Three New-ish Microsoft Meetups in Cambridge

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With Labor Day (the unofficial end of summer) behind us and the kids - or maybe even yourself – back in school, it’s a good time to re-immerse yourself in the local technical community, and if you’re close to Cambridge there’s no lack of opportunity!   I wanted to call your attention specifically though to three groups that have recently launched (or in one case re-launched) at the New England Research and Development Center (NERD).

Microsoft Dev Boston is the new face (on Meetup.com) of what used to be Beantown.NET.  MVP Ben Day is still a the helm, and he himself is kicking off the rebranded group this Thursday, September 8th.   Looking at the title, this seems like something all developers, Microsoft technologies, Java, and Open Source developers alike could benefit from, and if anyone knows the ins and outs of application lifecycle management, it’s Ben!  Be sure to RSVP so they can have an accurate count for pizza!

"Top 10 Mistakes in Unit Testing".

In this session we review the top 10 ways you can cause unit testing to fail to work for your project. From readability problems and lack of trust to mock object abuse and semi-integration testing -- these gotchas can save you lots of time, sweat, and tears on your current and next projects.

As always, our meeting is open to everyone so bring your friends and co-workers – better yet, bring your boss. If you can, please RSVP by 3pm on the day of the meeting to help speed your way through building security and to give us an idea how much pizza to order

John Zablocki is kicking off Beantown ALT.NET on September 28th, with my colleague Chris Bowen presenting on HTML5 Practices and Adoption. The ALT.NET moniker may strike you as a bit new, but its been around a while with significant presences in DC and New York, from which I’ve shamelessly lifted this description:

What is ALT.NET? 1. You’re the type of developer who uses what works while keeping an eye out for a better way. 2. You reach outside the mainstream to adopt the best of any community: Open Source, Agile, Java, Ruby, etc. 3. You’re not content with the status quo. Things can always be better expressed, more elegant and simple, more mutable, higher quality, etc. 4. You know tools are great, but they only take you so far. It’s the principles and knowledge that really matter. The best tools are those that embed the knowledge and encourage the principles ...then you're in the right place!

The New England Mobile .NET Developers Group, with Michael Bluestein at the helm, officially started things off last month and will meet next on Thursday, September 29th , with Miguel de Icaza as the speaker.  Miguel, of course, is behind Mono (an open-source, cross-platform implementation of C# and the .NET CLR) as well as the MonoTouch and Mono for Android products from Xamarin.