Ahmed Salijee

Would you find this useful - Developer 1-1 Whiteboards

I guess I will know now if anyone reads my blog :-). One of the things I do (sometimes quite often and other times not so) with customers is to run what I call whiteboard sessions. These sessions are similar to some of the sessions we have at TechED etc. Essentially you have a session with a bunch of a developers at a company -- it does not have to be lots of developers (even 1 is ok and often too many is not good) and we have discussion around a set of questions that they have. The questions are usually sent to me before hand. The questions typically have to focussed on either 1) high level application architecture OR 2) evaluating some technology It is not support Typically we would have discussions on things like: 1) When would I use Winforms vs Webforms 2) What are smart clients 3) Web Services vs. Remoting 4) This one I like and is the main focus: They draw/explain their architecture and ask for feedback etc etc I am thinking of doing this (maybe even using MVPs, SADEV lead and other MSDN speakers where I can down the road) for the wider community. The idea is for me to leave certain days (or mornings and afternoons) free. Advertise on this blog (if anyone reads this blog!) what so days are and then just do it - each session would typically be an hour. I would need to define what areas I can talk about so don't ask me how you build a device driver or aggregate the FTM (a weekend off for the one who can tell me what the FTM is) What do you think? Would you find this useful? Maybe you even want to join me to assist others?
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Posted: Feb 18 2005, 03:23 PM by ahmeds | with 8 comment(s)

Comments

Auratius February said:

I find it always hardcore. As long as I can stay ahead of the pack.
# February 18, 2005 3:44 PM

Andre Odendaal said:

I'd be interested in architecture designs around managing multiple datasources. Setting up a lab to check out Business Solutions tools (Solomon, Navision, etc) would be cool too (I don't know if Whiteboards would cover that).

As for who reads your blog, you can chalk me up!
# February 18, 2005 4:00 PM

KevinT said:

Depending on whether you are a techy or from marketing, it is either 'File Transfer Manager' - a client side download app, or 'Female to Male' - a dodgy gender operation.

Weekend off, here i come!
# February 18, 2005 5:25 PM

ruari said:

Count me in, I'd be more than willing to get involved. One discussion I'd love to have is whether coding on ASP.NET 2.0 beta 2 is more pain, or more gain over ASP.NET 1.0 for upcomming projects, that would only go live after ver 2.0 is released.
# February 19, 2005 8:52 AM

Stuart Gunter said:

To start... yes I read your blog. I try make a point of skimming the dotnet.org.za aggregated page, then zooming into blogs that look more interesting. Yours is pretty often one of the more interesting ones!

I like the idea of whiteboard sessions. I think it's most applicable in a corporate environment like you suggest. The last one we had in Durban was a bit difficult because there's a bunch of people from different backgrounds and different environments, and it just gets complicated. I like the idea of have some kind of whiteboarding session, especially surrounding some of the more architectural issues that most companies face (ie. whether to use WS / Remoting; when to employ WSE; etc). Then you can always go more indepth into certain topics... like HOW to employ the WSE (if they're interested in that).

Sounds good!
# February 19, 2005 10:11 AM

Ludwig Kruger said:

Yeah, I also read you blog. Seems like more people visit than what you thought.

The whiteboard sessions, sounds like a brilliant vehicle, to gain and share knowledge.

WRT the FTM, it refers to the Free Threaded Marshaler.
# February 21, 2005 9:08 AM

ahmeds said:

Ludwig has the correct answer on FTM
Lots of people seem to like this so maybe when Ruari gets on board we will kick this off.
One additional question - do the devs who can really benefit from this read blogs?
# February 21, 2005 1:25 PM

Ludwig Kruger said:

Ruari has been on board for a while, and has been busy with a lot of stuff, so is Developer 1-1 still on the table?
# May 4, 2005 12:31 PM