Hiya,
As we are getting closer and closer to CodeGarden the buzz and hype surrounding it is growing on
twitter and I think we can all agree on that this years
CodeGarden is going to be far the best.
So to continue with our "Up close and personal" blog post series, I
have spoken to some speakers to see what they
have to say about CodeGarden.
Doug Robar
Q: So this year you are doing a session at CodeGarden
titled "Did you Know?" Can you tell us what the session will be
about?
A: Knowing as much as possible about what Umbraco does very well
and very easily helps me build better sites more quickly and with
higher profits. As a long-time Umbraco user and #lazyweb I'm always
interested in finding things I didn't know about Umbraco. Helpful
tips. How-to's. Tidbits. Rules of thumb. Hidden gems. Best
practices and examples of what-not-to-do. Folklore and history. All
these things make the Umbraco project and the people involved in it
even more special.
This is a fast-paced session for both new and experienced users.
I'll be sharing a huge grab bag of stuff; everyone will find
something they didn't know.
Q: What are you most looking forward to at this years
CodeGarden?
A: It's been said many times and I'll echo it again... the
people! To be sure, CodeGarden is a great opportunity to learn
about the latest Umbraco developments and learn from the gurus. But
collaborating in real time, talking face to face with people from
around the globe that I've only met online, getting excited by all
the cool things others are doing with Umbraco and receiving
encouragement and support for my own ideas and projects... what
could be better?
I know we geeks are supposed to be socially inept. Maybe that's
true in general, but not in the Umbraco community! I've trained
hundreds of people and met hundreds more and I can tell you there's
something very special and unique about the Umbraco community.
These people aren't just decent, friendly folk. They are the kind
of people I want to have as friends, to invite home, meet the
family, and share a meal with. CodeGarden is the biggest gathering
of my worldwide friends and colleagues. I wouldn't miss it for
anything.
Oh, and I'll also go home with a bunch of new skills and
code.
Q: What is the most exciting thing for you about the
upcoming V5 release?
A: Unconventionally, I'm really excited that so much is staying
the same in v5. Site builders have learned the How's and Why's of
Umbraco and won't be losing that investment with 5. What you know
about document types, templates, macros, being a super hero to your
users, all those foundational concepts and principles, the stuff
you use in every site you build are totally applicable in v5. I'm
thrilled that even though the internals are all new and greatly
improved and we'll all benefit from that in v5 and beyond, the core
concepts of what Umbraco is and does remains the same. Take a deep
breath, bask in your existing Umbraco skills, and then dive deep
into V5 at CodeGarden for even more greatness!
Darren Ferguson
Q: So this year you are doing a session at CodeGarden
titled "Multi Language Websites in Umbraco". Can you tell us what
the session will be about?
A: Our session has two presenters - I'll be demonstrating the
more traditional approach to multi language sites in Umbraco,
including some information on the relations API. The whole demo is
put together live with a bunch of Razor, with a few bad jokes
thrown in for good measure. Dimitri, the other speaker has a bit
more of an innovative approach to demonstrate it. I've not seen it
yet, so I'm looking forward to being a spectator for part of the
presentation. Finally - we'll open up to Q&A at the end.
Q: What are you most looking forward to at this year's
CodeGarden?
A: Catching up with old friends and hopefully making some new
ones. It is always nice to meet the people that you've communicated
with in the Umbraco community in the past year. Hopefully we'll be
blessed with the usual CodeGarden weather this year - there is
nothing quite like sitting out on the lawn at the venue with a beer
- talking geek.
Q: What is the most exciting thing for you about the
upcoming V5 release?
A: Hive (storage agnostic persistence) looks great - but just
the re-architecture in general. I'm less fascinated by the fact
that it is MVC and more interested in the fact that the project has
an extremely competent full time architect this time around.
Hopefully the team will be kept off the beer to avoid any more
"Grapper" namespaces :)
Dimitri Kourkoulis
Q: So this year you are doing a session at CodeGarden
titled "Multi Language Websites in Umbraco". Can you tell us what
the session will be about?
A: Actually I am going to share a session with Darren Ferguson,
on multi-language web sites in Umbraco. For my part of the session,
I will be demonstrating a method of providing and managing
multilingual content without relying on multiple sites.
In the environment where I work, it is very important to offer
the exact same structure of information to all visitors, regardless
of their choice of language. When we started using Umbraco, most of
the documentation we were able to find on the subject proposed
setting up multiple sites within an Umbraco installation, one for
each of the supported languages. We needed to support many
languages and we thought that going about doing things this way
would pose two risks; that publishing multi-lingual content
simultaneously would be hard to manage and also that different
visitors would see different versions of the site, when for example
certain translations are not ready as fast as others or even due to
human error.
So we realised that what we needed was what was often referred
to as a "1:1 multilingual site structure". We found some
information about how to implement this in Umbraco. Over time, also
taking feedback from our users into consideration, we evolved the
method and today we are quite happy with it.
