the president and chief software architect for Integrallis http://www.integrallis.com, where he focuses on object modeling and Java, particularly lightweight J2EE, Eclipse and Swing based applications. Brian has worked as an architect, developer, mentor, and trainer for several Fortune 500 companies. As an independent consultant, he has promoted the use of open source in the industry. He is a frequent speaker at user groups and conferences. Brian co-authored the Apress Java title "Enterprise Java Development on a Budget: Leveraging Java Open Source Technologies" and "Beginning POJOs: Spring, Hibernate, JBoss and Tapestry".

Abstract: Our presentation shows our real world experience in using continuous integration in a .NET environment. The content of the presentation is based on our experience in setting up continuous integration at Tellus. Our approach is to describe our experience in using continuous integration at Tellus and to identify the steps we took to begin and evolve our use of continuous integration. The particular tools we will be discussing are specific to .NET, but much of the discussion will be applicable to any continuous build environment. Also, since many of the specific code segments in the presentation will be from CruiseControl.NET and NAnt, they should easily translate to CruiseControl and Ant for Java developers.

Presented By: Joe Wirtley and Dan Hounshell Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Joe Wirtley is CTO at Tellus (www.tellusweb.com) in Loveland Ohio and has been a professional software developer since 1987. Joe is an experienced software architect, skilled in all phases of design and development and has lead projects for clients including Toyota, General Motors, MCI and SBC. At Tellus, he has contributed to sites for SeaBear, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Chefs Catalog, and gradfuzn.com. He has worked in a variety of languages, with extensive experience in .NET and Delphi. Joe is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer for .NET (MCSD). He has published several technical articles and recently contributed to the O’Reilly book Windows Developer Power Tools.

Dan Hounshell is a software developer at Telligent (www.telligent.com), the creator of Community Server. He has been developing custom web applications with Microsoft technologies since 1997, building everything from project management applications for FedEx to ecommerce sites for the Cincinnati Zoo. Dan recently contributed to Windows Developer Power Tools and served as a technical reviewer for two upcoming Manning books covering SQL Server 2005 Reporting and NHibernate. Dans current tasks for Telligent include maintaining and developing new functionality for the Microsoft ASP.NET sites: www.asp.net, forums.asp.net, weblogs.asp.net and ajax.asp.net.

Abstract: Almost all business applications are built on top of a database, and as such, developers are often faced with the redundant tasks of writing ADO.NET code and stored procedures. However, the last couple years have seen the emergence of object-relational mappers being used as the persistence layer, allowing developers to focus on writing business logic and not the same old boring data access code. This session will focus on NHibernate, one of the more popular.NET open source mappers available. You'll learn how NHibernate fits into an application’s architecture, the basics for using NHibernate, and some advanced techniques, such as performance optimization and transaction management.

Presented By: Dave Donaldson Website/blog: http://www.arcware.net

About the Speaker: Dave Donaldson is an independent consultant specializing in application architecture and development for the Microsoft .NET platform. Dave is a Microsoft MVP in C# and is the creator of CodeKeep, an online repository for sharing and searching code snippets. He’s also very busy in the .NET community, as he is the co-leader of the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group and is often found giving .NET talks to various conferences and user groups. You can keep up with Dave’s latest ramblings on his blog at www.arcware.net.

Abstract: Some refer to SOA as an architecture; some an approach. This presentation presents Service Oriented Architecture as a conversation - a flowing and evolving dialog of business value and adaptiveness. In the same way that two groups might have conversations about the same topic, starting at different points and drawing different conclusions, so two companies embarking on a SOA journey will start at different points. The subject is the same, but the outcome specifically addresses the concerns of those who participate in the conversation. One key issue to moving to SOA is knowing where you are in the conversation, and how the conversation flows from there. The result will be an evolving, adaptive situation that treats SOA as more than simply technology, avoids procuring licenses of shelf-ware, and engages everyone in the process of generating value.

Presented By: Ken Faw Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Mr. Faw is an energetic IT executive with nearly twenty years of operational leadership, process and architectural consulting, coaching and software development experience. His primary experience is in architectural assessments, strategic roadmaps, human/computer systems interaction and stabilizing and recovering large-scale, distributed enterprise projects. He is an evangelist, thought leader and catalyst in leading teams to build momentum, focusing on realization of business value and an adaptive, responsive IT organization.

Abstract: Selenium is a test tool for web applications. But you might be surprised to know it runs directly within browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, just as real users do. No other test tool covers such a wide array of platforms, running on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. In this presentation we'll demonstrate testing simple webpages as well as complex AJAX interactions. You'll leave ready to apply Selenium to your own websites!

