C# Day Is A Success!!!
Pics and video are still being processed by Kyle so will post those in a later edit but wanted to let everyone know that C# Day was a resounding success. For the first time in Microsoft's history we brought a truly interactive experience into Second Life.
Special Thanks
I couldn't be prouder of all the folks who made this possible:
Kyle G == The main project lead / tech lead / all around cool guy who spearheaded the efforts to get this rolling and made it happen in spectacular style. Here is the undisputed MVP for C# Day. Without his efforts there would have, quite literally, been no C# Day.
Michael de la Maza == Our host for the event who blew everyone away with his ability to have a great interactive experience.
Tori Ashe == The wonderful leader of the .NET Developers Group in-world and a source of inspiration for all things good with the group.
Miel Van Opstal == My constant partner in crime who provided the use of Imagine Cup Island for the event to give the event a more "beach party" feel to it.
Justin Hebert == A co-worker at MS and a major kick butt User Experience guy who added just the right amount of flair to the affair.
InnerWorkings == The great people who offered up free courses for everyone who attended as a supplement to the day's events.
Chris Bowen == Another co-worker at MS who did the initial introductions between myself and Michael and who I have a great deal of respect and admiration for.
There were many, many others involved in the effort as well and my thanks to everyone who was part of making C# Day the best day I have experienced in Second Life so far.
How the Day Went
Getting Started
I decided to be an active participant in this event to fully experience the activities first-hand. We started off the day with some great links to the resources we would use throughout the day and a nice overview of how the day was going to progress. I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on learning by doing as opposed to the more traditional approach of sitting around like a vegetable and listening. Michael was quick to point out his rules for training in the follow creed:
The Software Training Manifesto
We emphasize doing over listening.
We emphasize comprehension over knowledge.
We emphasize relevance over minutiae.
We emphasize engagement over pedanticism.
This definitely resounded with the audience members as they were very energetic and engaged throughout the entire day. I was particularly impressed with the level of participation and insightful questions that acted as a catalyst to move the conversation and comprehension forward.
C# Cubed
After the initial introduction to the day, we moved over to the coolest thing I have seen in Second Life so far: The cubes. Now you are probably wondering what is so cool about cubes. Well, Kyle and his team created these cubes that contained a piece of a command. For example, my cube had the "if" command on it. One of my partners cubes (Bloggy, my good friend) had an "else" on his cube. Another person had a "try" and another a "catch" and so on. The idea was to mingle and find your partner that went with your statement. now before you start yawning, check this out. There were a lot of people and you needed to start finding those that went with your statement block so as you milled around your cube was stationary UNTIL you got close to your partner.
If you were in a certain proximity to another word that went with your statement (in my case I was looking for an "else") then your cube would start to spin. If you got even closer to a word that went with your statement, your blue cube would turn green and spin even faster! At the same time your partner's cube would also spin and turn green letting the two of you know that you were part of the same statement block. WOW!!! Try doing that in real life :)
When we had our cubes and milled around we were invited to have cocktails (virtual drinks of course) to socialize and learn who we went with and what the other statements meant. So, while milling around with my absinthe, I had an opportunity to talk to many folks about what they do and what their statement is all about. Each person was tasked with doing research on their statement and making a little notecard that would describe our statement so we could all exchange notecards with each other as a launching point to find out more about the various statements. I was truly impressed with the level of research that was done on the statements I received.
Deep Dive
With the research all done on the statements and everyone in possession of the collective knowledge, Michael broke us up into teams to research pieces of a Tic-Tac-Toe Program. In this part each team was assigned one of the functions that were in the program. We were then tasked with researching what the function does and why. Michael waited for people to ask questions and used each question as a segue into another aspect of C# or Visual Studio. I particularly enjoyed it when someone asked him how they could see "what the code was doing slowly" and that question was used as an opportunity to illustrate how to set breakpoints and use the IDE to discover information about the code.
Afterwards a notecard was created giving details about what the statement did and how it did it. Each team then traded the information with the other team to learn exactly how this program works. By the way before you start thinking that the program was a "walk in the park" -- it wasn't. My partner was tasked with the function that determined the winner. This function used bitwise operations to figure out if someone had won the game or not. Specifically it used bitwise ANDing applied to a mask to determine the winner. At first glance it seemed a little rough but that was the plan. As questions came up about this topic Michael explained in clear, easy terms what this piece did and why it was done a certain way. He was careful not to reveal the entire function operation but only those pieces that people had a little trouble with figuring out.
Ending The Day
We ended with a quick overview of the InnerWorkings training and how that can be used to augment the day's knowledge. Also, each person was tasked with consolidating the knowledge they had gained and encouraged to learn more about the statements they had examined. We were all free to dance and party the rest of the day! All in all I think everyone had a great time and learned a lot. We are still consolidating the feedback and pictures, etc... from the event and I will make sure to post / link / send by carrier pigeon the good stuff once it is ready. Until then, make sure to sign up for the next C# Day coming next month as it is already more than half full.
