meshU

Avi Bryant just shipped me info for his workshop for the development stream at meshU.

Avi is a bit of a genius, the developers at my office may or may not worship his mental ingenuity and technical creativity (my words, not theirs). But don’t take my/their word for it, Toronto tech scene instigator and Microsoftie David Crow sounded off last week…I trust others will follow.

Anyway, here is a bit about Avi’s workshop:

Turning the Tables: Moving Beyond Relational Storage

Google doesn’t store your GMail in a MySQL table. Your Amazon shopping cart doesn’t act_as_list. Orbitz doesn’t run a SELECT to find the best flights. But when choosing technology, nearly every new web startup will reach for a relational database. Why? Can we do better?

This workshop will take a tour through how and why many of the most successful web applications store data outside of the confines of a RDBMS. We’ll explore when you should follow conventional wisdom about persistence and when you should go your own way: whether that means using a memory store, flat files, an object database, or a data service like Amazon’s SimpleDB or Microsoft’s SSDS.

The technology you use at the beginning of a project will have a profound impact as you grow. Make a thoughtful and informed choice, and your users and developers will both thank you later.

And about the man himself:

Avi Bryant is a founder and co-CEO of Dabble DB, a venture-backed startup based in Vancouver, BC. He’s also the creator of the Seaside web framework, and has given keynotes at RailsConf, Smalltalk Solutions, and elsewhere about his unusual – some say heretical – approaches to web development.

Don’t forget to get your meshU tickets!

As you may know by now, we’ve added a third day to mesh called meshU (for mesh “University”). meshU is more a “workshop” oriented event than mesh. meshU is happening the day before the main mesh (Tuesday the 20th of May) and the content will be divided into three streams: design, development and “management” (as it pertains to web projects).

Today I’m pleased to announce that Daniel Burka has joined our roster of ace speakers for meshU. Who is Daniel Burka? Well for one – he’s Canadian. It might also interest you to know he is the creative director for Digg, and a co-founder of Pownce and silverorange. He is going to give a workshop on Iterative Design Strategies at meshU – a topic near and dear to my heart, and something hugely valuable for anyone who is building web projects that are intended to thrive long after they launch.

I often think of meshU as a great event for the people who help the attendees of mesh (marketers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, media folks) get their web projects built (designers, developers and project managers). So if Daniel’s workshop doesn’t sound quite right for you, please be sure to mention meshU to the people who are building your website (assuming you have one), because it’s surely for them.