Category Archives: Events

Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts March 20 meeting

The Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts are on meetup and that allows me to post a poll regarding what folks would like for the  March 20 meeting. Please vote! If you don’t like any of the topics, please comment here with suggestions.

The Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts will meet at 6 pm on March 20, 2013, at SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. The meeting is free and open to the public. Please join the meetup group and RSVP if you are planning to attend so that we can gauge interest and tailor content.

Looking forward to Java Posse Roundup 2013

I’m always excited to attend the Java Posse Roundup, but this year more than ever! The Roundup is in its 7th year (if I’ve done the math correctly) and I’ve made it to every one, so why is this one so appealing?

First of all, our private google group, for attendees, has been hopping with ideas about what sessions people are interested in, and what the open hacking day will be. People are talking about hardware this year: Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and 3D Printers. And there’s lots of excitement around programming NFC stickers. Software excitement is in the air as well: lots of discussions around Javascript and Node.js and Coffeescript. And of course there will be discussions about Groovy/Gradle, Java, Scala, and Go.

Many of the veteran attendees share houses in the town so that the geekery doesn’t have to stop when people go back to hotel rooms. The number of repeat attendees at this conference is very high, but it offers a good mix of newcomers each year as well. I see the newcomers offering great suggestions on the group, so they’re jumping right in too.

As far as I know, there’s still time to join in, although time may be getting tight to arrange travel. The conference is February 25 to March 1, and it’s held in Crested Butte, CO. Registration is at http://www.mindviewinc.com/Conferences/JavaPosseRoundup/. Hope to see you there!

 

 

Scala Enthusiasts survey and February meeting

At the inaugural Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts meeting, attendees showed interest in some hands-on hacking. So, for the next meeting, on Wednesday, February 20, that is what we will do! Bring your laptop (or a friend with a laptop) and join in the fun. We’ll make sure everyone gets Scala 2.10 installed and then we can either all work together or break into small groups.

I have also published a survey from the first meeting. Please complete the contact info for the survey if you are interested in attending future events, even if you weren’t able to attend January’s meeting.

See you on Wednesday, February 20 at 6 pm at SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave. Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. We currently don’t have a food sponsor for the meeting, but we can order food delivery from a nearby restaurant if people are interested (or feel free to bring something with you)!

CodeMash last week — functional programming this week

Last week was the 7th annual CodeMash conference. I can’t believe that less than 8 years ago, we started talking about creating this conference … and it’s amazing to see how it’s grown. I was thrilled to present a “precompiler” (tutorial) from our book Atomic Scala with Bruce Eckel at the conference. It was a full-day precompiler and we progressed very slowly through the language, introducing details in small bits that we call “atoms”.

This week, the pace at the first ever Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts group will certainly be much faster. Josh Suereth, author of “Scala in Depth” will be presenting”Functional Programming Patterns for the Asynchronous Web.” We’re thrilled that Josh will be traveling from Pennsylvania to Michigan to speak. Kirby Smith, also from Typesafe, will be joining us. Typesafe, as you probably know, is the company that was created by the creators of Scala and Akka, to provide a fully featured, easy to use  package of tools, backed by its commercial support.

Typesafe is also sponsoring the meeting, so please register so that we can make sure that there’s enough food. Tired of regular user group fare? No pizza for you guys! Typesafe will bring sandwiches and salads, which will be a great change after gorging ourselves at CodeMash all week!

See you there … SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. We’ll start around 6 pm. The meeting is free and open to all!

Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts welcomes Josh Suereth, of Typesafe

The new Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts group will kick off on January 16, 2013, at 6 pm, as planned. We’re thrilled that Josh Suereth, software developer for Typesafe and author of Scala in Depth, will be speaking at our inaugural meeting. Bruce Eckel, with whom I am co-authoring Atomic Scala, will be attending as well.

Josh will talk about “Functional programming patterns for the Asynchronous Web”:

Asynchronous programming is the latest hype for web development.  Why block a thread on a database query when the CPU could be looking at the next one?   While Asynchronous programming can help improve total throughput on a mult-core machine, the current state of the art lacks common patterns for how to define asynchronous flow.

This talk covers those patterns, from joining together a series of asynchronous operations to chaining a pipeline of asynchronous tasks.  We’ll present a few core abstractions from functional programming that help define asynchronous workflow.  Finally, using these same abstraction, we’ll show how to write unit tests that run synchronously using the same code as the asynchronous workflow.

This talk makes use of Scala 2.10.0’s new Futures and Promises API.

The meeting will be held at SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. That’s at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Washington in downtown Ann Arbor. The nearest parking structures are 4th & Washington or Library Lane.

Please join us for this free meeting, open to the public, and contribute your ideas for future talks.

 

 

Don’t Miss 1DevDay Detroit

If you’re looking for a conference to attend, don’t miss the top-notch, largest, longest running conference dedicated to programming in Michigan, 1DevDay-Detroit. The conference will be held on Saturday, November 17. For the fourth year in a row, David McKinnon and his team of volunteers has put together a great lineup, featuring Living Social’s Chad Fowler as keynote speaker. This year, 1DevDay has moved to Cobo Center, to be able to accommodate more attendees.

SRT Solutions is proud to be a Bronze Sponsor of the event, and we are also happy to be among the speakers. From SRT:

Bill Wagner — Your Asynchronous Future

Chris Marinos — The State of F#: Why You Should (or Shouldn’t) Care

Dianne Marsh — Scala: Objects and Methods and Functions, Oh My!

