Yesterday, the eighth Alabama Code Camp was held in Mobile, AL.  I delivered three presentations at the event: an introduction to the SOLID principles, a talk on dependency injection and IoC Containers, and an overview of Resharper.  Based on some discussions after the event, I wanted to clarify a few things regarding my presentation about Resharper.

Apparently, I didn’t give enough thought to how the presentation could be perceived or interpreted by others.  Given the code camp series are free community events, it may seem a bit “shady” to have an entire session that promotes a commercial product.  However, it wasn’t my intent to try and sell licenses for JetBrains.  To be perfectly clear, I certainly don’t get anything out of the sale of licenses.  I was not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise paid by JetBrains to deliver the presentation.  Apart from a free license for the product that I received for being a Microsoft MVP (and is offered to all MVPs), I have never “received” anything from JetBrains.

My only goal with the talk was to really demonstrate how developers can be much more efficient within Visual Studio via productivity and refactoring add-ins.  Since I prefer and really know how to use Resharper, it was the one that was highlighted in the presentation.  To be completely fair, I also pointed out that DevExpress offers CodeRush and Refactor! Pro.  I specifically told the audience that if they don’t already have a preference then it would be prudent to evaluate both products and determine which they like best.  Had I known that Telerik was now offering JustCode, I would have also recommended everyone to evaluate it as well…which brings me to my next point.

Unfortunately, I had never even heard of their product until later in the day when I was talking with Chris Eargle (another presenter and Microsoft MVP).  Chris came down and delivered a couple of talks.  One of them was entitled C# Ninjitsu and it highlighted some of the features in JustCode, which is now in beta.  Coincidentally, my presentation was called “Code Like a Ninja: An Introduction to Resharper”.  Telerik seems to have embraced a “ninja theme” for some of their products.  As such, it may seem a bit deliberate that i chose a “ninja theme” for my presentation in an effort to get in a dig against Telerik.  However, I assure you this is purely coincidental.

Back in June 2009, I gave the same Resharper presentation to the Birmingham .NET User Group with the same title for the presentation.  I just wanted a catchy title to make people more interested.  So, I first used the “Code Like a Ninja” title well before JustCode was ever unveiled.

At any rate, I just wanted to set the record straight from my perspective.  For what it is worth, I apologize to anyone that took offense.  In the future, I’m going to refrain from giving any talks that could be perceived to endorse a particular product at the code camp and INETA user group venues, but I still consider it to be fair game for internal company user groups.