In the next meeting of the Chicago ALT.NET users group we will try an Open Space format — or rather maybe I should say a format with some characteristics of Open Spaces given our time and space constraints.

If you haven't been to a meeting held in this format, maybe you think this sounds crazy. I'd encourage you to see it for yourself. The meeting will be on March 11^th.

Open Space

6:00 pm
Pizza and networking time

6:30 pm

This month we will have an Open Space-inspired meeting. Open Spaces are considered an effective meeting layout to find solutions to problems that would benefit from a wide range of opinions.

We don't have enough time to do a full-blown Open Spaces event so we will cut some corners. Here's the plan:

• If you have a software development issue (code, design, process, human, etc) that you can't seem to figure out on your own or within your immediate team, bring to the meeting.
• We will have a few minutes for participants to announce their problem and put on the board
• Since we only have time for one session, we all will vote to choose the issue we will discuss
• The issue "author" is expected to facilitate and stir the discussion
• The group can decide the format of the session (panel, fishbowl, moderated, etc)

If the session, for whatever reason, ends too soon we can pick another issue to discuss.

So, come ready with some issue, willing to participate in the discussions, or even just to watch others tackle the problem.

After an unfortunate cancelation of our last meeting because of the weather, February's meeting of the Chicago ALT.NET Group should be a very interesting one.

Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin looks into XP's rearviewmirror, lessons learned, and the current status of Agile development.

XP: After 10 years, why are we still talking about it?

6:00 pm
Pizza and networking time

6:30 pm

It has been 10 years since Extreme Programming broke upon our industry. In that time we have seen the rise of the Agile movement, and the gold rush for Scrum certification. We have seen the concept of testing do a complete reversal in emphasis; and shift away from heavy planning. But what have we learned? Do we really all program in pairs? Do we really all write our tests first? Do Agile projects really fare better than others? Do we have enough data now to separate the truth from the myth? And why, after all this time, does it still dominate our conferences and conversations. Isn't there something new to talk about?

Robert C. Martin has been a software professional since 1970. In the last 35 years, he has worked in various capacities on literally hundreds of software projects. He has authored "landmark" books on Agile Programming, Extreme Programming, UML, Object-Oriented Programming, and C++ Programming. He has published dozens of articles in various trade journals. Today, He is one of the software industry's leading authorities on Agile software development and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows. He is a former editor of the C++ Report and currently writes a monthly Craftsman column for Software Development magazine.

Mr. Martin is the founder, CEO, and president of Object Mentor Incorporated. Object Mentor is a sister company to Object Mentor International. Like OMI, Object Mentor is comprised of highly experienced software professionals who provide process improvement consulting, object-oriented software design consulting , training, and development services to major corporations around the world.

7:45 pm

Let's use the discussion time to go over the group topics that were planned for last meeting, which had to be canceled.

• What worked well and what didn't in 2008
• What direction should we take with our group
• Viability of our group organizing a CodeCamp soon
• Global ALT.NET participation: as suggested in this message

If you want to help define our meetings format and group actions, then come and help us in this discussion.

Due to scheduling problems we had to delay this announcement more than we would like to. But we will still have our monthly meeting on Wednesday, January 14^th.

Planning for 2009

6:00 pm
Pizza and networking time

6:30 pm
We had a guest speaker for this month's meeting but unfortunately we had to change plans at the last minute.

Instead of that we will use the opportunity to do some group housekeeping.

• What worked well and what didn't in 2008
• What direction should we take with our group
• Viability of our group organizing a CodeCamp soon
• Global ALT.NET participation: as suggested in this message

If you want to help define our meetings format and group actions, then come and help us in this discussion.

7:45 pm
We have skipped the open discussion portion of our meetings last couple of times. This time, after we cover the items in the agenda, let's make sure we reserve some time for this activity.

There's a chance we have someone from Red Point lead a discussion about Agile development.

We'll update this description if we receive confirmation or not of the Agile discussion.

Next week I'll be speaking at the Lake County .NET Users' Group, in Grayslake, IL. The topic will be something that is near and dear to me and which I have talked and written about quite a number of times.

If you live in the North 'burbs, come and support our local group. You can register for this event here.

JavaScript - Beyond the Curly Braces

One of the greatest problems with JavaScript is its superficial syntax resemblance of C-style languages. We call it the curse of the curly braces.

That is also a very large source of frustration for developers trying to learn JavaScript beyond the basics. Thinking that JavaScript is somehow related to Java or even "It's almost like C# but a little simpler" is an unfortunate and common occurrence that can only lead to trouble.

In this session we will analyze some of the fundamental differences between JavaScript and C#/Java. We will highlight the pitfalls that can trap us and the appropriate workarounds for them.

Time permitting and if there's interest we will take a look at Idiomatic JavaScript, which will help us understand how JavaScript is being written these days. Learning about this will also help you when trying to read the source code or even the documentation and samples for popular JavaScript libraries like jQuery, Prototype, YUI, etc.

For this month's of meeting we will be doing something we had been thinking about for a while. With so many members that always bring interesting contributions to our meetings, we will just have an open projector night. I'm looking forward to this one.

Lightning Talks

6:00 pm
Pizza and networking time

6:30 pm
We do not have a set topic for this month. Instead we chose to have lightning talks where anyone can sign up on the spot for a 10 to 20-minute demonstration or presentation about anything he/she considers interesting.

This can also be a nice opportunity if you have never talked to a group and would like to try a short version first.

There's no agenda set for the talks to be given but here are a few that were already proposed by someone.

• LINQ to SQL
• AOP in MVC
• XmlBuilder

If you want to talk, just show up. If you want to include your talk in this page, let us know.

7:45 pm
You may want to stick around after the presentation portion of the meeting and take part in our monthly open discussion. The topic is never arranged in advance but it's common that it reflects the content of the presentation.