I will be explaining to the audience how such a system can be
set up and, most importantly, demonstrate that this is a viable
solution, perfectly feasible to implement in Umbraco. I hate to
spoil the suspense but I have already made a package with this
method and have posted it on our.umbraco.org. I think that, using the
package, some time will be saved so that I can focus on how the
method solves problems, rather than going into too many development
details.
Q: What are you most looking forward to at this years
CodeGarden?
A: This will be my first year at CodeGarden, so I am not sure
exactly what to expect. I have enjoyed the BUUG festival which I
have attended in Belgium. It was very informative and it was nice
to meet members of the Umbraco community for the first time. I know
that CodeGarden is a very big event for Umbraco, so I am looking
forward to being there, getting to know the community even better
and, of course, to find out as much as possible about version
5.
Q: What is the most exciting thing for you about the
upcoming V5 release?
A: I am sure that there are many details about V5 that I do not
know yet, but from what I am aware of so far, I would say that Hive
is the most exciting thing for me. It is very often that one has to
link to external data sources these days, so anything that helps
towards this end is certainly good news!
Niels Kühnel
Q: So this year you are doing a session at CodeGarden
titled "Forget About Resource Strings.
Umbraco.Foundation.Localization". Can you tell us what the session
will be about?
A: It's about how to manage all the "micro content" you have in
a website. That is, how Umbraco 5 helps you and the end users
manage all the small texts, validation messages etc you have in
your templates and code. As a bonus the localization framework is
compatible with all (spoken) languages in the world so it will help
you in the frontend when you're doing multi language homepages. It
also supports a lot of different text sources which will help your
work flow in the development phase. Come see the texts in the
backoffice be changed from a Google Spreadsheet.
Q: What are you most looking forward to at this year's
CodeGarden?
A: Meeting up with everyone in the same time zone and sharing
ideas in an informal atmosphere without a 140 character limit is
something I'm really looking forward to.
Q: What is the most exciting thing for you about the
upcoming V5 release?
A: The Hive. The unified approach to handling all the data
sources that make up a modern website the same way is simply
brilliant. Apart from that, the fantastic and solid approach to
content management that has evolved and matured in the world's
friendliest community over the years now runs off world class code
and architecture. It's highly unlikely that any single company
could ever encapsulate that amount of talent, brilliance and
experience in a product.
Anders Burla Johansen
Q: So this year you are doing a session at CodeGarden
titled "The E-Commerece Showdown". Can you tell us what the session
will be about?
A: This session will introduce you to three different e-commerce
solutions for Umbraco - Tea Commerce, uCommerce and Commerce for
Umbraco. You will be explained the possibilities with the various
systems, their strengths and which system is best suited for
specific scenarios. It will be an intense session, as each
presenter only has 15 minutes to present their system, giving You
the best tools and knowledge to build your next e-commerce solution
with Umbraco. At the end of the session we will have a 15 min
Q&A - so prepare your e-commerce questions and we will have the
answers.
Q: What are you most looking forward to at this year's
CodeGarden?
A: Meeting the entire Umbraco community - meeting familiar
faces, new ones, and faces I only know from a Twitter profile. And
of course the Umbraco Bingo - wondering what surprises the team has
arranged this year!
Q: What is the most exciting thing for you about the
upcoming V5 release?
A: As a package developer, I'm most excited to see how you build
third party packages with the new API. I want to see how the new
stuff works under the hood, how easy it is and what new
possibilities it gives.
Søren Spelling Lund
Q: So this year you are doing a session at CodeGarden,
titled "The E-Commerce Showdown" can you tell us what the session
will be about?
A: We're taking a look at what makes uCommerce 2.0 tick, when it
makes sense to use it, and what you can expect when you do decide
to use it. We'll cover the new Marketing Foundation and what it
brings to the table to help you build advanced e-commerce
solutions. Basically how you'll discover how to build awesome
e-commerce solutions with Umbraco. Plus we'll have a couple of cool
surprises in store for attendees at this session, so remember to
sign up today :)
Q: What are you most looking forward to, at this years
CodeGarden?
A: For me personally the high point of CodeGarden is always
meeting old and new Umbracians and catching up from last year. It's
always a treat to meet the talented people working with Umbraco out
there.
Q: What is the most exciting thing for you about the
upcoming V5 release?
A: The big thing is getting an honest to god architecture for
Umbraco and the opportunities it will bring for cool new features
in Umbraco itself and uCommerce, of course. The Hive looks
especially promising for integrating custom data in an even more
seamless fashion that what we can do today.
We may be bias, but we loved reading through the different
session synopsis, and especially people's individual and unique
reasons why they love attending CodeGarden and what they are
anticipating most about the new version 5 release.... one of the
main focus' of this years conference. If you have yet to purchase
your ticket, head over to the Umbraco site, there are limited
tickets left. Once you've secured one, come back here and leave a
comment telling us what YOU are looking forward to
most at CG11.