From Silicon Valley Code Camp 2010, Part I.

Prologue

This year's 2-day Silicon Valley Code Camp 2010 is characterized by 9 tracks, 194 sessions and 3040 registrants. This is quite a huge undertaking, considering that it is run entirely by volunteers. Although sponsored by a lot of big name companies, I'd say that one company that is conspicuously absent is Apple.

A good part of the organization of the camp is the manner in which volunteers were solicited: It was very easy for anyone to sign up on the web for one or more of ~1.5-hour slots; I volunteered for the registration hour on both days, prior to the actual conduct of the sessions.

Foothill College is on a nice campus.

I chose the sessions I attended with no particular intent of following any one track fully.

Day 1

The session on Introducing Google APIs Part-I (A-Z & Geo) was very informative regarding the enormity of application level services provided by Google, more than about 80 sets of APIs. In particular, the utility of Fusion Table was nicely brought out.

In the session on Sencha Touch: Amazing Mobile Web Apps with HTML5, CSS3 & JavaScript, David Kaneda described the Sencha Touch application development framework product that enables mobile development for touch-enabled devices using primarily HTML5, CSS3 & JavaScript. This method may see considerable success because of the simplicity it affords the mobile application developer: No significant knowledge of anything other than those three. (There is another similar framework in this space, namely Appcelerator's Titanium). David also explained Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets (SASS) and the Compass framework that together contribute to greater fun in dealing with style sheets. He mentioned, or recommended, use of PhoneGap to prepare the Sencha Touch app for the Apple Store for iPhone apps.

In one of the last sessions of the day, Tab Atkins Jr. provided one of the most engaging sessions I attended on the 1st day. Starting with an overview of the new elements in HTML5, he went on to provide rather unique capabilities that HTML5 brings to a web page.

I can only look forward to tomorrow.