Category Archives: Events

A Business Case for New Languages …

Learning new languages has always been a part of our jobs as software developers. We’ve had a pretty long streak with Java and C#, but it’s time to move onward and take advantages of more expressive languages, like Scala.  I’ve written an article for Artima, “A Business Case for New Languages: The Benefits of Scala over Java“, and I hope that business leaders will be encouraged to talk to their staff about how their product development might benefit from moving to Scala.  And, it’s timely.  Bill Venners and Dick Wall, of Escalate Software, will be in town to hold a public training course on Scala the week of May 22.  They will take you from novice to fully comfortable in the language in that 1 week.  I’m looking forward to it!

Agile Leaders Panel Discussion at Agile and Beyond Conference

The Agile and Beyond Conference was held today at the Henry Ford Conference Center in Dearborn. Marvin Toll and a dedicated group of volunteers, including Tom Kubit (Gene Codes Forensics) and Nayan Hajratwala (Chikli Consulting), and many others worked hard to put on this conference and they did an amazing job.  Mary Poppendieck is one of my favorite speakers, and she keynoted today, talking about the challenges ahead for the software industry. She promised to share her slides, and I will definitely post a link when they are made available.

I was invited to moderate a panel of agile entrepreneurs from our area.  We had a great panel, made up of Carl Erickson, Gary Gentry, Jon Stahl, and Rich Sheridan.  These guys could talk forever, and we had no shortage of questions.  People submitted many questions prior to the event on a google moderator group.  But what really made the panel discussion interesting (for me, at least) was the audience.  This audience was engaged and interested in asking questions.  They were also enthusiastic to share their own stories and challenges, which of course would have made a great open spaces discussion (Tom Kubit was managing open spaces at this conference).  We had people 2 and 3-deep waiting to ask questions throughout the discussion.  I was really pleased with the participation.

I took some notes during the panel discussion …

  • There were a lot of similarities and some differences among the way our panelists manage their companies. Half of the panelists have dedicated project managers on their agile projects, while the other half use team leads who split their time between development, customer management, and reporting.
  • Pretty much everyone agreed that the key to successful projects lies in engaging the business and validating assumptions throughout.
  • There was significant discussion around fixed bid projects and their relationship to agile. Carl Erickson described his process as similar to one that we’ve encountered, that being fixed budget, scope-controlled projects.  I’ll follow up with a blog post about that in more detail soon, because this is a fascinating topic that can’t be adequately described in a paragraph.
  • There was some discussion around cross-team waste, particularly when teams are distributed.
  • The audience participants expressed significant concern around getting their business leaders involved in the (agile) software development process. Earning the respect of the business was deemed critical to success, as was addressing their pain.  And several of the panelists admitted that some organizations are not ready to change, or willing to expose weaknesses in their structure or process.

We didn’t get to all of the questions on the list, but an ongoing dialog, particularly in open spaces, is likely more effective anyhow.  One question that I wanted to ask, was what changes each of the panelists had made in their processes in the past year.  Were they significant? What were they in response to?  How were they met, but customers and employees alike?

I enjoyed the panel discussion and I hope that the audience (and panelists) did as well.  I’m looking forward to what will happen before next year’s conference!

Cross training in software

Several months ago, the opportunity arose to work on a project in Flex.  Brian Genisio has had a lot of experience with WPF and Silverlight and he expressed interest in the Flex project.   While there are a lot of differences between the Adobe world and the Microsoft world, Brian found similarities as well.  And he learned that there are things about each platform that he appreciates over the other.  By learning Flex, he’s become a better Silverlight developer, and by knowing Silverlight, he had quick and substantial success with Flex.  He’s been blogging about the experience, and it’s quite interesting.

We asked James Ward if he would like to do a Flex Jam in Ann Arbor, as we’ve done in previous years. We were thrilled when he agreed.  If you think that you might want to join James (and Brian) in learning Flex in an interactive coding workshop, you can get more information or register at http://www.srtsolutions.com/flex-training.  It’s not just for Java or Flex developers!  If you’re a Silverlight developer, check out Brian’s blog and see if you think learning Flex would help make you a better developer.

