Mark your calendars for March 4th and 5th. There's a brand new by-developers/for-developers conference called Code PaLOUsa. Inspired by the instantaneously-sold-out CodeMash (including the non-profit part), Code PaLOUsa is in downtown Louisville, KY at the Seelbach Hotel.

There are a whole bunch of great speakers lined up, including Douglas Crockford and Eric Sink. And for some reason, they even let me in.

My Talk: Infinitely Extensible

When faced with a problem, software developers have a natural tendency to introduce another problem, which they will then solve in hopes of more easily solving the first. Of course, this tendency acts recursively, leading many to build a Matryoshka-like nesting of problems inside of problems inside of problems. One of the common patterns that emerge from this vicious cycle is "extensibility"; that is, attempting to develop software that meets some unforeseen and unknowable need through clever engineering, whether that means plug-ins, "mod-ability", or some other esoteric system that allows software to change without actually changing. While extensibility can be useful, it's most often an anti-pattern and serves to the detriment of the software that's implemented it. In this language-independent talk, I'll discuss what types of extensibility can be developed, extensibility design patterns, how to decide when (or when not) to use extensibility, and what happens when extensibility goes wrong.

The TDWTF Discount + Bonus!

If you register before Febuary 21st, it will only cost you $200 (which, for the record, doesn't even come close to covering the *cough*overpriced*cough* venue costs). If you use discount code TDWTF at checkout, not only will you save $25, but you'll also get one of the elusive The Daily WTF mugs.

Register soon, because the "last minute" price will be going up to $250.

About Code PaLOUsa

Code PaLOUsa is a two-day, eight-track software development conference in Louisville, KY on March 4-5, 2011 designed to cover all aspects of software development regardless of technology stack. We will have sessions revolving around Microsoft, Java, Ruby, PHP, and Clojure; along with sessions on higher, platform-agnostic levels. There will be 60 technical presentations and panel discussions from well-known professionals in the software development community and a keynote talk from Douglas Crockford of Yahoo! and JavaScript/JSON fame.

The tracks for Code PaLOUsa 2011:

Architecture - SOA, W3C standards, WS* implementations, interoperability, and all things 30,000 feet or higher

Cloud - All things about the cloud, including the who, what, where, when, why, and how about cloud computing

Desktop Development - Standard applications, fat/smart client, client/server, and all things running local on Windows, Mac, or Linux

Web Development - Web services, Ajax frameworks, and all things related to the browser

Methodologies - Anything pertinent to how modern development methodologies help build software faster, cheaper, and better

Mobility - All things mobile - platforms, devices, content distribution, social networking, community building, and anything else used in conjunction with those devices which have small screens

Languages - Discussions on what's new and cool in software development languages such as C#, Java, PHP, Python, Ruby, Visual Basic, etc.

Entrepreneur - Discussions about how to start your own technology company or continue to successfully run your existing technology company