A Retrospective look at the PRIO09 Conference
This year’s PRIO took place in Munich and was entitled with the rather general term “UI”, which seemed more than convenient for me, being a UI Developer ever since I wrote my first homepage back in 1997.
Taking a look at the program for day one, I knew right away that I wouldn’t get far by following one of the predefined tracks. On the other side, it contained a whole Silverlight track, which I have no use for and could thus discard without further consideration (Same goes for the partner sessions). As a result I hopped between practical and conceptual talks, with a result that was way above my expectations. To mention the day’s hightlights : Mr. Urs Enzler shed some light on how he and his folks implement the single responsibility paradigm in combination with established patterns like M-V-VM, a both informative and important issue. After that I went (or rather stayed) to see and hear Bernd Marquardt, who brilliantly explained what’s currently in stock for writing Multi-threaded UIs and announced his follow-up speech that would explain some of what Microsoft’s new TPL concept will change and hopefully improve.
Eventually, I received insights into AOP and what PostSharp for you in the UI context (thanks to Monsieur Fraiteur, whose original talk could in part have passed for an homage to Mr. Bean) but also why I don’t think I’ll use it in the closer future.
Day two was stuffed with so many interesting abstracts that I actually found it hard to decide which parts to listen to. First of all I was a little sorry I couldn’t visit Jörg Neumann, but there was one topic being discussed at that time that I preferred over his technology shootout: Empinia! It turned out that only five people (including the speaker, the audio technician and Tilman Börner from the dotnetpro) found this issue worth their time, but to me it was one of the most interesting contributions to the whole conference. Thanks to Tobias Schnackenbeck from ibu Hamburg for this concise introduction into the platform.
After that I followed the conceptual track, which offered two speeches by Golo Roden (“Idea to finished UI – for developers”) and Michael Wiedeking (“GUI Design Patterns”). Both were entertaining and pastime and both speakers’ rhetoric skills are outstanding.
Unfortunately my flight schedule forbade me to listen to Mr. Marquardt’s TPL speech, but if it was only half as good as the one the day before, it was brilliant.
As you do on these occasions, I went around and talked to a variety of people (most of which I hadn’t known before) to ask for their impressions. The feedback I collected was all in all not as positive as I would have expected it. The reason for this, nevertheless, is rather obvious. The practical track was most satisfying – developers and code are a winning couple. The conceptual track though was the one where most clarification has been hoped for and where least of it was delivered. Some psycho-analysis, quite a lot of “the user acts like this because humans work like this”, and from time to time even only lukewarm air. It is satisfying, in a way, to hear the speaker say things that are congruent with your thoughts. But if it doesn’t go beyond that (or just gives it a pretty name), e.g. fails to give developers simple hints on simple techniques like visual grouping or anchoring, this will reduce its value dramatically, since you leave the talk with no way around / no tool to fix the everlasting gap between designers and developers.
All in all, the prio was a worthwhile event and can only be recommended!
Taking a look at the program for day one, I knew right away that I wouldn’t get far by following one of the predefined tracks. On the other side, it contained a whole Silverlight track, which I have no use for and could thus discard without further consideration (Same goes for the partner sessions). As a result I hopped between practical and conceptual talks, with a result that was way above my expectations. To mention the day’s hightlights : Mr. Urs Enzler shed some light on how he and his folks implement the single responsibility paradigm in combination with established patterns like M-V-VM, a both informative and important issue. After that I went (or rather stayed) to see and hear Bernd Marquardt, who brilliantly explained what’s currently in stock for writing Multi-threaded UIs and announced his follow-up speech that would explain some of what Microsoft’s new TPL concept will change and hopefully improve.
Eventually, I received insights into AOP and what PostSharp for you in the UI context (thanks to Monsieur Fraiteur, whose original talk could in part have passed for an homage to Mr. Bean) but also why I don’t think I’ll use it in the closer future.
Day two was stuffed with so many interesting abstracts that I actually found it hard to decide which parts to listen to. First of all I was a little sorry I couldn’t visit Jörg Neumann, but there was one topic being discussed at that time that I preferred over his technology shootout: Empinia! It turned out that only five people (including the speaker, the audio technician and Tilman Börner from the dotnetpro) found this issue worth their time, but to me it was one of the most interesting contributions to the whole conference. Thanks to Tobias Schnackenbeck from ibu Hamburg for this concise introduction into the platform.
After that I followed the conceptual track, which offered two speeches by Golo Roden (“Idea to finished UI – for developers”) and Michael Wiedeking (“GUI Design Patterns”). Both were entertaining and pastime and both speakers’ rhetoric skills are outstanding.
Unfortunately my flight schedule forbade me to listen to Mr. Marquardt’s TPL speech, but if it was only half as good as the one the day before, it was brilliant.
As you do on these occasions, I went around and talked to a variety of people (most of which I hadn’t known before) to ask for their impressions. The feedback I collected was all in all not as positive as I would have expected it. The reason for this, nevertheless, is rather obvious. The practical track was most satisfying – developers and code are a winning couple. The conceptual track though was the one where most clarification has been hoped for and where least of it was delivered. Some psycho-analysis, quite a lot of “the user acts like this because humans work like this”, and from time to time even only lukewarm air. It is satisfying, in a way, to hear the speaker say things that are congruent with your thoughts. But if it doesn’t go beyond that (or just gives it a pretty name), e.g. fails to give developers simple hints on simple techniques like visual grouping or anchoring, this will reduce its value dramatically, since you leave the talk with no way around / no tool to fix the everlasting gap between designers and developers.
All in all, the prio was a worthwhile event and can only be recommended!
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