Scala training from Escalate Software coming to Ann Arbor in May

Bill Venners, co-author of Programming in Scala 2nd Edition, and Dick Wall, Scala aficionado and podcaster extraordinare, will be coming to Ann Arbor from May 23-27 to teach their intensive hands-on Scala course.  You can attend the beginner course (3 days) or the advance course (2 days) or both.  You don’t need to be a functional programming guru to attend.  The assumption is that you have had exposure to one or more object-oriented languages.  C# or Java experience might be helpful but is not required.

Bill and Dick have previously taught this class in the Bay Area, but this is the first time that they will offer it outside of that region.   I’m thrilled that they have chosen Ann Arbor for the class!

You can get more information about the workshop on the registration page. The page includes recommendations from previous attendees as well as travel information for the Ann Arbor class.  Registration is now live.  Early bird pricing goes through March 22.

I know that I’m looking forward to the course.  I hope that you will join us!

Ann Arbor: Embrace your inner geek with area events

The next few weeks will bring some interesting technology events to the Ann Arbor area.

CodeRetreat
This Saturday (January 29), there is a CodeRetreat at SRT’s offices.  The concept is that we can all become better programmers by practicing.  CodeRetreat is language-agnostic, so show up with your computer and language of choice.  CodeRetreat is FREE.

To learn more about CodeRetreat, go to:

http://coderetreat.com/how-it-works.html
http://coderetreat.ning.com/events/2nd-anniversary-coderetreat

FLEX Jam

On February 15-17, Ann Arbor SPARK (330 E. Liberty, Lower Level) is hosting James Ward, Adobe Flex evangelist.  James will be leading a Flex Jam, which is designed to bring together developers, from beginning to advanced level, to learn about Flex development.  Attendees work at their own pace, with James as a guide and mentor.  Exercises will be available for those who do not have a project in mind.  You can register for the Flex Jam at http://www.srtsolutions.com/flex-training.  The registration cost includes a continental breakfast and a boxed lunch.

Our friends over at Pure Visibility are offering Google Analytics Drivers Ed Training Course, on Friday, February 18.

And, of course, there will be a plethora of user group meetings coming up.

SRT Solutions is at 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200.

4 More Weeks of Six Weeks of Scala

There are still 4 weeks left of our Six Weeks of Scala series.  There’s still plenty of time to join in, particularly since this has been organized as independent sessions to allow people to come and go, as it fits their schedules.

We will meet at SRT Solutions on Monday evenings (11/1, 11/8, 11/15, and 11/22), sometime after 5 pm (most people seem to be arriving at around 6), and work on Scala for about 2-2.5 hrs.  The first few weeks, we worked on a variety of things, getting used to the language.  We played around with collections in the first week, and pattern matching & functional decomposition of problems last week.

On Monday, November 1, we are going to start working with the Scala Koans, modeled after the Ruby Koans.  We’ll be working with Dick Wall’s fork of the Koans, and hopefully contributing to them.  Please join us.

SRT Solutions is at 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200 in Ann Arbor.  This is at the intersection of Washington and Fifth Avenue.  The entrance is from Fifth Avenue.  Metered parking is free in Ann Arbor after 6 pm, so if you can find a space, feed the meter til 6.   Alternatively, the closest parking structure is at Fourth Avenue and Washington.

Get your Scala on …

Is Scala too hard for the average developer, or just right?  Make your own assessment over the next 6 weeks, at Six Weeks of Scala or attend my talk at 1DevDay on Saturday where this will be the topic of discussion.

Tonight, we’re kicking off the “Six Weeks of Scala” at SRT.  Starting at 5 pm, we’ll be gathering to do some coding on Scala.  Everyone is welcome.  If you’re a newbie (or not yet committed to Scala development), the Scala interpreter is a simple way to get started with the language.  If you want to do some test-driven development, you might prefer to come with an IDE and plugin installed.  We’ll self-organize into groups based on goals for our six weeks.  You don’t need to commit to all six weeks.  Just come when you can (free and open to all).

On Saturday, the organizers of 1DevDay have invited me to talk about Scala.  Here’s the abstract for my talk:

Scala: Too Hard for the Average Developer?