Presented By: Eric Pugh Website/blog: http://www.opensourceconnections.com

About the Speaker: Fascinated by the "craft" of software development, Eric Pugh has been heavily involved in the open source world as a developer, committer, and user for the past 5 years. He is a member of the Apache Software Foundation and a committer on many projects including DBUnit, Maven, and Jakarta Commons. In biotech, financial services and defense IT, he has helped European and American companies develop coherent strategies for embracing open source software. As a speaker at conferences including ApacheCon and OSCON, he has emphasized the advantages of Agile practices in software development.

Abstract: This talk will show the audience what makes Ruby on Rails possible. It covers the popular features of the Ruby programming language that allow frameworks such as Ruby on Rails to be created. I dissect the popular ActiveRecord object-relational mapper that comes with the Ruby on Rails framework. I will show the audience why they should look into Ruby and what it is about Ruby on Rails that has so many people excited.

This is a pragmatic example-driven approach to Ruby that demonstrates how much you can mold the Ruby language. While it is an introductory talk, it is not meant to give the full language in one hour, but instead spend the hour explaining why developers should take a closer look after leaving the session.
Topics Covered:

  • What is Ruby
  • Brief overview
  • Meta programming
  • ActiveRecord, ORM for Ruby
  • How did they do that

Presented By: Joe O'Brien Website/blog: http://www.edgecase.com

About the Speaker: Before helping found EdgeCase, LLC, Joe was with ThoughtWorks and spent much of his time working with J2EE and .NET. He has spent his career as a developer, project manager, and everything in between. Joe is a passionate member of the open source community and co-founded the Columbus Ruby Brigade. His passions are Ruby, Agile Development in the Enterprise, and demonstrating to the Fortune 500 the elegance and power of this incredible language.

Abstract: This session will show the simplicity and benefits of using the Microsoft Ajax Library. Learn how to implement Ajax in your web applications using a standard library provided by Microsoft

Presented By: Greg Huber Website/blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/greghuber/default.aspx

About the Speaker: Greg Huber is the founder and chairman of the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group, established in 2001. Greg is a Microsoft MVP and was first recognized in 2004 for his role in community and expertise in Visual Studio .NET and ASP.NET. He is also a membership manager for INETA, the International .NET Association, where he enjoys helping the technical community collaborate. Professionally, Greg has been developing software on the Microsoft platform for over 8 years. He is currently employed at TNS (a global market research firm) as the director of software development. Greg is an avid geek and he enjoys keeping up on the latest development technology and gaming on the Xbox 360.

Abstract: Lean thinking has had a dramatic effect on industries from manufacturing to banking to hospitals. In software development, lean principles lead us inevitably to agile software development – and beyond. Lean is not just about iterative development, it is about transforming customer needs into deployed software rapidly, reliably, and repeatedly. Come learn how lean can change your outlook on development.

Presented By: Mary Poppendieck Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Mary Poppendieck has been in the Information Technology industry for over thirty years. She has managed software development, supply chain management, manufacturing operations, and new product development. She spearheaded the implementation of a Just-in-Time system in a 3M video tape manufacturing plant and led new product development teams, commercializing products ranging from digital controllers to 3M Light Fiber™.

Abstract: The Java Platform has always been a great platform for scripting languages. Historically scripting support has been provided by open source projects. However with the advent of JSR 223 and Java 6, scripting language support becomes a first class citizen. In this session, you will learn how to take advantage of this powerful new feature.

Presented By: Christopher M. Judd Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Christopher Judd is the president and primary consultant for Judd Solutions, LLC. (www.juddsolutions.com), international speaker, open source evangelist, Central Ohio Java Users Group (www.cojug.org) coordinator and co-author of "Enterprise Java Development on a Budget" and "Pro Eclipse JST". He has spent ten years developing software in the insurance, retail, government, manufacturing, service, and transportation industries. His current focus is consulting, mentoring and training with Java, J2EE, J2ME, web services and related technologies.

Abstract: In this introductory session, we’ll cover the basic concepts of Ajax, and present several solutions for implementing Ajax features. Basic examples for implementing Ajax will be provided using Microsoft ASP.NET / Atlas technology as well as well as Ajax on Rails. Greg will also present different alternatives for using Ajax in your web based applications.

