Totally a mixed bag. Some of the presenters knew what they were talking about (Gary Blatt on SharePoint, BAH), some had no clue at all ([you know who you are] on SQL Best Practices).
Gary Blatt convinced me to attend his presentation on 3 ways to build a [SharePoint] GUI over the free breakfast (bagle & cream cheese + coffee). Gary, though knowledge about WebPart creation (and the many pitfalls a developer encounters dealing with SharePoint), recommends against using SmartPart (though he hadn't even heard of Son of SmartPart). I pressed him on it a number of times, and poked fun. He was just as jovial in return. Unfortunately, he was not able to provide any concrete reasons why you wouldn't want to use SmartPart.... having it all come down to a gut reaction I guess.
Pro's & Con's of SmartPart by Gary Blatt
- Quick & Easy
- Don't have to know
- Difficult to maintain [???]
I totally disagree that's its difficult to maintain, and he was unable to back that up (I guess he wasn't prepared to get static :).
Well, let me put it this way for all you SharePoint snobs: Remember when windows seemed too fancy? Remember when real develepers only built for DOS? That whole windows things is just for users who don't understand computers right? It will never catch on, right? Serious computer afficionados wouldn't be caught dead using windows. Right, WordPerfect?
Get the point? SmartPart makes SharePoint development easier. Why would you want to make it harder for yourself? Me, I'm going to use every tool at my disposal. [Shh... but I even used FrontPage on my customer's portal. Trust me, SharePoint's crappy html left me no choice. BTW, somebody shoot the retarded kid who put that HTML together. I mean seriously!]
Back to the codecamp review...
Unfortunately, there was no coding as I thought (so laptops not required), and though there were plenty of powerpoints - there were plenty of demos and code sample walkthroughs.
Best thing about a Richmond Codecamp? Hotties coming in for some random class.
Worst thing about a Richmond Codecamp? No internet access!