Chicago Coder Conference Day 1

Today was the first day of the Chicago Coder Conference. This was my first tech conference so I wasn't sure what to expect. Fortunately for me, a friend of mine from my Java study group was willing to go also and it made things much easier.

The conference opened with keynote speaker Mike Evans talking about starting Grub Hub. He encouraged developers to also try to be entrepreneurs and talked about the path he took and some obstacles and lessons learned.

The first session of the day was with Mark Lassoff of Learntoprogram.tv. He talked about visual literacy and how to make websites and color schemes more appealing. He went over using color patterns and white space as well as how to use images to match your target audience. He added humor to his talk and it was easy to follow along with and understand his content.

The second session of day 1 was "Hacking the Coding Interview" with Dushyant Srikant. This session overview referenced talking about the coding interview process. It was more aimed at the interviewer and not the interviewee. He talked about taking into consideration problem solving qualities as well as how a person would fit into a diverse team over just solving coding challenges.

Session three was "Scope, Time, and Resources" with Mike Evans/GrubHub founder. He talked about how time and resources are less able to be negotiable and how scope often takes the hit when deadlines are coming close.

The fourth session was by Dennis Ellis and was called "The Checkbox that Ruined my Life." Here he went over manipulative design and how we are all responsible not to let these designs that hurt people out into the world. He talked about how casinos intentionally design software to keep you playing. How they removed the lever to pull on the slot machine since it is easier to repetitively press a button and how they stopped the machines from releasing coins since many people would leave after winning a bunch of money. He mentioned even the simplest choices we make may have unintended consequences. The checkbox he was speaking of in the title was one that automatically chose the minimum payment on a credit card which is not an ideal situation for a paying customer.

The last session of day one was SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies with Kyle Williams. Here he went over how page rank is now used and how the more people who link to your site the better ranking it will get with Google and other search engines. He talked about how important it is to have your webpages disability friendly and how to validate them.