Code Better With Design Patters in .Net Training Thoughts...

This past week I attended the Code Smarter with Design Patterns in .Net course given by Developmentor and I wanted to share some thoughts about it...

 

Instructor
As I'm sure you heard or seen, sometimes it is a hit or miss game with the level of a trainers experience. Sometimes they are a day ahead of you, learning as they go. Or, as seems to be the rule with Developmentor, they are very experienced, have been coding for years and generally just know their stuff.

Kevin Jones, the instructor for Code Better With Design Patters in .Net, was not only a great presenter but had decades of real world experience (err... sorry Kevin... I meant "a number of years of experience..." yeah... that... ;). And best of all that experience was across many technologies, trends and programming languages. This gave a depth to his lectures that only comes with experience, knowledge and wisdom.

He was able to seemingly easily translate that experience and knowledge and present it to us. This provided a back story and depth to the material. Not just a "here is the pattern," but "here is the pattern and here's why this has become important and the problems that it was evolved to solve..."

Kevin was also very flexible in how he presented the material, modifying it on the fly in order to adapt to the experience levels in the class or to fit it into our schedules (flight, commute, etc)

You've heard, "those who can't do, teach"? That was far from the case with Kevin (and the other Developmentor instructors I've met in the past). He really knew his stuff and it showed.

 

Class Environment
If you go to a Los Angeles Developmentor course, bring a jacket... I've attended two classes there and both times it was cold in the classroom (so cold the first time the Developmentor guys went out and bought sweatshirts for all attendees with the text, "Developmentor is cool"... LOL. Got to love that kind of humor...)

Besides that, I dig Developmentor courses. The rooms are good, the computers are always setup and working, the staff is professional and friendly and the lobby/gathering area always stocked with drinks, snacks and stuff ;)

Developmentor usually has small class sizes, which means you quickly develop a learning relationship with every one. This course was the most attended of any past course I've gone too, having 12 attendees.

This near one-on-one training situation is just one reason I find myself returning so often to Developmentor...

 

Course Content

I've been seeing the buzz on patterns for many years. I've done some reading and bought some books, but never got the "fire." Never really saw how they would directly help me solve my development problems. Having someone walk me thought it, provide the depth that I'd not seen before was just the push I needed.

The funny thing about this, is by the end of the class I saw that I've already been using patterns for many years. Reinventing the wheel over and over again. sigh...

A couple times a day I'd find myself thinking, "I done that before... I've built using singleton, factory, proxy, facade, strategy, etc, patterns for years... I just didn't know it. Nor, now that I see it, did I build them quite right..."

One thing I really liked about this course was that it wasn't about technology, but how to use existing technology (C#/.Net 2.0 with patterns) to provide better answers to the problems I have today. How to be a better developer... How to make your coding life easier... How to provide more professional solutions that will be easier to maintain and improve over time.

You can only present and learn so much in 32 hours, but with the interactive nature of the training, having someone who has "been there, done that," the knowledge gained was multiplied and sunk in deeper.

 

Summary

Okay, okay... I know I'm gushing a little. All was not perfect. I think the parking is a pain (park in this building, then that building and then on the last day park in this building, etc). I HATED the drive to it (driving everyday from Simi Valley to LAX on the freeway from hell, aka the 405, was just pure pain). I wish it was longer, and covered enterprise patterns (like MVC, etc). And I wish there were a VB.Net version (or at least VB.Net labs). But in the end those were little things...

All in all, I felt this course was money very well spent and one that I am going to recommend to my peers (and of course to you as well  :).

 

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I'll be mostly offline the next few days...