Tag Archives: Java

Looking ahead to the Java Posse Roundup (next week!)

The Java Posse is a group of guys (Dick Wall, Carl Quinn, Tor Norbye, Joe Nuxoll) who love Java enough to dedicate time to staying up on the latest in the Java world and reporting it for the rest of us.  I suspect that I'm not the only one who is only able to keep up on the news because of the time that these guys spend each week.  Two years ago, they teamed up with Bruce Eckel to host the first ever Java Posse Roundup Open Spaces conference.  Participants decided what they wanted to talk about, using the very lightweight process of placing a post-it note up on the conference schedule.  Voila! Conference born! The Posse (as we call them) was dubious at first.  Would people come?  Would they get something out of it?

The first year (2007) was a huge success, judging from the reactions of the participants and the posse.  We all learned a lot.  Friendships lasted beyond the week of Java immersion.    Everyone embraced the idea of making the conference their own, and lightning talks evolved in the evenings as well.

The second year (2008) saw previous year participants sharing houses, more lightning talks, and a pre-conference day discussing Android (which was hot off the presses last year). And, we added some workshops in the evenings as well.  The conference continues to evolve, and that's really the beauty of it.

This year, a pre-conference hackathon was added.  The pre-conference day is free to anyone who happens to be in the Crested Butte area on March 2, the hackathon will consist of a loosely organized set of houses, each sponsoring a different language on the JVM.  At the moment of this writing, Scala, Jython, Groovy (Grails, Griffon), and Fan have been identified. More may emerge (Clojure anyone?  JRuby?).  We'll kick of the morning with a short intro/orientation at the Posse House (a house in town where the Posse is staying), then quickly spread out to the various houses around town hosting different languages.  People will be free to move between houses/dojo sessions just as they are free (in fact, encouraged) to move about the open spaces sessions that will make up the main conference March 3-6.

I look forward to this conference all year. It's never the same, always fun, and always wickedly informative.  And yes, there's skiing too.  Each day during the week has time for participants to head off to go skiing.  Some people will choose to stay back and code on those days, or just hang out, but the ski hill does see a lot of geek talk that week as well!  I'm hoping to again ditch the ski hill in favor of skinny skis (nordic trails).  Each year so far, I've been successful in recruiting some people to go out with me.  Joe caught Tor crashing on camera last year … hilarious.

If you want to join us, you can still register at http://www.mindviewinc.com/Conferences/JavaPosseRoundup/.

 

Josh Marinacci blogs about JavaFX Mobile …

Josh Marinacci, who I enjoyed meeting at the Java Posse Roundup, is working on the JavaFX team.  His blog, always interesting, was really catchy today, saying, "There is no JavaFX Mobile.  There is only JavaFX".  The upcoming release fully supports JavaFX Mobile. Full mobile support. Josh's point seems to have even surprised Josh himself.  He said that he realized this morning what a big deal it was that you don't have to know anything more than JavaFX to write mobile apps.  "There is only JavaFX". Nice.  But don't take it from me.  Read Josh's blog!

Detroit Java User Group is ALIVE!

After a long while of on-again/off-again meetings, I was pleased to hear the news that the Detroit Java User Group has reformed! This is great news for the east-siders who find Ann Arbor a bit too far to go for an evening meeting about Java. The Detroit group has a new home: ePrize headquarters in Pleasant Ridge (I-696 and Woodward area, near the Detroit Zoo).

The next 2 meetings have been scheduled.  More information yet to come, but here are the topics, so that you can set the time aside to go.  They look great to me, and I'm hoping to attend.

Wednesday October 22nd, Jim Steinberger – DOJO and DWR
Wednesday November 19th, Kirsten Schwark – Groovy

To be complete, I should add that the Ann Arbor Java User group topic has been announced for October as well.  On October 28, Matt VanVleet from Pillar Technology will discuss Automated testing using Pillar's tool: Verde.  

And many thanks to Kirsten for her summary of my Scala talk at the Ann Arbor Java User Group on September 23 (and for the "geek celebrity" title!).

