THE GAME THAT NEVER WAS…

by @roganflitton

WHO AM I ?

A child of the 80s.(B.Com Informatics at RAU

Johannesburg)

I’M A DEVELOPER

With – 13 years of experience

In - SQL Server

ASP.NET MVCC#

TECHNICAL TEAM LEAD

...is my current role.

I “used” to write more code. Now -

I write specifications.I mentor.

I make coffee.

We LOVE building software. Seriously.

But more seriously, We’re driven by the potential of

elegant,intelligent design

to solve business and social problems.

We’re also Microsoft-focused.(And you can interrogate me about that later.)

BUT…

This talk is less about New Media Labs and what we do and how cool we are...

It’s about me,and how I’m a lot like you.

SPECTRAVISION MSI-738

1986Rom Cartridges Cassette tapes

64 KB RAMBasic ProgrammingGames like Frogger

and Chucky Egg

Chuckie Egg

Frogger

OLIVETTI M240

1990MS-DOS

386 processorGames like Police Quest and Space

Quest

Police Quest

Space Quest

AT THE AGE OF 11

A friend and I decided to develop our own computer game.

“Escape From School”

…BUT UNFORTUNATELY

It was The Game that never was.

LIFE MOVED ON

We forgot about it.We grew older.

We started high school.

HIGH SCHOOL

Programmed in Turbo Pascal.DOS based IDE + Programming

Language.Learnt basic programming concepts.

From this…

80s baby!

...to this.

90s rock!

UNIVERSITY(B.Com Informatics)

I learntVB 6 / Classic ASP

MS Access

My 3rd Year ProjectOnline Booking System for a wedding

venue

FIRST JOB(Junior Developer at Hollard Insurance)

Had never used SQL Server before.Had never written a stored procedure

before.

I felt very overwhelmed…

FIRST 2 YEARS

Honed my SQL Server skills.Triggers, Stored Procs and Functions

Learnt C#.Predominantly worked within a windows forms environment.

THE NEXT 4 YEARS

Worked in London and Brussels.ASP.NET and Windows Forms.

Started learning the importance of Software Design Patterns.

PATTERNS

General reusable solutions to a commonly occurring problem within a

given context.

Example: MVCRepository Pattern

BENEFITS OF PATTERNS

ReusableTried and Tested

Best PractiseEasy to learn

LAST 6 YEARS

Joined New Media Labs.Focused on ASP.NET and Web.

Continued learning and using Patterns (MVC, Repository Pattern).

Object-Relational Mappings (ORM).

ORM

Object-Relational MappingCreate objects that map to your

relational database.CRUD

“Virtual object database” that can be used in your code:

Nhibernate.NET Entity Framework

Linq2SQL

BENEFITS OF ORMS

ProductivityCode Reuse

Application MaintainabilityGood Design PATTERN

THE REST IS HISTORY

13 YEARS AGO

I was sitting in a lecture hall much like this one

B.COM INFORMATICS

Analysis and design using UMLProject Management

ProgrammingDatabase Design

3rd year project that solves a real world problem

Not much has changed, right?

…OR HAS IT?

WHO KNOWS WHAT THIS IS?

HANDS FREE

AND A CAMERA

WHICH WOULD WIN?

FALLS TO THE FLOOR

Breaks the screen Breaks the floor

CHUCK NORRIS

Approves the NOKIA 3310

BOTTOM LINE

Things have changed in the last 12 years

“Nothing is permanent except change.”

Heraclitus of Ephesus Greek philosopher

13 YEARS AGO

HotmailMsn Messenger

No facebookNo Google

TODAY

GoogleFacebook

TwitterInstagramYoutube

WEB API

Application programming interfaceEasy to useFree to use

So use them!

FACT

Students and Professionals starting out today have so much more at their

fingertips than I did!

TODAY

Stack OverflowBitbucketCodeplexXamarin

UnityAzure

IN HINDSITE

If I was a student today and I had an idea I wanted to implement, or a game

I wanted to develop

I’d have the resource I need at my finger tips

ESCAPE FROM SCHOOL

Asked Stack overflow howCoded it with Unity

Kept my source code safe with Bitbucket or Github

Used Jira to plan development sprintsHosted its website on Azure

Developed a mobi app with Xamarin

CONCLUSION

There are a TON of resources at your disposal, so:

PlayBuildLearn

And Enjoy Yourselves.

THANK YOU

@roganflitton