A bit late, but here’s my post about the third and final day of REAL World 2007.
I started the day with “Unit Testing and Test-Driven Development” by Paul Lefebvre. It was a good session, and I always feel like I should be using unit testing more than I currently do (which is to say, not a lot), but I have trouble thinking up good unit tests for my apps. Oh, well, something to think about, I suppose.
I followed that session with “Data Mining and Content Management Techniques” by Jarvis Joyce. To be quite honest, I didn’t get a lot of new information out of the session, but then that’s the kind of stuff I do all the time. I guess I was hoping for more specific tips and tricks that I could use. But Jarvis did a good job of providing an overview of data mining techniques, and I don’t want to sound like the session wasn’t full of good information.
Lunch was comprised of barbecued beef brisket and warm peach cobbler. There was some other stuff available, but I didn’t care because the brisket and the cobbler rocked.
After lunch, the first session I took in was “Planning, Implementing and Supporting Cross-Platform Business Applications” by John Callis. John has a lot of experience in that realm, and he gave us some really good info. His presentation ended early, however, and the remaining time was filled with a demo of the Monkey Bread plugins by Christian Schmitz. That was interesting, as I ‘ve never invested in the Monkey Bread plugin suite. I’m not sure why. I guess I’ve found another way to do everything I’ve needed to do, despite their huge feature list and impressive capabilities. Maybe someday when I hit a wall.
The final session I attended was “Building a Web Application in REALbasic” by Joe Strout. One word review: wow. The demo gave me the same tingly feeling I got the first time I tried REALbasic. Joe really developed a wonderful framework, and then went and released it to the public domain. Brilliant and altruistic. I’ll likely be spending quite a bit of time with his sample project in the coming weeks and months.
After all the sessions had ended, most of us gathered for the final feedback session with Geoff and the other REAL Software employees. I’m constantly impressed at their willingness to stand in front of a crowd and solicit feedback, both positive and negative. And believe me, they get both every year!
Lastly, a dozen or so of us who didn’t have planes to catch until the morning wandered down to the Iron Cactus for one final meal together. We spoke of a great many things until we parted ways for another year.
All in all, this was the best REAL World yet. Maybe I’m just biased because I got to do three sessions, but it was a blast. Looking forward to next year already.