If you would like me to speak at your developer event or even at your office, what are you thinking!? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’d be happy to speak on any relevant topic that I have experience in (.NET, C#, VB, PHP, mobile, web, desktop, SQL, db4o, etc), but here are some topics that I’ve presented on before, and thus already have prepared material:
Writing Great PHP: with Cake, you can
Description: PHP gets a bad rap among software craftsmen because so many legacy PHP apps are poorly written and poorly maintained. What if there was a way to emphasize the positives of PHP (quick ramp-up, popularity, ubiquity) while restraining the negatives? With CakePHP, a popular MVC framework for PHP, now you can! Write apps with separation of concerns, testability, and SOLID principles in mind. In this session, you will learn to write a very simple introductory CakePHP app and learn how to test it.
Feedback:
- “…great technical intro”, says Brad Griffith.
- “…both interesting and tasty”, say George Faerber, leader of Columbus PHP Meetup group
- “I had the chance to learn about CakePHP, an MVC framework for PHP that looks really cool. I’m excited to download that and give it a try.” “Cool stuff” – Rich Dudley
Previously presented:
- Internal presenation for a consulting company (Spring 2010)
- Columbus PHP Meetup
- CMAP (Central Maryland) Code Camp
db4o – the easy to use object database
Description: Sometimes a relational database is not a good fit for your application. If you need raw speed, work with complex entities, or are writing embedded software, then db4o (for .NET or Java) might be the persistence solution you need. db4o gives you a quick and easy way to get data persistence going without configuring servers, ORMs, or maintaining tables and stored procedures. This session will give a code-focused introduction to db4o, identify some good use cases for db4o, and give you a small taste of the more advanced topics to whet your appetite.
Note that I was selected as a db4o Valued Professional (dVP).
Previously presented:
- Columbus Tech Lunch
- Richmond Code Camp
Eulering up your coding skills
Description: According to many experts, “Deliberate practice” is the key to becoming an expert software craftsman. While code-katas & koans are great ways to practice, this session will look at Project Euler (pronounced “oiler”), which has been around since 2001 as a challenging and fun way to hone your coding skills by solving a variety of math, cryptography, parsing, and just plain fun problems, no matter what language you use. We’ll look at writing a Euler framework, refactoring strategies, and some of the more interesting problems in Project Euler.
Previously presented:
- Central Ohio .NET Developer’s Group (CONDG), as a lightning talk
- Grand Rapids Day of .NET
Feedback:
- ” I did enjoy the talk…it’s always nice to see that there are other math geeks out there…”, says Arnulfo Wing
- “Matt’s talk was extremely insightful and the euler talk was particularly thought provoking and compelling.” – CMAP feedback form