App Building Made Easier: Step 1

In the last few posts, hopefully I’ve been able to plant a seed in your head about training – learning new technologies and skills – as a hobby rather than trying to do it through work (unless you can, of course, which would make it that much more efficient!). I talked about training through real experiences and how building and publishing apps is a means by which you can gain those real experiences but also how published apps act as your ongoing resume to show people what you can do. I promised you that I would do my best to make all of that as easy and as efficient (fast) as possible to do. Here’s one towards that promise. Enjoy.

In this first of 6 Developer Movement camps, you'll get just enough Windows Store, Windows Phone, and Windows Azure knowledge to know where you'll feel most comfortable and where you'll be able to get the most number of apps done (and therefore rack up the most number of Developer Movement points!). By the end of this camp, you'll also know which platform peeks your interest, where you feel most comfortable, and which areas you’ll want to dig deeper to help in implementing the features of your apps.

	Introductions/A Little Bit About The Developer Movement Jonathan Rozenblit Learn a bit about the Developer Movement and the camps in the series.
	Building Windows 8/Store Apps Atley Hunter So you've heard of this thing called Windows 8.  You've heard of Windows Store apps that utilize Microsoft's distinctive Modern UI. You think that it's an intriguing, new platform for apps and you want to know how to get started building your Windows Store apps.  Then this is the session for you.  In this session we will go over our new app platform known as WinRT, how to get started learning Windows Store app development and examples on how you actually build Windows Store apps.  By the end of this session, you will be prepared to dive deep into the development model (JavaScript with HTML/CSS, C#/VB/C++ with XAML or C++ with DirectX) that best suits your interests, complete with the right resources to get you across the finish line.
	Building a Windows 8 UI Atley Hunter Windows 8 introduces a new and ready-to-use set of user interface controls to help create beautiful Windows Store apps quickly. Learn about these powerful and highly flexible controls and how to use them to implement the common patterns that deliver great apps.
	Building Windows Phone Apps Lori Lalonde This overview session will cover the basic concepts of building a Windows Phone application, giving you a basic understanding of the Windows Phone platform from a developer's perspective, and providing you with the knowledge you need to start developing apps.
	Code Once and Share Alnur Ismail As you build Windows Store apps or Windows Phone 8 apps, you want to plan future – why build on one of the platform when you can target both platform with a little bit of thinking and designing ahead of time. In this session you'll see how you can organize your code such that you can share the code and logic behind the scenes and then only have to create separate UIs for the Phone and PC.
	That Which Connects Them All Bruce Johnson Now that you're thinking multi-platform, it's time to think about how you're going to store data and share data across your apps. Or maybe you're building some functionality that you want more apps to use, not just the ones that you're developing. Well that functionality and that data has to go somewhere. In this session you'll see how the Cloud satisfies this, plus many other app needs.
	A Backend For Your App In Minutes Bruce Johnson Functionality and data are just two backend needs of apps. In this session, you'll discover different services that are available to you for structured data, integrated authentication, push notifications, logging, and more, and while you may think that such functionality would take hours to implement, it can actually be done in a few minutes.
	Live Q&A Jonathan Rozenblit Host Jonathan Rozenblit fields questions from the chat.

MSDN Benefits

In case you didn’t already know, if you are an MSDN subscriber, you have benefits that are included with your MSDN subscription to get you 12-month developer accounts for both the Windows Store and the Windows Phone Store. Login to your MSDN members area and you’ll see the instructions on how to activate those benefits. You also get Windows Azure benefits as part of your MSDN subscription, so make sure you activate that as well if you’re looking to add a Cloud backend to your apps (which, as Bruce mentions in That Which Connects Them All is absolutely crucial to the continued growth and success of your apps).

Developer Mentors

Don’t forget that you have access, through the Developer Movement, to Developer mentors who can help you get started, give you suggestions on how to implement the features you want in your apps, troubleshoot with you if you run into any hurdles, and make recommendations to help you give your app’s users the best experience possible. To get yourself a developer mentor (and no, there is no cost for the mentors. They are experts in the Canadian developer community that just want to help you build awesome apps), I have all of the details for you here.

Go!

So there you go, something to play around with this weekend. Give it a try and see how it goes. If there’s something that you’d like to learn more about, is of particular intrigue, or something that you’re stuck on, let us know. Start a new discussion in the Canadian Developer Connection group on LinkedIn and let myself, the Developer Mentors, and others in the Canadian developer community help you. If you have questions from a specific session, post them right on the session page, and we’ll make sure to answer them for you.

Have a great (and productive app building) weekend!