View the details for these and all of the other sessions on the 1DevDay website.

If you would like to register, go to the eventbrite page.

Hope to see you there!

Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts: meeting is ON!

Have you wondered what all of the fuss is about with Scala? Or are you already sold and just want to hang out with like-minded folks?

Join us for an organizational meeting for this new user group as well as an open discussion on “Why Scala?”.

The meeting will start at 6 pm on Wednesday, August 15, at SRT Solutions. Everyone is welcome — the meeting is free and open to the public.

We’ll have some ceasar salad and cold sandwiches as well as some cookies. Feel free to bring something else if you like. I’m looking forward to it!

SRT Solutions is located at 206 S. Fifth Avenue, Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. The closest parking structures are at 4th & Washington or 5th & Liberty. Street parking (metered spots) is free after 6, if you can find a space.

Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts to meet August 15 at SRT Solutions

A week ago I posted to see if there was interest in a new developer group in Ann Arbor, dedicated to the Scala programming language. It appears that there is indeed interest, both from attendees and potential speakers.

We will meet at 6 pm on August 15 at SRT Solutions for an organizational meeting and for an open discussion on “Why Scala?”. Regular meetings will be held on the 3rd Wednesday of each month, starting with September. It would be great if we had a schedule for talks or workshops (depending on what folks want) by the time we leave the August meeting.

Join us! The meetings will be free and open to the public. We’ll take a donation for food starting in September.

FYI: Scala is a general purpose language on the Java Virtual Machine. Combining functional and object oriented programming, Scala offers powerful expression that allows developers to focus on solving problems with software rather than being distracted by boilerplate code. Particularly with recent announcements that features expected in Java in 2013 are being pushed back, languages such as Scala are attractive alternatives.

SRT Solutions is located at 206 S. Fifth Avenue, Suite 200 in downtown Ann Arbor. The office is at the corner of Fifth and Washington, with the entrance from Fifth. Take the elevator or stairs to the 2nd floor. Nearest parking structures are at Fourth & Washington or Fifth & Liberty.

 

Gauging interest for Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts

Scala is a general purpose language on the Java Virtual Machine. Combining functional and object oriented programming, Scala offers powerful expression that allows developers to focus on solving problems with software rather than being distracted by boilerplate code. Particularly with recent announcements that features expected in Java in 2013 are being pushed back, languages such as Scala are attractive alternatives.

I’ve been playing around with Scala for several years, have been deeply involved with the Scala Koans open source project, and am nearing completion on a introductory book on Scala, co-authored with Bruce Eckel. And while I see a lot of enthusiasm for Scala throughout the country, I would love to see more enthusiasm in Michigan and the Midwest.  That’s my motivation for starting the Ann Arbor Scala Enthusiasts group.

I’m thinking about the 3rd Wednesday of each month, starting August 15, at 6 pm. I would hold the meetings in our meeting space, at SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI. That’s at the corner of Fifth and Washington, in downtown Ann Arbor. The closest parking structures are at 4th and Washington, and 5th and Liberty (the new, underground library lot).

I would strive for a mix of local and national speakers on a variety of Scala topics, possibly including the following:

  • Why Scala?
  • Scala for Java Developers
  • Play Web Framework
  • Scala as a First Language
  • Developer Tools for Scala
and I would look to the community for additional suggestions and speakers. If the group is small, we could do some hands-on learning and experimenting with Scala.

So — is there interest? Once I know the answer to that question, I will start dealing with the practical concerns, like funding (starving developers arriving at a meeting just after work is never a pretty sight). If there’s any interest at all, I think that I will schedule the August 15 meeting to continue this discussion and for an open discussion on “Why Scala”.  Summer attendance is typically fairly light, but I would love to get this group kicked off as soon as possible.

Please post comments here!

Functional Programming and Scala Koans: upcoming talks

On Saturday, May 5, 2012, I will be presenting “Functional Programming for the Masses” at the Great Lakes Functional Programming Conference. This one-day event is developer organized and will be held at Washtenaw Community College. You can register at http://glfpc.eventbrite.com/. Tickets have been selling quickly for the event. Here’s an abstract for my talk:

Have you heard about functional programming but aren’t sure what should be your next step toward adoption? Are you looking for ways to introduce functional programming without scaring your coworkers and your boss? How can you convince others than the paradigm shift is worthwhile? That it will provide business value while making the programmers and customers happy?

You will come out of this talk with the techniques to bring functional programming to your organization with minimal stress. Whether you use Java, C#, or are gunning for Scala, this talk is for you. We’ll show examples of how to weave in functional, starting with how to talk about functional and ending with real code examples, showing that functional programming can be … well … functional.

The Scala Koans in Detroit will be rescheduled for a later date, through Detroit Dev Days. On Thursday, May 31, I will be delivering the Scala Koans with Bruce Eckel in Detroit, at the Madison Building. Organized by Detroit Dev Days, this will be the first full day Scala koans event ever. Join us. More information and registration available at eventbrite. Lunch will be provided.

On Monday, July 16, I will again be delivering the Scala Koans with Daniel Hinojosa in Portland, OR, at OSCON. Monday is the Tutorials Day, and requires a separate registration. You can get more information about our session here and register for the conference here. Daniel and I have teamed up several times in the past (both at CodeMash and StrangeLoop) to deliver the koans, and we have given them individually as well. The koans continue to grow, and we think it’s a great way to learn!