I’ll be attending Codemash this year—and here are a few of the sessions I’m going to try to make it to. If you’re going to be there and want to mash, let me know!

The People vs JavaScript

Leon Gersing & Scott Walker • Precompiler, Wednesday, 8:30am

Extra, Extra! Read all about it! JavaScript: menace to society or Robin Hood, language of the people? JavaScript has been arrested on multiple charges for crimes against humanity! CodeMash 2012 will be the location for the world’s first trial against JavaScript. Hear testimony from experts and key witnesses from the community as the facts of JavaScript’s history and actions are recreated in excruciating detail. The Prosecution team faces off against the Developer Attorney General as they present their prospective cases for you, the jury, to help you make the ultimate decision in this contentious and polarizing case. You have been selected to serve as jury in this trial. You will be presented evidence from every angle in this compelling case. You will recreate famous crime scenes from locations in Browserland, Mobile Park and the seedy under belly of Cloud City with your fellow jurors. It’s up to you to see every angle in this case, through its twists and turns, to see fact from fiction, in order to render a verdict in the Trial of the Century.

It’s the Little Things

Brad Colbow • Thursday, 9:45am

In design the user experience is paramount and getting the little details right can make a huge difference. In this presentation Brad talks about his experience designing interfaces for mobile devices and looking at how little changes can have a big impact on how we use them. You will be introduced to the world of human interface guidelines for mobile devices. What can we learn by comparing and contrasting the guidelines of these mobile players and how can we incorporate it into our apps and websites? What are the main differences in developing for these platforms and what do user experience designers need to take into account before starting a project? Should you focus on building an app or make your website mobile friendly instead?

Building Windows 8 Applications with HTML 5 and jQuery

Rich Dudley • Thursday, 11:00am

One of the many new advances in Windows 8 is the ability to create Windows applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. In this session, we’ll take a look at the Windows 8 technology stack on which these applications run, how HTML/CSS/JS apps actually run, and discuss the implications of the different ways to utilize third party libraries such as jQuery. We’ll then migrate an MVC application which utilizes jQuery into a Metro-style application. By the end of this session, you’ll have a solid idea of what it means to have a Metro-style application built with web technologies.

Hands-On Responsive and Adaptive Web Design

Ben Callahan • Thursday, 1:45pm

This session will be a hands-on walk through of the latest responsive and adaptive web design techniques. Attendees will walk away with a working knowledge of how to implement a responsive front-end on their sites. Particular attention will be given to ensuring that sites are built responsibly (for example, proper image sizes are served to the device). Additionally, the session will cover techniques that can be used on the server in combination with client-side technologies to offer a more seamless user experience. Specific topics covered: - fluid grids - flexible media (images/video/…) - media queries - polyfills - useful resources - effective testing Because this topic is so new, the specifics will certainly change as we approach the conference date. Never fear, I’ll make sure that the content presented is fresh and current as well as easy to understand and applicable.

Blazing Fast Backend Services using Node.js and MongoDB

Mark Gustetic • Thursday, 3:35pm

This presentation will introduce Node.js and MongoDB, showing you how to use the two together to create a backend service. Following a brief introduction, we’ll talk about ways to get started using these technologies by creating small, non-critical services. We’ll also discuss the installation and popular Node.js modules, creating a logging solution, and finally load test a Rails application using these technologies.

Database Migrations for Web Applications

Colin Bowern • Thursday, 4:50pm

How do you deploy database changes with your web application today? Are you still rolling scripts by hand to move your database from one version to the next? In this session we will take a look at how to manage database schema changes in your web application through exploring the change lifecycle. We will take first version application and walk through the upgrade process showing you the tools and techniques needed to keep your schema changes reliable and consistent.

Bring the Users: Integrating UX into Your Organization

Carol Smith • Friday, 9:30am

User Experience (UX) can be surprisingly difficult to bring into organizations. This session will give you the facts to back up your convictions. Carol will provide you with clear and convincing responses to tough questions about UX and usability methods. You’ll leave with facts about the Return on Investment (ROI) of UX, how to respond to UX skeptics, and how to turn your entire team into usability evangelists.

Dealing with Information Overload

Scott Hanselman • Friday, 10:45am

As developers, we are asked to absorb even more information than ever before. More APIs, more documentation, more patterns, more layers of abstraction. Now Twitter and Facebook compete with Email and Texts for our attention, keeping us up-to-date on our friends dietary details and movie attendance second-by-second. Does all this information take a toll on your psyche or sharpen the saw? Is it a matter of finding the right tools and filters to capture what you need, or do you just need to unplug. Is ZEB (zero email bounce) a myth or are there substantive techniques for prioritizing your live as a developer? Join Scott Hanselman as we explore this topic… perhaps we’ll crowd-source the answers!