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Florida Tampa Bay

Why you should attend Tampa Code Camp this Saturday

tampa code camp

What’s Tampa Code Camp?

tampa code camp logoTampa Code Camp is an annual community learning event for programmers in the Tampa Bay Area. This year’s edition takes place this Saturday, July 16th at the KForce offices, located just on the edge of Ybor City.

This year, Tampa Code Camp will feature 28 presentations across 4 tracks — cloud, web/mobile, .NET, and miscellaneous and open source — presented by local developers who are volunteering their time to share their knowledge. Tampa Code Camp is free to attend (but you need to register) and provides free donuts in the morning and a free lunch to attendees, thanks to the generosity of its sponsors.

Why should you attend Tampa Code Camp?

hands on laptops

Developer and author of AngularJS in Action Lukas Ruebbelke wrote in What I Wish I Could Tell My Younger Programmer Self that the three things he wishes he could tell his younger self are:

  1. Surround yourself with programmers
  2. Surround yourself with better programmers
  3. The community’s success is your success

He’s right. Learning to program is enhanced when conversing and collaborating with other programmers. It’s even better when you can find peers from whom you can learn, and who challenge to become better (Mom was right — you should choose your friends carefully). And finally, the time and effort you invest into the local developer community often pays off with interest.

For Tampa Bay developers, Tampa Code Camp is a great way to follow Lukas’ advice to his younger self. It’s a great way to meet your industry peers, and from my experience at past code camps, you’ll always find people from whom you can learn. The connections you make at code camps can greatly benefit both your personal and professional life. And finally and most importantly, events like this — events that educate, support, connect, and strengthen the developer community — help to build Tampa Bay’s tech social capital and make it a better place for developers to live and work.

What’s being presented at this year’s Tampa Code Camp?

joe darkoTampa Code Camp opens with a keynote by a person of note. Last year, it was Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who talked about the importance of helping grow Tampa’s technological sector, especially for small businesses and startups.

This year’s keynote speaker is Joe Darko (pictured on the right), Program Manager Evangelist with Microsoft. He’ll open this year’s Tampa Code Camp with a talk about community and what it means to Microsoft.

The day’s 28 technical presentations will start at 9:00 a.m. and will be arranged into four tracks:

  1. Cloud
  2. Web/mobile
  3. .NET
  4. Miscellaneous and open source

A free lunch (usually sandwiches) will be served from 11:50 a.m. to just before 1:00 p.m., and there will be an after-party sometime around 6:00 p.m. at a nearby location to be announced.

Here’s the schedule, broken down by track:

Cloud track

Web/mobile track

.NET track

Miscellaneous and open source track

Who’s behind Tampa Code Camp?

Tampa Code Camp is a volunteer, labor-of-love effort by and for the Tampa Bay developer community. It’s pulled together every year by Greg Leonardo and Kate Leonardo, with the generous help of these sponsors…

…and of course, the presenters and volunteers who help run the event.

How do I sign up to attend Tampa Code Camp?

ohyesitsfree.jpg

Go to Tampa Code Camp’s registration page to register. Please do so — it helps the organizers plan for space, food, and other amenities, and it’s the least you can do since the event is free.

I’ll see you there on Saturday!

Categories
Florida Tampa Bay

Functional Ybor meetup: Functional World Tour (May 31, 2016)

functional ybor

Ybor City is home not just to some great bars, clubs, and restaurants, but also a number of wild urban chickens and roosters. They’re much better than pigeons.

If you’re a programmer looking for something to do tonight in Tampa, I recommend checking out Functional Ybor, part of the Ybor Tech series of meetups run by Tony Winn. Ybor Tech is a gathering that happens twice a month in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood, once in a more formal, presentation-style setting, and once at New World Brewery over beer and pizza. Tonight’s gathering is the more formal, presentation-style one, but if the pattern holds true, we’re very likely to go somewhere in Ybor for beer afterwards.

