TEK·X
18 - 21 May 2010 at Sheraton Gateway Suites O'Hare Hotel, Rosemont, IL

I thought that this was a very thought-provoking talk providing a clear sense of direction, and it summarized many of the issues that I've been faced to confront. The presentation conveyed a sense of passion that helped get me excited about the ideas.

My inner geek is motivated, excited, and repeatedly says "Right On! Amen brother!", but (if my inner geek has anything negative to say) it's that he's wanting more pramatic advice for those tough situations where complexity sneaks into my design and/or code.

I've dabbled just a bit in Flex (just enough to have some of the basics), and it looks like I'm going to be returning to Flex this summer into fall.

A good overview of "What is Flex (and how to use it)?" (great for the unitiated and a good refresher for me). Then, Keith began actually began stepping us though the coding process, which gave a good fell for the language. This is pretty close to what I'm looking for in a technical talk. I'm wondering if a (brief and transitional) "basics of Flex syntax" (right before jumping into the sample code) might be a future area of improvement?

Keith did a great job engaging the audience, which is is a big accomplishment given the 2-hour length and highly technical subject matter (& coding) that was presented.

Good overview of XDebug. Geared more towards new users or those unfamiliar with the extension, but it was good to see some config options and features that I've overlooked in the past.

In thinking about all the talks during the TEK-X conference, this talk (arguably) came closest to what the ideal talk should be like: it covered basic concepts and theory -- and then followed up with an understandable discussion of how that theory should be implemented. Eli was very engaging and kept me interested during the entire hour.

Good introduction to MongoDB and it's possible applications in the mobile landscape.

rad. clear simple solutions are what we need. sometimes our head is too far into ssh, that we don't make eye contact with our clients. User driven design is certainly a key to professional success and happy users.

Good talk. Got to hear a couple new "we're safe because..." myths.

This was a great talk! I think the importance of simplicity was well outlined by Josh. If you havent seen it, you missed something.

A great talk delivered with passion and inspired one to think a lot more about the topic at hand. A must see/hear talk!

I am sorry to say it so bluntly, but most of the design decisions highlighted in the presentation are 100% misguided.

Using the active record pattern so extensively will advise the trained eye to stay away at all cost. Besides the fact that an application using this pattern is simply unmanageable and unmaintainable, it is almost unthinkable that, in 2010, one would tie so perversely and without any remorse his model to his infrastructure and get away with it.

Also, I simply could not drink the static method Kool-Aid. There are a lot of disadvantages but I'll limit myself to mentioning testing, which you've managed to convince yourselves is possible this unsafe static methods. Again, I apologize for the bluntness but this is 100% wrong. Internal state is preserved between tests and thus, your unit tests are actually hidden integration tests. With a persistent state infiltrating every single test you run on unsafe (mutable) static methods, one can actually order its tests in an ingenious manner in order to make them pass. I am not saying that every single test you wrote is bogus. I am saying that this fails to match even the most basic standards of good practices in unit testing.

That said, I can say that Nate and Joël are two very intelligent guys but my only advice would be to step down the rhetoric and put a little more thought in the design of their framework as it is very flawed and certainly, if I may borrow your very own words, sucks.