Code Idol

I was looking up .NET user groups that I could visit to talk about Grid FX. First up was the Florida .NET user group. When I pulled up the web site, there was a mention of an upcoming code contest that followed the American Idol format, and was cleverly dubbed Code Idol. I saw this and had to enter. It looked like a lot of fun. At first, I was gonna submit a small class that I use internally in our controls. I call it Operation Controller, and I'm gonna post it up at some point because I think it's a great example of abstracting a common problem. Anyway, as the contest approached, I decided to change my entry to something more relevant to the audience at the contest.

I entered something I call "Cache Register", which is basically a distributed .NET caching service that is meant to be used primarily by ASP.NET applications for removing the infamous ViewState hidden field and delivering dynamic images. There was one feature in particular that offloads any image processing from the UI thread to the cache service. This feature makes an obvious difference in performance. What's even cooler is that we provide this kind of technology with our products...we call it PSS. Maybe one day we'll turn it into full fledged product rather than an internal piece of our products.

Despite taking way too long and starting off way too slowly, I won! I think that showing some nifty multithreading code might have tipped the scales. Perhaps not. Either way, I was really happy. Other guys had great entries and I learned some really cool new stuff. I wish there was a similar contest at a bigger level. Then I can be like the little girl who wins the local town beauty pageant and wants to leave and become Miss America.

I had a good time and will be attending future meetings. Hopefully they'll let me give a regular presentation about Grid FX. I think that instead of focusing on the product, I'll focus on one specific technology area, like viewstate, css, ajax, control designers, etc. That will be a lot more fun and beneficial for the group...and for me.

Below is a copy of the results. Also, the group leader, Dave, posted the results on his blog. Thanks Dave!

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CODE IDOL RESULTS!

All the code Idols did a great job. In the end, mostly by popular vote, Steve Potter won the "Top Geek" title.
I'm sure we will see more of Steve as he is very interested in presenting at future meetings!
Thanks to the code idol contestants:

Steve Potter - Cache Register
Jonas Strawski - SQL Server as Document Repository
Lou Yovin - Volume Shadow Copy
Tim Corbett - System Tray App
Louis Datz - dashCommerce
Martin Anderson - XML Schemas and powershell
Max Trinidad - Powershell script to create CSV file

Thanks to Shervin Shakibi for the concept and being a judge, MC and judge Dave Noderer and Jeff Barnes of Microsoft who was the "Mystery Judge".