Presented By: Greg Huber Website/blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/greghuber/default.aspx

About the Speaker: Greg Huber is the founder and chairman of the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group, established in 2001. Greg is a Microsoft MVP and was first recognized in 2004 for his role in community and expertise in Visual Studio .NET and ASP.NET. He is also a membership manager for INETA, the International .NET Association, where he enjoys helping the technical community collaborate. Professionally, Greg has been developing software on the Microsoft platform for over 8 years. He is currently employed at TNS (a global market research firm) as the director of software development. Greg is an avid geek and he enjoys keeping up on the latest development technology and gaming on the Xbox 360.

Abstract: This session covers the areas of test-driven development that are frequently overlooked in the daily development practices of most organizations.

Presented By: Ben Carey Website/blog: http://www.thesherpaproject.com

About the Speaker: Ben Carey is an Architect at Misys HealthCare based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ben has a strong background in software development as a developer, project lead, coach, architect, technical manager, and principal consultant. Areas of expertise include agile-based development methodologies, test driven development techniques, process re-engineering, and Microsoft .NET development.

Abstract: This session exposes Python developers to pythonic Test Driven Development (TDD). Starting with the basics of TDD, it then covers the characteristics of Python that facilitate TDD, available tools, a live demonstration of TDD with Python, and concludes with a case-study.

Presented By: Kevin Dahlhausen Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Kevin Dahlhausen is a member of the Technical Coaching Group at Key Bank. His work involves integrating new technology, assisting development teams, and fostering software reuse. Previously, he worked at Morse Controls where he developed embedded firmware. Kevin was the initial developer of open-source pyFLTK libary. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer and Information Science from the College of Engineering at the Ohio State University. In his spare time, Kevin coaches a high-school rowing team.

Abstract: Like Chocolate and Peanut Butter or Mentos and Diet Coke, Java and Ruby have found each other in the form of JRuby. Further, with the advent of Java 6 and its upcoming scripting API, JRuby will soon become a tool every Java developer shouldn't be without and every Ruby developer will eagerly take advantage of. This session will show the Ruby developers how to take advantage of the oodles of useful Java libraries in their Ruby code while the Java developers learn how to harness the power of Ruby within their Java applications.

Presented By: Rob Stevenson Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Rob Stevenson has been on a crusade to find coder happiness for over 15 years. Following his passion for computer graphics at BGSU eventually led Rob to the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory. While having a blast playing with million dollar Virtual Reality systems, Rob discovered Java near the end of 1994. While early Java was excitingly painful, Rob instantly fell in love with the lack of memory leaks usually found in his C++ code. Since then he has explored various dynamic languages until finding Ruby in 2004. Rob co-founded the Columbus Ruby Brigade in 2005 and is a frequent interviewer on the Ruby on Rails Podcast. Rob is currently a consultant with Quick Solutions, Inc. in Columbus, Ohio.

Abstract: Data access with Java and Java Enterprise Edition has been cumbersome, overly complex, and difficult to test since the inception of JDBC. Technologies like Enterprise Java Beans were meant to solve these problems, but in fact only increased the complexity. This interactive session will focus on solving the problems found in JDBC and EJB with a wealth of examples that show how code can be simpler, more flexible, and easier to test with the inclusion of the Spring Framework.

Presented By: Todd Kaufman Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Todd Kaufman is a Java and Java Enterprise Edition Architect who has a passion for Spring and the simplification it brings to all things Java. He is an architect and engineer of projects at Quick Solutions speciailizing in delivering Java applications better, faster, and cheaper than the competition.

Abstract: The next version of C# and VB.NET will give you a number of new tools to manipulate data. The buzz is about bridging the object - relational gap, but there's more. The new functional programming constructs will give you many new tools to leverage in everyday development. This session will help you understand how to apply currying, closures, and lambda calculus to manipulate and process your data, objects, or files. We'll also look at the differences between C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0, and how both languages are supporting these features differently to accommodate the different audiences.

Presented By: Bill Wagner Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Bill Wagner, co-founder of SRT Solutions, has developed commercial software for the past twenty years, leading the design on many successful engineering and enterprise Microsoft Windows products. He now spends his time facilitating .NET adoption in clients’ product and enterprise development. Bill’s principal strengths include the C# language, the core framework, Smart Clients, and Service Oriented Architecture and design.

Abstract: Developers often lack the knowledge of how networks work. What are protocols, and how does DHCP work? Learn how to troubleshoot, and why people keep saying 'WS-RM is just like TCP, but at the application layer.'

