Teched day 2

Not only a conference, but an opportunity to sell stuff too...

The weather in New Orleans is so hot that it feels like walking into a wall every time I leave the air conditioned safety of Hilton Riverside. It is such a hard life to be an IT consultant some days... ;)

I read about Microsoft LightSwitch when it just came out and thought:  MS Access applications.
And not in a flattering way.

I gave it a real chance today and went to a session with Beth Massi on creating HTML 5-based business apps with Azure and Visual Studio LightSwitch.
Developers usually scoff about LightSwitch, because, well, you hardly need to program to create something and, well, Developers are people who excel in just programming. I don't scoff anymore. Anything that can create a decently good looking data editor and browser with filters, paged data, a UI that scales to works on Android, IOS, Windows phone and on desktops and that can deploy this to Azure in a one hour session (including some CSS-changes, customization and third part JavaScript controls) is not to scoff at. Period.

Maybe I will not use LightSwitch in many projects, since I have a hunch that there is a point when high customization will make a LightSwitch project more expensive and harder to manage than using traditional coding methods and  customer needs usually means a lot of customization. BUT, for all my fast hobby projects where I need to fix something simple web-based as quick as possible or need a prototype or just a way to manage data online, LightSwitch at least seems perfect at a glance.

Note to self: Start testing LightSwitch!

LightSwitch was a nice acquaintance

Chris Klug held a talk about patterns and architecture in MVVM with a pragmatic approach on how to build stuff in the best way. Chris is good at that stuff and he held an appreciated session. For me it was the deepest in technical aspects so far this conference and packed with good ideas. Check out his blog here.

Good to show those Americans that Swedes know their stuff too... ;)

A swede in the US

Finally, the dominating crapgadgetgiveaway this year is this: (and it even flashes!)

Who would not want a hat like this?