 

 

Scala for Java Programmers talk

Last night, I presented a talk entitled "Scala for Java Programmers" at the Ann Arbor Java User Group.  I have posted the slides at http://srtsolutions.com/content/ScalaForJavaAAJUG.pdf.

This talk had its origin in a workshop that Joel Neely and I did at the Java Posse Roundup last March.  Joel presented this talk internally at FedEx, and I presented it at Chariot Solutions' Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise conference in Philadelphia.  I recently updated it for the AAJUG talk.

I didn't even touch on generics, traits, classes, and objects in this talk.  So I've posted my earlier talk (from CodeMash) which included information about these as well:

http://srtsolutions.com/content/ScalaCodeMash08.pdf

I’m speaking on Scala this week

So, this Tech Events in Ann Arbor post for the week of September 22 finds yours truly speaking at the Ann Arbor Java User Group on Tuesday, September 23 at 6:30.  The meeting will be held at Washtenaw Community College in room BE270.  I'll be talking about "Scala for Java Programmers".  What CAN you do with this language? And why do you care? Is it a Java replacement? We'll explore some of the corners of the functional aspects of Scala, but object-oriented programmers will feel quite at home in this talk. Please come.  I would love your feedback on the language (and on the talk).

On Friday join SRT for lightning talks, from 3:30-5. As always, lightning talks are open to all.  Come to do a 5 minute talk or to listen!

Next week, the Ann Arbor Computer Society meeting will feature Bill Heitzeg discussing JBoss and .NET.  AACS meetings are free and open to the public.  AACS sponsors pizza and soft drinks.  Members qualify for door prizes.

 

Ann Arbor Java User Group meeting tonight (8/26)

The Ann Arbor Java User Group is meeting tonight, at Washtenaw Community College, BE 270.  The topic is Java FX, and speaker is Jim Weaver.  The meeting starts around 6:30, with some informal networking.

I was really hoping to attend.  Looks like a great talk!  Unfortunately, I have a conflict tonight.  I'm hoping someone blogs the talk!

Upcoming technical events

In addition to a user group meeting this week, there are some weekend conferences/camps going on.  

Ann Arbor .NET developer group (Wednesday August 13 at 6 pm) features Jeff McWherter who will be speaking on applying automated testing to an existing application. AADND meets at SRT Solutions (206 S. Fifth Ave, Suite 200, Ann Arbor). Visit http://www.aadnd.org for more information.

eRubyCon is a conference geared toward the use of the Ruby programming language in the enterprise. The conference will be held August 15, 16, 17th in Polaris (near Columbus). The conference boasts speakers who have had success getting Ruby into some of the largest organizations, speaking on data warehousing, JRuby, testing legacy JEE code with JRuby, Ruby code generation, enterprise workflows and more. For more information, see http://eRubyCon.com.

BarCamp Grand Rapids is being held on Friday August 15 through Saturday August 16. BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees, usually centered around technology topics. For more information, see http://barcampgr.org.

 And, of course, don't forget about SRT's hosted Lightning Talks on Friday August 15, from 3:30-5 pm.  Last time (on August 1), we had topics like Subversion 1.5 (Rick Harding). Phone Calling over Twitter (Ed Vielmetti), Selenium (Charlie Sears),  Cube Permissions (Phil Huhn), Generic Functions with Python (Mark Ramm), Subsonic (Phil Huhn), Blogging to Community Server from Microsoft Word (Charlie Sears), Musical Topology (Ed Vielmetti), and Blogging with Microsoft LiveWriter (Bill Wagner).

Plan ahead for next week too!  The Detroit Java User Group doesn't meet every month, but they're meeting on Wednesday, August 20, and the topic is Java Scripting Languages, with Kirsten Henderson.  And while it's called the Detroit Java User Group, it's really in Farmington Hills, so quite driveable from Ann Arbor.

[DMM: correction … there was an error in the post on the Detroit JUG.  Kirsten emailed me that they made a mistake in the year of the post and that was the talk she did LAST August.  Sigh, too bad.  I'm sorry I missed it last year and was looking forward to an update!]

I also thought that I would mention the Agile Summer Camp, coming up September 5-7 at Brighton Recreation Area. This is an interactive, participants-driven open spaces event that will be held over a weekend, and will attract professionals interested in improving software development through agile techniques. Some people will be camping (there are 2 cabins available, and a separate campground), while others will commute from their homes. 

