PennApps

The Dining Philosophers is organizing a week full of tech talks in preparation for PennApps. Whether you are a beginner or more advanced, and even if you’re not participating in PennApps, everyone is invited to come have fun and learn something new. We’ve listed “pre-reqs” to help you gauge the difficulty level.

Monday (9/10)

PennApps Team Formation [RSVP] 
Monday, 8:00PM - 8:30PM in Moore 100
Don’t have a team, but want to attend PennApps? Not ready to go it alone? Have a partial team but need another member or two? Do not fret! The PennApps organizers are here to help you out. We’ll be here to help make introductions, merge skill sets, and enable you to form amazing, prize-worthy teams. We’re also using Piazza to manage team formation - if you’re not enrolled already, the access code is hack.
Bonus: we’ll be providing food and drinks.

Chrome Extensions [RSVP]
Monday, 8:30PM - 11:00PM in Berger Auditorium
Never been to a hackathon? No idea how to make an app? Chrome extensions are easy to learn and very powerful — a great option for a hackathon project! Come learn how to make your own in this code-along session.
Pre-reqs: CIS110

Tuesday (9/11)

Design [For Programmers] [RSVP]
Tuesday, 8:00PM - 10:00PM in Wu & Chen Auditorium
So you know how to code, but your projects could use a makeover. Join us to learn everything from basic HTML/CSS to more advanced topics such as clean semantic HTML, trickier CSS, debugging, and cross-browser support.
Pre-reqs: nothing!

Wednesday (9/12)

Ruby on Rails [RSVP]
Wednesday, 6:00PM - 8:00PM in Wu & Chen Auditorium
Learn this popular web framework for rapid prototyping — perfect for a hackathon! Taught by Philly tech legend (and CIS 196 Prof) Mat Schaffer, this technology will enable you to take your hacks to the next level.  
Pre-reqs: CIS120

Django [RSVP]
Wednesday, 6:00PM - 8:00PM in Van Pelt Library, Room 247 (Glossberg Seminar Room)
Learn this other popular web framework for rapid prototyping, but in Python — also perfect for a hackathon! Please note that enrollment is limited to 15 students, as this is a seminar style talk.
Pre-reqs: CIS120

Data Scraping [RSVP]
Wednesday, 8:00PM - 10:00PM in Towne 100
Ever wondered how you can collect massive amounts of data from the web and what you can use that data for? Come find out at this talk, and you’ll have a powerful new tool at your disposal. The location for this talk hasn’t been finalized yet, so make sure to check the Facebook event for updates!
Pre-reqs: CIS120

Thursday (9/13)

Git by GitHub [RSVP]
Thursday, 8:00PM - 9:30PM in Wu & Chen Auditorium
Learn how to never lose your work to computer problems again, and collaborate effectively on group assignments through the power of Git! This talk is a must for all students unfamiliar with Git and version control; super useful for class, and a critical skill for tech jobs/internships.
Pre-reqs: nothing!

Friday (9/14) - The New York Times Web Development Workshop

Afternoon Session #1 (3:30PM - 4:15PM)

JavaScript Fundamentals [RSVP]
Bodek Lounge in Houston, Trevor Landau
Assuming a basic understanding of programming, how do you get started with JavaScript. Trevor will show JS syntax for: loops, data structures, functions, classes and the other things you’ll want to know in order to take the things you know about programming and apply them to JavaScript.

jQuery and DOM Basics [RSVP]
Cafe 58 in Irvine, David Souther
If you have a grasp of JavaScript and want to advance to a better understanding of the DOM or to start taking advantage of the jQuery library, come to David’s session.

Afternoon Session #2 (4:15PM - 5:00PM)

JavaScript Best Practices [RSVP]
Bodek Lounge in Houston, Trevor Landau and Ben Morss
Trevor is going to pick up from JS Fundamentals and say some things about good JS coding practice, the things that’ll save you tons of time and frustration if you adopt good habits at the start. Then Ben Morss has a debugging case example for everyone to work through.

Keynote: The Makers’ Life [RSVP]
Cafe 58 in Irvine, Andre Behrens
Programmers are makers. And the life of a maker is filled with choices where you express to the world who you are and what you believe.

Evening Session #1 (9:00PM - 9:45PM)

Keynote: Emerging Technologies at The New York Times [RSVP]
Cafe 58 in Irvine, Ohad Kravchick
We’ll spend the beginning part showing the range of first of its kind technology that The New York Times is working on. Then our developers will answer questions about what it’s like to be a professional developer and to work at The Times.

Backbone & Underscore [RSVP]
Class of ‘49 in Houston, Trevor Landau and Bobby Roe
Trevor will explain the basics of Backbone and show the framework’s time- and work-saving principals. Bobby will walk through the code for a demo game he built in Backbone and Underscore.

Evening Session #2 (9:45PM - 10:30PM)

CoffeeScript [RSVP]
Class of ‘49 in Houston, Andre Behrens
Andre will show the elegance and utility that CoffeeScript offers to advanced JS programmers.

Node.js  [RSVP]
Cafe 58 in Irvine, Ohad Kravchick
Ohad plans to give you a close look at Node and how it works by running it and then coding with it in his browser.