Scala has gotten a lot of press in the past few years.  Some people love it for its support of functional programming.  Others think it’s a completely awesome replacement for Java.  But others think it’s way too complex for the average developer.  Let’s put it all out there.  In this talk, we’ll look at the syntax together and decide what there is to love and what there is to hate.

By the end of this talk, you will have enough exposure to the language to make up your own mind about Scala. We’ll leave it up to you to decide if you’re an average developer or not!

I’m scheduled to speak from 10:15-11:15. Dennis Burton, also from SRT Solutions, is speaking on MongoDB at the same time.  I’m also looking forward to finally meeting Matt Stine, of the Memphis Java User Group and No Fluff Just Stuff, who is speaking on Polyglot OSGi and Grails/YUI.  Nilanjan Raychaudhuri is speaking on Play, a Scala/Java Web Framework, Gordon Dickens is talking about Spring Roo and Joel Hawkins is talking about Hadoop.  If that’s not enough to interest you, Chris Judd of the Cleveland Java User Group is talking about Beginning iOS development, and Nayan Hajratwala is running a full day Code Retreat.  Saturday should be a fun day indeed!

Six Weeks of Scala delayed start until Monday, October 18

Our family has been sick this week, and I’m the latest to come down with a fever.  So, we’ll get started with “Six Weeks of Scala” next Monday, October 18.  I’m sorry for any inconvenience!

We will hold the informal “Six Weeks of Scala” at SRT Solutions, 206 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 200, Ann Arbor. We’ll get started at around 5 pm and go until around 7 pm.  Everyone who wants to learn or share what they’ve learned about Scala is welcome.  Please join us whether you can make it only 1 week or all 6.

Free and open to the public.

More information on Six Weeks of Scala

I mentioned earlier this week that SRT will be hosting “Six Weeks of Scala”, starting on Monday, October 11, from 5-7 pm.  This will be a loosely structured event, designed so that people who want to write some code in Scala have a supportive, collaborative environment.  Come once or come weekly: we’ll be here, and you are welcome.  This event is free and open to the public.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what to install prior to the first session.  My comments about coming with an IDE were targeted toward those who want to write Scala in a test-driven way.  But one of the great things about Scala is that you can learn a lot in a low-friction way, by working in the interactive shell.  So, particularly if you are new to Scala, this is a great way to start.  Simply install Scala 2.8 (sometime BEFORE Monday at SRT so that you don’t take down our internet) and get started.

If you want to use an IDE, you have several choices: NetBeans, IntelliJ’s IDEA, and Eclipse.  Each of these have Scala plugins.  I’ve been using NetBeans lately, but a lot of people who came to the Scala Code Retreat a few weeks ago were happily using Eclipse.  One guy had IDEA.  Choose your favorite, or wait to see what others are using and why they like them.

We haven’t identified a single goal of what we want to build.  Certainly, groups may form who would like to do that.  Others may just want to experiment.  Please don’t feel that you have to commit to the entire 6 weeks in order to participate.  This is not a structured class that makes that necessary.

Six Weeks of Scala: Join us starting next Monday

The Scala Code Retreat, held at SRT Solutions on September 25 was a lot of fun and quite interesting.  So I decided to extend the invitation over the next 6 weeks to see if people would be interested in stopping by after work on Mondays, from 5-7 to write some Scala code.  We’ll probably spend some time on the Scala Koans, perhaps do some more exploring with the Game Of Life (as we did in the Code Retreat), and mainly just get used to the language.

Folks can work independently, but it may be fun to pair.   Given the short amount of time available, please come with an IDE installed on your laptop.  While you may get some help with configuration, the plan is for this to be mainly a coding get-together.

So, join us starting next Monday, October 11 from 5-7 pm.  We’ll continue to get together for 6 consecutive Mondays.  This won’t be a training session, nor is anyone required to show up every week.  This is about enjoying our time with this language, and with one another.  Join us when you can.

SRT’s address is 206 S. Fifth Avenue, Suite 200 in Ann Arbor.  That’s at the corner of Fifth Avenue, and Washington, half a block north of Liberty.  Entrance is from Fifth Avenue.