With 10 Web Camps now behind us including Toronto, Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore, London, Munich, Mountain View and Chicago – we’ve seen some really cool applications being built by teams on Day 2. For those of you who come to future Web Camps, I wanted to share some tips that came from the most successful teams with the best apps:
- Come to Web Camp with an idea. Have you had an idea in your head for a while and not had time to build it yet? This is the perfect opportunity for you to team up with some devs and get it built – all with experts on hand to help you through.
- KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid. Sometimes the most simple ideas are the best and those teams that kept their ideas basic actually had a really professional looking app at the end of Day 2. Remember you only have a limited amount of time, so use it wisely.
- Keep your team small. The most successful teams were from between 2-6 people in size. Larger teams found it hard to get things done and spent to much time “designing everything by committee”.
- Get your machine ready before Web Camp. Don’t waste time on Day 2 getting your machine installed with the tools and framework you need to build. Spend some time ahead of Web Camps getting the latest bits from the Web Platform Installer so you are ready to get going on Day 2. Also – remember the quality of wireless internet varies widely from venue to venue and we can’t always promise great connectivity – don’t rely on this for large downloads.
- Decide how you will share code. It doesn’t matter how you are going to share code in your team, just make sure you decide at the start how you are going to do it. We’ve seen people using their own switch and network cables, USB sticks, Git, Mercurial etc.
- Develop Iteratively. Break down your application into bite-size chunks and do hour long sprints to get stuff built. Planning this way will help you to set realistic, achievable goals for your team and make sure you a working app to demo at the end of Day 2.
- Make it look good. A little bit of “sheen” goes a long way – some teams used good looking templates for their application to make them stand out from the other apps. A cool logo and nice colors are something you can add towards the end of the day.
- Use the knowledge from Day 1. There are prizes available for the best apps and the judges are looking for the best use of the technology you learned about on Day 1. Using the latest Microsoft Web Platform bits will not only impress the judges but help you to learn how to use it more effectively!
- Use Web Application Toolkits. There are 10 of these for helping you to quickly solve common web developer problems. Be sure to take advantage of them as they will greatly increase the speed of development adding cool features to your app.
- Prep your demo. Make sure your laptop can connect to the projector ahead of time, have the machine on and ready to go so you avoid any awkward silences while you fumble around getting the project to work
. You only have 5 minutes so make sure you nail all the features that your app has and the problems that it solves. Also remember to highlight the features of the Microsoft Web Platform that you took advantage of.
So there you go – ten tips to success! Happy Building!
If you are new to Web Camps here’s some information on what they are:
Interested in learning how new innovations in Microsoft's Web Platform and developer tools like ASP.NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 can make you a more productive web developer? If you're currently working with PHP, Ruby, ASP or older versions of ASP.NET and want to hear how you can create amazing websites more easily, then register for a Web Camp near you today!
Microsoft's Web Camps are free, two-day events that allow you to learn and build on the Microsoft Web Platform. At camp, you will hear from Microsoft experts on the latest components of the platform, including ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, jQuery, Entity Framework, IIS, Visual Studio 2010 and much more.