Tony will be giving tonight’s presentation, titled Functional World Tour. He’ll give us an overview of the most interesting and popular functional languages in use today: Clojure, Scala, Haskell, Erlang, Elixir, Elm (that’s his jam), Scheme, OCaml, and JavaScript (“with some guide rails”). At the end of the talk, he’ll open things up for discussion so that the group can figure out which functional language we’d like to cover in depth over the next several meetings.

robert saunders sr public library

Tonight’s meetup will take place at the Robert Saunders Sr. Public Library, located at 1505 North Nebraska Avenue (just south of 7th Avenue) from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.. It’ll take place in the big meeting room on the second floor. See you there!

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Tampa Bay

Tampa iOS Meetup, Wednesday, May 4th: Adding geolocation to our weather app

adding geolocation to our weather app

The next Tampa iOS Meetup has been announced for Wednesday, May 4th at 6:30 p.m.. This one builds on the previous meetup (but if you missed the last one, we’ll get you caught up) and is called Adding geolocation to our weather app.  It takes place at our usual spot: Energy Sense Finance, 3825 Henderson Boulevard (just west of Dale Mabry), Suite 300.

We’ll pick up from where our last meetup, Build a simple weather app (and learn basic network programming along the way), left off. The app required you to specify your location before it would report the weather. But that’s not how most weather apps work: they use geolocation to get your phone’s coordinates and provide them to the weather service. In this meetup, we’ll show you how to harness the power of iOS geolocation through the Core Location framework.

We’ll begin with a quick walkthrough of last meetup’s weather app, just as a reminder for those of you who were there, and as a way for those of you who weren’t to get caught up. Then we’ll get right into the business of adding geolocation capability to our weather app, so that when you run it, it displays the weather for your location.

At the end of this session, you’ll know how to make use of geolocation through Core Location. We’ll make the source code and presentation materials available at the end, to make it easier for you to start your own geolocation projects.

Join us this Wednesday, get to know your fellow Tampa Bay iOS developers, and get ready to learn and have some fun!

Tampa iOS Meetup is a monthly meetup run by local mobile developer/designer Angela Don and Yours Truly. While Tampa has a couple of great iOS developer meetups — Craig Clayton’s Suncoast iOS and Chris Woodard’s Tampa Bay Cocoaheads, we figured that there was room for a third iOS meetup in the Tampa Bay area, and especially one that would stray into other areas of mobile development. So we made one.

The Details

  • What: Tampa iOS’ Meetup’s “Adding geolocation to our weather app” session. Please sign up on our Meetup page so we can plan accordingly!
  • When: Wednesday, May 4, 2016, 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. We’ll have some snacks at 6:30, with the presentation beginning at 7:00.
  • Where: Energy Sense Finance, 3825 Henderson Boulevard (just west of Dale Mabry), Suite 300. See the map below.
  • What to bring: Yourself, but if you’d like to follow along, bring your Macbook and make sure it’s got the latest Xcode.
  • What to read in advance: If you’re one of those people who likes to do some readings ahead of a presentation, try this example location app written in Swift. We’ll be using our own tutorial material, but this may come in handy.
Categories
Florida Tampa Bay

Tonight at Tampa Bay Startup Week: The Star Wars / Iron Yard Hour of Code!

rey and bb-8
iron yard logo

Tonight, as part of Tampa Bay Startup Week, Anitra and I will be helping the people from the coding school The Iron Yard Tampa Bay with their Hour of Code event! It’s an hour-long training session where kids ages 8 – 12 and teens ages 13 – 17 can get a quick, fun introduction to coding with the help of Rey and BB-8 from The Force Awakens and Princess Leia and R2-D2 from the original trilogy.

Here’s a quick video intro to what the Star Wars Hour of Code’s all about, courtesy of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ producer Kathleen Kennedy and Rachel Rose, lead engineer for Star Wars’ animation and creature development team…

The programming interface that Hour of Code participants use is delightfully simple and fun. They drag and drop “blocks”, which represent calls to functions, to move the droid characters like BB-8 and R2-D2 around, arrange them into sequences which function as programs, and then click the “Run” button to see if their code worked.

