Last week, Wednesday 20th Feb, I presented at the Brighton Web Development Meet-up. My talk was an introduction on using Selenium WeDriver, starting out with the basics, leading into introducing the page object model and finishing with an example on how to use a single suite of tests on multiple websites. The demo code and slide deck can be found on my GitHub account. The room was pretty packed with about 25-30 people and a 50/50 mix of developers/testers. I was quite pleased that I didn’t lose anyone as the demos are very C# heavy and only a handful of the attendees had .NET experience.
Previously I have presented a 15 minute lightning talk at a development show and tell evening (video here) but this was the first time I’ve presented a proper talk for an evening – it’s a shame that the presentation wasn’t recorded as it would have been good to see the difference between the two. A lot has changed over the past 8 years and I think I’ve built more confidence, in 2018 I also presented at a company offsite to 200+ people. Whilst public speaking is definitely still a scary experience, I think I’ve got the bug and will definitely do it again – either the same talk or on something new.
As a reminder to myself for future talks, always practice at least twice – the first time I seem to whiz through the slides/demos, the second time I realise I can take longer but probably over-run a bit. The third time feels like it might be the sweet spot on duration.
Firstly, I’m a bit late to the party with my blog article, both Steve (the event organiser) and Dave / Dan (a couple of the attendees) have written great articles that can be found here: Steve Gordon Dave Mateer Dan Clarke So back to my story regarding the event. I first heard about the codeathon from Steve via the .NET South East Meetup, which he also organises. Steve’s a prolific contributor to the HTBox Allready . . .
Last week I finally got around to coaching at Brighton Code Bar, something I’ve been meaning to do for at least a year or so now (and apologies for taking so long). If, like me, you’ve been considering this but have worried about what you can contribute, then please just volunteer and don’t worry. The sessions are really well organised and the students either looking for help with following the tutorials or feedback/advice with their . . .