GIDS 2010 – Day 4 (Workshop)

Decided to attend session from Adobe as my current work involve tasks dealing with Adobe Flex.

Day began with Session Building Data Centric Applications using Adobe Flex and Java by Prashant Singh. He started session by talking about new Data Centric Development approach made available in Adobe Flash Builder 4. Gave a quick introduction to Adobe Flash Catalyst and its capabilities. In session we got DVD containing trial versions of adobe software and some useful study material. Prashant decided to build an Application for displaying latest happenings in Hollywood.

In home page use can search for Actor name or Movie name, page will display image list of current top 10 Hollywood movies and Actor in spotlight. If user searches for movie he will be taking Movie details page, where Trailer for movie will be played and page will display Image List Actors in Movie. If User selects any of Actors, he will be redirected to actor details page, displaying some trivia about actor, image list of movies in which actor has been casted.

Prashant started by creating UI for application in Flash Catalyst. He demonstrated how to create Button, Vertical Scroll bar in tool. Then we moved on to create Data List using Flash Catalyst to create Image list for People, Movies on various pages, we provided dummy data. Next, we created transition between pages. Along the way we learned to style application.

Then, we imported Flash Catalyst project into Adobe Flex Builder, provided real time data by connecting to backend database using BlazeDS + Java. Here, we learned how easy it became now to connect to backend java process as tool itself creates required action script class from Java project if we used DCD facility. We just need to create Handler for appropriate Event and need to call backend java process in those handlers.

It was great session as always all Adode team members were there to answer queries from delegates.

Next, decided to attend session   Agile Development, Tools, and Teams by Stephen Forte. For me it was best session of the GIDS 2010. Stephen not only explained Scrum Methodology in great details, but shared all his experiences on implementation of Scrum in various organizations. He was so much interactive and lively in session that he almost answered more than 100 queries from delegates and kept us laughing for entire duration by cracking situational jokes. First time, people were standing in Hall, there was no space available to seat.

Stephen started session with what is Agile Methodology, when to use and when not to use Agile Methodology. Then we moved to what is Scrum, what are different components of scrum such Scrum Master, Project Logs etc. Next, he explained how to execute Scrum Methodology in projects.

We then moved to Estimation parameters in Scrum Methodology along with Cone of uncertainty.

It was excellent session on Agile; I consider myself luck to be part of it.  Kudos to Stephen!!! He really rocks!!!

Finally, decided to attend session PHP + Adobe Flex = Killer RIA by Shyamprasad P. Here, Shyam decide to create application called “Pass the Word”, kind of Twitter like Application.

In Application user can see multiple status updates of users in his organization, on clicking any one the user, he will gets further details about users. User name search facility is also provided.

Shyam started by creating UI for application in Flash Catalyst. He demonstrated how to create Button, Vertical Scroll bar in tool. Then we moved on to create Data List using Flash Catalyst to create Image list for People, we provided dummy data. Next, we created transition between pages. Along the way we learned to style application.

Then, we imported Flash Catalyst project into Adobe Flex Builder, provided real time data by connecting to backend database using PHP. Here, we learned how easy it became now to connect to backend PHP process as tool itself creates required action script class from PHP project if we used DCD facility. We just need to create Handler for appropriate Event and need to call back end PHP process in those handlers.

That brings end to fantastic, wonderful journey called GIDS 2010, learned quite a few technical things in those 3 days, met and create quite few new friends in Bangalore & IT industry. Really, looking forward to GIDS 2011 and would urge everybody to become part of this journey at least once.

GIDS 2010 – Day 2 (WEB conference)



The GIDS 2010 became attitude reforming experience for me; I am quite technology geek person (most of my colleague’s @ work   & my classmates would buy this argument). Before this event never shared opinion / thoughts on something in public forum; but in GIDS 2010 realized important of it and hence started my entry into public blogging world with post on same. So here we go, prepare you selves for journey called GIDS 2010.

Flashback, 07^th January’10 received mail from Rajiv Kumar of saltmarch regarding GIDS 2010 awards events and discount code for conference; immediately went to website for quick look at event details and was absolutely thrilled to see list of premium authors (was kicking myself how I missed last two events ?). Made online payment for 3 events (WEB, JAVA, WORKSHOPS). Big thank event organizers for giving me 85% discount.

What I like most about Saltmarch Media Team, they send a mail for survey in order to make necessary arrangement for logistics (selection of Auditorium with desired seating capacity, which worked well in their favor except for once “Stephen Forte” lecture will explain why down the line).

Started my journey for Bangalore at 2:00 AM, on 20^th from Pune railway station. The Big day arrived 21^st reached JN Tata Auditorium of IISC around 8:00 am, received warm welcome Saltmarch team, and got my Delegate Kit.

Became anxious to gain latest technical knowledge after seeing Developer Expo booths from Industry leading vendors such as Adobe, ISC2, Microsoft, Oracle, Infragistics, SAP Labs, XpressHost, Taroby, Intel, Serena Software, CollabNet, Telerik, Yahoo, Crizal, Paypal, and Tekno Point; on these booths we   got first hand information about new vendor products and services and important information for our day to day projects. On top of that some of the lucky participant received cool gifts after taking part in competitions such PayPal everyday gave one Dell Notebook, Forum Nokia gave Touch Screen mobile.