It starts off with the simple task of moving BB-8 towards a single piece of scrap metal:

star wars code 01

Click the screenshot to see it at full size.

…but about a dozen lessons later, you’re writing considerably more complex stuff that includes concepts like variables, branches, and loops, and changing droid characters:

star wars code 02

Click the screenshot to see it at full size.

tampa bay wave

If you can make it to tonight’s Hour of Code…

The event takes place tonight at Tampa Bay WaVE, 500 East Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 300 at 6:30 p.m.

If you’d like to have your kid or teen participate in tonight’s event, go to Tampa Bay Startup Week’s event schedule and sign up for the appropriate event. You’ll need to bring a fully-charged laptop (and it’ll be a good idea to bring its power cord) or tablet with working wifi and browser in order to work on the code. It can run Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, or Android — as long as it’s got a relatively recent browser and can connect wireless to the internet, it’ll work for this class.

If you can’t make it to tonight’s Hour of Code…

…you can still code your way through the galaxy by visiting Code.org’s Star Wars site!

code.org star wars

Have fun, and may The Source be with you!

Categories
Florida Tampa Bay

Tampa iOS Meetup, Tuesday, January 19th: Get started with making iOS games with Sprite Kit!

Poster: Get Your Game On! / Getting started with building iOS games in Sprite Kit / Tampa iOS Meetup - Tuesday, january 19, 2016 -- A hodgepodge of iOS gaming-related imagery.

Happy new year, experienced and aspiring iOS developers in the Tampa Bay area!

If you’ve made a new year’s resolution to take up iOS, Swift, or game development in 2016, the upcoming Tampa iOS Meetup topic might be just what you need to get started. It’s called Get Your Game On: Getting Started with Sprite Kit, and it’s taking place in Tampa next Tuesday, January 19, 2016.

Tampa iOS Meetup banner with photo of Joey deVilla and Angela Don in the background.

Tampa iOS Meetup is a monthly meetup run by local mobile developer/designer Angela Don and Yours Truly. While Tampa has a couple of great iOS developer meetups — Craig Clayton’s Suncoast iOS and Chris Woodard’s Tampa Bay Cocoaheads, we figured that there was room for a third iOS meetup in the Tampa Bay area, and especially one that would stray into other areas of mobile development. So we made one.

Tampa iOS Meetup’s next meetup: Get Your Game On!

Icons of iOS games appearing to leap off the screen of an iPhone.

“Games” is the most popular category in the iOS App Store, accounting for 22.5% of active apps. They’re more than twice as popular as the next-most-popular category, business apps. Look in any place where people are waiting these days — in line at the bank or grocery, at public transit stops and airports, cafes and restaurants — and you’ll see people passing the time with a mobile game. Gaming is a basic human activity — we’ve had them since our earliest days, and we’ve had computer games for almost as long as we’ve had computers.

Despite the fact that games are the most-used type of mobile app, there are far fewer game development tutorials than there are for “standard” apps. That’s a pity, because one of the best ways to learn programming is satisfaction, and there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a game you created in action. While games can be complex, the concepts behind them are simple, and some of the most popular games are pretty simple as well. Why not try game development as a way to learn programming, Swift, and iOS?

Animated scene showing 'Flappy Bird' gameplay.

Join us next Tuesday, January 19th at the Tampa iOS Meetup and start the new year by getting your game on!

