Speaking at Flex Camp Chicago 2009

Flex Camp Chicago 2009 starts my speaking engagements for the year.  Last year I had around 20 engagements and so by the time it was December, I had decided to take holidays fairly seriously. I opted out of anything that had to do with a conference in the last month and did not travel at all. Now that the New Year has begun a couple of weeks back, its time to get back to mingle and meet the community. To continue to learn and to continue to spread knowledge.

Flex Camp Chicago 2009

My first stop is at Chicago — sort of my home turf. Although, I live in New York, Chicago is where my company is based out of and where I frequently visit for work. Its a Flex Camp again and this time its larger and bigger than last year — its over 2 days (Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd) and has a lot more speakers, attendees, sponsors, supporters and organizers. Like last year, its also Sold Out in advance.

The event starts with fundamentals on day 1 and quickly graduates to fairly advanced topics on Day 2. I speak on both days. On day 1 I cover my favorite topic of integrating Flex with server side technologies. In 50 minutes, I talk about getting Flex to work with Java and PHP. Its ambitious to squeeze such a big topic into a 50 minutes session but then its about the fundamentals. Although that does not mean there wouldn’t be any details. Its just that we will not talk about all the numerous topics that relate to integration but just stick to what’s most essential. Moreover in support is the fact that the essential styles of connecting Flex to a server side doesn’t really change that much with the varying platforms. Mechanisms are different, tools are different but the philosophy is pretty much the same.  If you want to dig right into the details then reading my book (Advanced Flex 3) may help. I have an entire section on integration and it has a lot of details on wiring Flex with Java, PHP and even Ruby-on-Rails. My publishers are generous to giveaway a few books to the Flex Camp attendees. I plan to dole out some on Day 1 and some on Day 2. If you are attending the event and you are lucky you will have that book for free in your hands before this week ends.

On Day 2 I delve into performance tuning Flex 3 applications. For advanced developers, I know its going to be one of the most exciting topics. I receive numerous emails about tuning Flex applications and have endeavoured into seriously playing with Flex performance criteria for some of the wonderful enterprise grade projects we have built and for the book Advanced Flex 3, which also happens to contain a chapter on the same topic: Tuning Flex Applications for Superior Performance.

Apart from my sessions, there are numerous other exciting and thorourghly enriching sessions. Speaker include:

• the three musketers from Digital Primates — Michael Labriola, Mike Nimer and Jeff Tapper, who I much regard and enjoy hanging out with
• the RIA Cowboy — my dear friend James Ward
• the Merapi wonderkids — Adam Flater and Dave Meeker
• my co-author and dear friend Elad Elrom
• the always helpful Chicago Flex group organizer — Michael Epstein

In addition Kevin Hoyt (who is well know both in the JavaScript/Ajax and Flash/Flex communities) and Kevin Schmidt (who I have not met yet but am looking forward to meet) are also speaking.

More than the experienced speakers, are the 150 odd enthusistic Flex developers and Flex lovers who I will also have a chance to meet and talk with.

So I certianly hope to have a lot of fun and if you are coming to the event then hope you have a lot of fun too.