Code Camp Submission–Escaping SharePoint

At the January Philly.net meeting, I presented a Quick Tips session based on the SharePoint LINQ post.  I started with a quick impromptu survey.  How many people used LINQ, how many use SharePoint and how many use both? The first 2 groups were about 25-30% of the crowd.  I was surprised that there was no one in the last group.  Not only did it calm my nerves seeing that I was sharing something new, but about half the audience had some level of connection to my talk. 

While it was not bad for a first time in front of a large group, I realize I have a lot to improve.  I just need to volunteer for more opportunities to speak.

In reviewing the talk over the following week, I thought that the underlying topic could do with some additional exploration.  The premise is that SharePoint is a web-based technology built on the .net Framework and hosted on IIS.  .net Developers build applications everyday using these same technologies.  What tools are available to the .net Developer that can also allow the SharePoint developer to work more effectively or to provide enhanced functionality not available by solely using the SharePoint namespace?

I came up with a list of examples that would work nicely in a talk where I could walk through the implementation and show lots of code.  Eager to get back on stage again, I signed up for Philly Code Camp with the title, Escaping SharePoint: Exploring web and .net based technologies to improve your SharePoint solutions.  Yeah, it needs to be shorter, but there is still time to change it.

Here is the working list of topics

• Integrating third party web controls into application pages and webparts.
• Accessing .net framework to go beyond what you can do with SPList and SPQeury objects.
• Using jQuery to enhance the functionality of your webpages.
• Exploring Knockout.js for accessing REST data.
• Integrating dynamic stylesheet language for custom branding

I’m thinking 5 topics would be ideal as I can spend 15 minutes on each with intro and outro to round out the 80 minutes.  I am still looking for examples so I can see this list evolving over the next couple of weeks until I need to finalize the talk.

Of course, I still need to have the talk accepted.   

In the meantime, I will work on my presentation skills.