The Day started with  keynote A Comparison of Approaches to Building Rich Internet Applications with Ajax from Marty Hall. It was an excellent session where Marty not gave three different approaches for achieving Ajax effects but demonstrated which approach will be more useful for giving scenario. It was quite interactive session where Marty gave brilliant answers with examples to the queries posted to him by participants. The Takeaway for session was when to use which of three approaches by looking at which stage of application development, team decided to go for Ajax and what functionalities of Ajax we would like to have in application.

Here, I came across another great event management skill from Saltmarch team, they we displaying board to author about how much more time does he has to speak on (15, 10 or 5). They were urging speakers not to cross s time limits and asked speakers to take questions from participant offline. This happened almost on all 3 days. This was necessary as parallel sessions were going on.

Second keynote session of the day was, The Changing Face of Web Applications by Ramesh Srinivasaraghavan. He gave talk on identifying trends that could transform the way we create and use web applications. Also presented an overview of how the Adobe Flash Platform has fuelled this revolution with an integrated set of technologies for delivering the most compelling applications, content and video to the widest possible audience.

Until now all delegates were seating together to attend sessions and here came time to decide for parallel session, I opted for sessions Harish Sivaramakrishnan on Adobe Flash Catalyst for Agile Interaction Design as always this was excellent session from Harish. He started by designing sample applications UI part in Flash Catalyst then imported same project in Flash Builder and provided real time data to dummy data places. Also, replaced dummy images with real time chart controls. He managed to create entire application within 45 minutes and was able to handle queries from audience. What I like most about presentations from Adobe guys was, they all were present during session from Adobe and was taking active part in handling user queries. Take away from session was, we got tool Flash Catalyst were in we can created applications workable UI such as Scroll Bars, Button, Data List within minutes and just import project created in Flash Catalyst into Flash Builder, provide real time data and replace some of images with working charting controls, with that our application is ready to deploy in matter of minutes. Flash Catalyst is there to bridge gap between Designer & Developer thinking approaches, because with the help of this tool, developer can create exact applications working UI as designed by designer.

Then I decided to attend a session Choosing an Ajax/JavaScript Toolkit: A Comparison of the Most Popular JavaScript Libraries by Marty Hall as a continuation to his keynote session. Marty mentioned about strengths & weaknesses of well know JavaScript libraries such jQuery, Dojo, YUI, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Ext/JS and Google Closure. Finally, he provided a kind of comparison table consisting of questions to decide which one library is good choice in given scenario. Also, suggested mix codes from two different libraries in one project.

Post lunch we had session Working Together to Improve Our Profession a talk about IEEE computer society & Computer Society of India. There aims, ongoing activities, MoU singed between them and certifications offered by them.

Here comes most interesting part of day Great Indian Developer Awards – Season 3 hosted by Renowned and celebrated motivational speaker Priya Kumar. Awards were given to best products by categorizing them in 11 different categories. After award ceremony was over, she started her motivational talks by taking an example of Cricket trivia. “Can India win if 7 run and required in 1 ball, bowler is Wasim Akram and batsman is Sachin Tendulkar”. Audience gave answer like we can win if Wasim bowls a No/Wide ball and Sachin hits six on next ball. After hearing this answer, she said we can control only half part becoming a successful as Sachin can hit six, but other half is controlled y person on whom we event don’t know or can’t control as Sachin can’t ask Wasim to bowl No/Wide  ball. She concluded session by suggesting to keep our hunger going for becoming successful and give best shot to everything you are doing  and do not worry about thing which are beyond our control.

After this decided to attend a session Hadoop – Divide and Conquer by Matthew McCullough.  He started session by saying “Moore’s law has finally hit the wall and CPU speeds have actually decreased in the last few years”. The industry is reacting with hardware with more cores and software that can leverage “grids” of distributed computing resources. He gave detailed explanation of divide and conquers approach and Hadoop implementation of divide & conquers approach. He concluded session by demonstrating complete working Hadoop Implementation.

Then decided to attend session Enriching Cloud Applications with Adobe Flash Platform by Ramesh Srinivasaraghavan.  He started session by giving out definition of Cloud Computing, different style of cloud computing such SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. Advantages of cloud computing from Business & technology perspectives. He concluded session by giving examples of what Adobe Flash Platform can deliver in cloud computing space.

Final session on day I attended was Open Source Web Debugging Tools by Matthew McCullough. He demonstrated usage of tools such as tpdump, curl, Wireshark, JMeter, Firebug, JASH, Poster and SoapUI.

It was day where i learned quite a few new technology stuff, started my journey back to Company guest house and suddenly Rain God started his work, managed to reach at guest house, watch IPL semifinal along with dinner, went to bed to take sound sleep in order to prepare myself for another Technology celebration day !!!