On Tuesday, February 19, I will be presenting at the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group in Toledo. While I’m no stranger to speaking in front of groups, this will be my first real user group presentation. I’m a bit nervous, but after attending the NWNUG meeting last month, I think it’s a good place to start.
After sitting in Jay’s Castle talk at CodeMash, I was inspired and will be presenting on Castle ActiveRecord. 
Here is the abstract I gave Jason:
“Most of us have experienced the fun of writing CRUD applications. We end up on top of a mountain of data access code, most of it repetitive. Do you want to spend more time writing actual business logic and less time writing the same old data access code? In this introduction to Castle ActiveRecord, I will show you can write less data access code and be more productive. We will explore ActiveRecord and compare it to traditional data access development.”
Maybe not the world’s best abstract, but hopefully you get the point. If you’re in the area, stop by and check it out.
I’ll post a follow-up after my talk.
Good luck with the presentation. When will you be heading a little further south to Dayton?
Thanks Joe.
One step at a time. Let’s see how this talk goes before I think about doing another one.
I wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your NWNUG presentation on Castle and ActiveRecord techniques. The issue that sticks in my mind is how long to expect to devote before being familiar enough with ActiveRecord and NHibernate to feel comfortable. For one used to working with the ADO access model, what kind of learning curve could I expect?
Doug,
Thanks. I enjoyed giving the talk.
I honestly believe the learning curve for ActiveRecord is pretty short. I’d say within a day (4-8 hours), you could be productively working with it. The biggest hurdle will be getting over the “but this is how I do it now” attitude. I know that’s always the biggest issue I have when learning something new. You definitely have to be willing to investigate new technology with an open mind.