CodePaLOUsa: Day Two
Created: 17 March 2012 Modified:Today we started off with a key note speech by Billy Hollis. Essentially learn and remain flexible else you’ll end up in tar pits with the rest of the dinosaurs. Mr Hollis of course said it better and in more depth:) He also had some nice points about software usability and design. Which tied into the point about dinosaurs in that he thinks an industry shift centered on user experience and design will kill off the careers of current industry professionals.
Mike Amundsen gave a lecture on Representational State Transfer (REST) which was well done. I now understand the origins and goals of REST. One of my points of confusion with REST has been how do RESTful web services differ significantly from SOAP Web Services. Fortunately Stackoverflow came to the rescue as it so often does:) Now whether or not the difference is significant would be an argument for another time.
While it was perhaps least relevant to me personally the best lecture of the day goes to Joshua Rosenthol’s lecture on building a startup and having an exit plan. I was pretty impressed with his pointed lecture, his knowledge of the subject and his credentials. Mr. Rosenthal’s covered many points but the most critical was to find a business need that you can solve. Preferably this should be done with analytics to maximize the return on yours and others investment. Technology is a means to an end not an end in itself. Good business may lead to success in spite of bad technology but good technology will not succeed in spite of bad business.
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