Tech events in and around Ann Arbor

The end of the month is sort of light on tech events in Ann Arbor, but STILL there are things to do within driving distance!

PyOhio is going on in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday July 26.  It's a free event, and includes talks, open spaces, lightning talks, and poster sessions. If you're planning to attend and want to carpool, check with other Python developers on the MichiPUG Google group.

The Ann Arbor Java User Group canceled their meeting for next week (would have been on Tuesday July 29), but look for their meeting next month.  Rumor has it that the August talk will be on JavaFX, which is getting some air time at OSCON this week.  

Next week, Wednesday and Thursday (July 30-31) is the Michigan Flex Camp in Lansing.  The price is only $40 ($25 if you only want to attend the first day).  This hands-on interactive camp looks really interesting.  Registration is limited to 150 people, so sign up now if you're planning to attend: http://www.theflexgroup.org/camp/.

Lightning Talk Fridays, hosted by SRT Solutions, continue on Friday, August 1 from 3:30-5 pm.

And one non-technical event will be held next week as well.  The WXW Business group is holding a networking event for businesswomen at the Ann Arbor Art Center.  Cost is $10, and registration is limited to 120 people.  Wine and appetizers will be served. Registration is available at http://wxwbusiness.com/.

If you have any interest in traveling to North Carolina in next week or the week after, TrizPugBootCampArama is being held there, with 3 consecutive camps: PyCamp and 2 on Plone.

Oh, and of course, the first week in August will be busy event-wise, with both the Ann Arbor Computer Society meeting on August 6 (topic: Ruby for Domain Specific Languages) and the Michigan Python User Group on August 7.  More details on those meetings to come.

 

Tail recursion in Scala and Annotations for Software Defect Detection

The Java Posse interview with Brian Goetz and Bill Pugh cleared up how Scala supports tail recursion in spite of the JVM's lack of support.  Brian Goetz did a great job of explaining that currently compiler writers have to build in the support (which Scala does) because the language doesn't support it directly.  He went on to explain that while there is support in the CLR for tail recursion, the F# compiler writers chose not to use it in some cases because they found that they could write a more optimal version by converting to iteration.  

The conversation was about changes that can be expected in Java 7, including JSR 292 ("Enhancements for Other Languages", aka "Invoke Dynamic"), JSR 305 (Annotations for Software Defect Detection), and JSR 308 (Annotations on Java Types).  

The discussion of JSR 305 (and @NonNull) reminded me of the discussion of contracts in a podcast on Microsoft Spec# that I listened to a few weeks ago. Scott Hanselman did an accompanying blog post as well. The FindBugs (static analysis) tool that Bill Pugh did is definitely a "must-have", and can already support annotions such as described above.  The JSR would simply provide a naming convention so that all tool makers and programmers could agree.  I had to look up Bill's annotation to see if it was "NotNull" or "NonNull", for example!

Note: JSRs (Java Specification Requests) are formal requests through the JCP (Java Community Process) for changes or enhancements to Java and the Java Virtual Machine.  This is an open process and participation is encouraged. 

  

Android to be 100% open-sourced

I read an interesting blog post on Ed Burnette's Dev Connection this morning.  Google says that Android (the libraries, the core platform components) will be open-sourced 100%.  Ed talked to several Google employees last week at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco.  You can read Ed's entire article at his blog (linked above).

I think that an open sourced Android is great news, not only for the Android community but for the Java community as a whole.  Android is Google's flavor of Java, customized for what developers really need on a phone.  So, my understanding is that it's a subset that has some other essentials added in.  It doesn't run on the Java VM, but rather its own virtual machine: Dalvik. 

JavaFX Mobile, on the other hand, is Sun's revamped platform for mobile devices. JavaFX Mobile runs on the Java VM, not Dalvik.  It will be interesting to see if any of the work that Google has done on the mobile platform will make its way into JavaFX Mobile.  Already, the communities are working together. In fact, at JavaOne a few weeks ago, a JavaFX Mobile app was demonstrated on Android.  Nice!