Code Camp NYC 2019 recap
by Randy Gingeleski
3 minutes to read
This was my third consecutive year attending the New York development conference and it did not disappoint. Here's a recap. ⛺
Me, future farmer thanks to Microsoft AI/cloud/buzzwords.
Ever since moving back to the area in 2017, I’ve attended Code Camp NYC.
It’s a yearly institution at the Microsoft Technology Center in Times Square. Everybody wakes up early on a Saturday to learn.
As Microsoft donates the space, the conference tends more towards the Microsoft-centric stack. Stuff like .NET, SQL Server, and Azure pops up in the schedule more than competing products.
(But that’s fine with me because it makes tickets $15 instead of $150.)
The most recent one was October 12. This was the first year it wasn’t just me and my co-workers. Now, the crew also included a former co-worker and my sister.
There’s even photographic evidence because we ended up in several pictures without consent.
This privacy breach would’ve be a bigger deal at, say, the HOPE conference in New York.
Below are some talks I saw and notes from each. Trying to link content where possible.
Effective application onboarding
Talk - How not to be the best app no one uses: Effective onboarding for fun & profit by Kendall Miller
Effective app onboarding notes
Kendall’s speaker profile via Sessionize
YouTube link to this talk from NDC Conference
Data warehousing patterns
Talk - Effective Data Warehouse Storage Patterns by John Miner
Writing browser extensions
Talk - Building cross-platform browser add-ons using Web Extension API by Jyotsna Gupta
Identity 101
Talk - Identity 101: How username/password got so complicated by Bobby Johnson
Links to the slide deck via Auth0
APIs with Go
Talk - RESTful API Development using Go by Jyotsna Gupta
Overall impressions
These aren’t so much impressions of this Code Camp versus the last ones (I think this was the best yet), or of just this one by itself, but of all technical conferences I’ve been to. Development and infosec.
Having my sister along at this event allowed me to point these things out -
“Similar looks”. Probably half the people at these conferences look like each other. The look will vary by conference, like this was different from HOPE or DEFCON. I’ll leave it at that. Yes, this points to underlying issues in the IT field and will hopefully go away over time.
Fighting to be technical alpha. Certain talks attract a certain niche or audience member who interjects to try and upstage the speaker. The topic might be… who knows more about the innards of SQL Server 2016? Like, that’s great you have a huge depth in just one thing. You don’t need to validate yourself by “battling” others to be “technical alpha.”
Lots of sugar (well, “simple carbs” would also cover the pizza) and caffeine. The people want these things. If you don’t have them, they will get pissed. Code Camp has always been great about this stuff so not a mark on them. I’m remembering the BSides NYC at John Jay College where they ran out of coffee before 9 AM. Big no-no.
Closing
Another good Code Camp NYC.
Out of all technical conferences - development, security, etc. - this has always been most enjoyable to me.
I’m considering checking out other regional code camps in this next year.