Presented By: Brian H. Prince Website/blog: http://brianhprince.blogspot.com

About the Speaker: Brian is the Practice Manager of the Application Development consulting practice at Quick Solutions, Inc. He has achieved over 11 years Information Technology management and consulting experience including e-commerce, extranets, and business technology. Brian has successfully implemented his technology expertise in numerous industries including real estate, financial services, healthcare, retail and state government institutions. Brian has exceptional proficiency in Microsoft .NET framework and n-tier e-commerce and Web application development. Further, he has maintained numerous executive positions where he applies management capabilities in the field of developing marketing and strategy efforts to improve and enhance Web based technologies. Brian is a member of the Microsoft BizTalk Virtual Technology Specialist team, and works with the BPI product groups to assist them in the marketplace. He is also a recipient of the Microsoft MVP Visual Studio Solution Architect award. Further, he is a co-president of the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group, and co-founder/boardmember of CodeMash. He speaks at various regional and national technology events, including TechEd. Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Physics from Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. He is also an avid gamer.

Abstract: This session demonstrates the ease of which Rails can live side-by-side your Java and .NET applications. We'll walk through several popular methods for application integration, including:

  • Creating RESTful Web Services
  • Easily exposing existing application logic as a SOAP call
  • Using Ruby and Ruby on Rails to communicate with a JMS Messaging Queue
Companies can now take advantages of the benefits new languages and platforms have to offer without rewriting existing applications. The strategies shown here come from real-life applications and can be implemented by any corporation tomorrow.

Presented By: Joe O'Brien Website/blog: http://www.edgecase.com

About the Speaker: Before helping found EdgeCase, LLC, Joe was with ThoughtWorks and spent much of his time working with J2EE and .NET. He has spent his career as a developer, project manager, and everything in between. Joe is a passionate member of the open source community and co-founded the Columbus Ruby Brigade. His passions are Ruby, Agile Development in the Enterprise, and demonstrating to the Fortune 500 the elegance and power of this incredible language. This talk was given this year at: Canada on Rails, RailsConf 2006, Ajax World, XP Cincinnati Users Group, Columbus Ruby Brigade, Chicago Users Group.

Abstract: SOA is hard. It takes a great investment to get there by any company and many times people lose focus of the payoff at the end of the road. At the end of the day, just having a number of encapsulated reusable services that are routable, transactionable, secure and runs with all of the other WS-* standards is fantastic but it's a lot of work for a single client. There are simpler ways to do that if that's your end goal. The true payoff of SOA is having the business agility to piece together composite applications that leverage these services that your organization has labored to build. In this session, we will learn how to leverage .NET 3.0 to build composite applications.

Presented By: Josh Holmes Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Josh Holmes is an Architect with Microsoft's Heartland District DPE.

Abstract: So you've got a spiffy new web application? Customers are raving about how cool everything looks and how neat all the new functionality is! In fact, you've just passed the one month mark and new customers are streaming to your site. Congratulations! Two months pass, and then it happens. You get your first call from a customer, angry that the site is "crawling"; that it takes fifteen seconds for the search results to appear. Then the emails start coming in confirming that the site is displaying some error message about too many connections. Think it can't happen to you? Think again. All web applications have their breaking points, and you need to know how to properly diagnose your schema and streamline your application code. In this session, you'll learn: how to diagnose MySQL database performance bottlenecks using a variety of tools, how to identify and FIX problem SQL code, best practices for writing streamlined, efficient SQL code that takes advantage of MySQL's strengths, about advanced index concepts, how to build an effective indexing strategy, how to choose appropriate storage engines for different types of data, how to adjust choice MySQL server parameters to squeeze the most performance out of your application, and how to plan for growth, in your code and in your index strategy.

Presented By: Jay Pipes Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Jay Pipes is the North American Community Relations Manager at MySQL. Author of "Pro MySQL" (Apress, 2005), Jay has also written articles for Linux Magazine and regularly assists software developers in identifying how to make the most effective use of MySQL. He has given sessions on performance tuning at the MySQL Users Conference, RedHat summit, OSCON, NY PHP Conference, Ohio LinuxFest, and online webinars. In his free time, he daydreams in PHP code and thinks up ideas for MySQL Camp unconferences...

Abstract: Putting the community punching gloves aside for the moment, this session will open your eyes to the fact that Rails and Java really aren't all that different. Struts (and the other Java Web Application frameworks) and Rails strive to provide a MVC framework for you to code amazing web applications with. We'll cover how Ruby on Rails tackles each component of MVC with plenty of comparisons to Struts (and Hibernate) to really give you that "Ah yea!" moment. You'll also leave the session with a better understanding of how Ruby itself creates the magic behind Rails.

Presented By: Rob Stevenson Website/blog:

About the Speaker: Rob Stevenson has been on a crusade to find coder happiness for over 15 years. Following his passion for computer graphics at BGSU eventually led Rob to the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Electronic Visualizat