I went to a MSCC meetup today at Talking Drums, Bagatelle.

I got late on way with the bus and slow traffic even on a Saturday. When I almost reached Bagatelle I called Avinash and he & Natasha were on their way. Once I reached I went to Talking Drums. At the entrance I smiled when I saw Jochen had put a notice.

I entered and asked the lady at the reception for the private room. Jochen was already there of course. He brought his kids along who are little geeks of the MSCC. Nayar was there as well. It was his first meetup. I greeted everyone, grabbed a chair and we continued with what they were talking. We then switched topic and talked about the Code Challenge in which Nayar also participated (Ex-Commoners team).

Jochen showed us his Touch-Type keyboard (daskeyboard). It’s amazing. I kinda like the sound when typing.

Some 15 mins later Avinash & Natasha came.

Jochen explained about the sponsorship programs by O’Reilly and Pluralsight. In fact, he brought some books along which we could borrow. I saw one about “Clean Code”. I could not resist so I asked for that one. He brought stickers sent by O’Reilly which we shared. He also had Pluralsight vouchers. Nayar and Natasha took one each. So, you see folks we’re very much pampered in this user group (:

Our discussions today revolved a lot about cross-platform mobile development. Nayar and I shared some Code Challenge experience. I showed my scripts for the Cinemas app I built for fun. Jochen told us about the Xamarin development tool.

We talked and shared our experiences on job recruitment procedures in Mauritius. This was a fun topic.

Then Jochen showed the OUYA console which just wowed everyone. Unfortunately, we did not have access to a TV set to test it. Maybe next time but the OUYA kit looks like a great development platform apart from being an Android-based gaming console.

We left around 12h45. It’s been a great Saturday. Thank you everybody.