The Details

  • What: Tampa iOS’ Meetup’s “Get Your Game On” session. Please sign up on our Meetup page so we can plan accordingly!
  • When: Tuesday, January 19, 2016, 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. We’ll have some snacks at 6:30, with the presentation beginning at 7:00.
  • Where: Energy Sense Finance, 3825 Henderson Boulevard (just west of Dale Mabry), Suite 300. See the map below.
  • What to bring: Yourself, but if you’d like to follow along, bring your Macbook and make sure it’s got Xcode 7.2.
  • What to read in advance: If you’re one of those people who likes to do some readings ahead of a presentation, check out the Sprite Kit tutorials on Ray Wenderlich’s site. We’ll be using our own tutorial material, but Ray’s stuff will come in handy.
Categories
Florida Swift Kick Tampa Bay

Share your Swift tips and tricks at this week’s Tampa iOS meetup: Wednesday, November 18!

swift tips and tricks meetup

Hey, Tampa Bay iOS developers — here’s your chance to shine! At the next Tampa iOS Meetup (Wednesday, November 18th at 7:00 p.m.), a monthly gathering run by me and my friend Angela, we’re having a “Swift Tips and Tricks” night, where we’ll take turns sharing tips an tricks that we’ve either discovered on our own or found through others while programming in Swift.

Have you ever wanted to present something at an iOS meetup, but it was on a topic or technique that could easily be covered in ten or even five minutes? Well, this meetup is your chance to be an iOS rock star, as short presentations is what it’s all about! Whether you’ve been building apps since the Objective-C days or picked up Swift a couple of weeks ago, you’ve got knowledge to share with your fellow developers, who in turn have knowledge to share with you! Join us for an evening of demos, information exchange, and that buzz that you get when you’re in a room of smart, interesting people, one of whom is you!

Me and Angela at BarCamp Tampa Bay 2015.

In order to help kick off the event, I’ll start by presenting some tips and tricks that I’ve picked up while working on my own apps, and I’m sure Angela will be doing the same. After that, it’s everyone else! We invite discussions and questions throughout the meetup, as it’s the best way to learn.

Here are the event details:

  • What: Tampa iOS meetup, a new gathering in the area that complements the Suncoast iOS Meetup and Tampa Bay Cocoaheads, both worthwhile gatherings. We want to make sure that if you can’t make one local iOS event, there’ll always be another one in the near future!
  • When: Wednesday, November 18th, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
  • Where: Energy Sense Finance, located at 3825 Henderson Blvd., Suite 300 (just west of South Dale Mabry)
  • If you have a tip or trick that you’d like to present, let us know! Drop us a line in the comments section at the bottom of our Meetup page or email me at joey@joeydevilla.com. We’ll provide a projector, and if you need one, a Mac to present on.
  • We’ll have provide some snacks and drinks. No idea what they’ll be, but I’ll post details as I found out.
Categories
Florida Tampa Bay

Tampa’s OpenHack Ybor meetup: Tonight at Brass Tap!

openhack ybor - new world

OpenHack Ybor’s August gathering at New World Brewery.
Click the photo to see it at full size.

If you’re in the Tampa area tonight and would like to get to know your fellow developers, show off your current passion project, find out what their passion projects are, and enjoy some pizza and beer (or whatever beverage you like) in a friendly, convivial atmosphere, you might want to come to tonight’s OpenHack Ybor meetup!

openhack ybor - new world 2

Another scene from the meetup at New World Brewery.

OpenHack Ybor, held once a month at one of Ybor City’s many beer-dispensing hangouts, is run by local Ruby developer Tony Winn for software developers of all stripes who want to get to know other local developers, see what they’re up to, and enjoy some free pizza. We’ve already had two OpenHack Ybor meetups — the first at the new pub at Coppertail Brewing, and the second at New World Brewery. Tonight’s meetup, which starts at 6:30, takes place at the Brass Tap in Centro Ybor.

centro ybor

Tonight’s meetup location: Brass Tap in Centro Ybor.

If you’d like to attend, RSVP on OpenHack Ybor’s meetup page (there’s no admission, the pizza is free, you’ll have to buy your own beer) so that Tony’s got an idea of how many will be there and can order pizza accordingly. It’s fun, it’s friendly, and it’s one of my go-to geek events. I’ll be there, and I hope to see you there too!

The article also appears in my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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