Tag Archives: Flex

User Interface Smackdown 2007

Explore Google's GWT, Adobe's Flex, and Microsoft's WPF for creating user interfaces

Registration is now open for the User Interface Smackdown 2007, being held April 4, 2007 at the Ann Arbor ITZone (Spark Central). The user interface toolkits that we will discuss and work with include (at least) Google’s GWT, Adobe’s Flex, and Microsoft’s WPF.

I’ve had a lot of fun doing Open Spaces events that Bruce Eckel has hosted in the past year. I exposed Bill Wagner (my business partner and co-founder of SRT) and our consultants to Open Spaces at CodeMash and they all enjoyed the experience as well, so we decided to start doing them locally, and we hope to do about 1 per quarter. Hopefully we will have the next one planned by the time that this one takes place (teaser: we already have some ideas in the works).

We believe that these events benefit the developer community. Not only are they an efficient and interesting way to bring timely knowledge to programmers, but they also bring the community together in a way that fosters continued communication and builds community. This helps everyone.

We believe that innovative user interfaces will be a key differentiator for software offerings in coming years, and learning how to use modern toolkits to build them is essential. We hope that we have a great turnout for this event and that it provides us with the motivation and interest to do more of these in the future, on different topics.

Cost for the event is $75 before March 26, or $90 after March 26 (and at the door, if space is available). Registration also includes continental breakfast and lunch.

This event is sponsored by Adobe, Microsoft, and SRT Solutions.

Hope to see you there!

Swag at the Java Posse Roundup

Cool swag

Is it rude to brag about the swag at a conference? Ah, well, I’m gonna do it anyhow. Next year, I’m convinced that the Java Posse Roundup 2008 will sell out during the early bird registration period, and it won’t be just for the swag.

But it was cool swag.

Cenqua and Google and O’Reilly sent t-shirts. There was a serious lack of shirts in small sizes. Kathy Sierra would NOT be pleased. She’s right … it DOES matter. Even the guys were amused at the number of XL and XXL. Not a small or medium in the bunch of Google or O’Reilly shirts. I didn’t check out the Cenqua shirts (I like their product, though).

O’Reilly sent some books and notepads. But they made the mistake of labeling the box “Dark Chocolate”. OK, the notebooks were great, but the expectation of chocolate kinda set the bar!

Google also sent some really cool flashy pins. Bruce’s company (Mindview) has great floaty pens.

Adobe sent a training video for Flex and a nice travel mug too.

Sun sent developer tools. I hope that I didn’t forget anyone. The swag table was quite laden with goodies. We have some cool notebooks that I could have taken, but the thought didn’t occur to me.

But next year, someone better send chocolate. I definitely know what SRT will take to its next event. Hmm, we’re sponsors of the Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing in a few weeks. Maybe I should see if we still have time to get chocolate!

Java Posse Roundup: Day 4

Friday, March 9

Friday was the final day for the Java Posse Roundup. We had 2 regularly scheduled sessions followed by a final session which included everyone.

For the first session of the day, I attended a session on JNI, convened by Josh Marinacci of Sun. A major part of the discussion centered around the idea that perhaps JNI is overly complex for what people often use it for these days, and that maybe some assumptions CAN be made about the atomicity of calls made in the JNI (if the programmer says it’s so). Maybe we should have JNI, as it currently exists, and also JNILite.

JNA is also a good replacement for many of the common usages of JNI. Instead of the programmer writing JNI code, annotations are used to access native libraries, all without writing a single line of native code. Interesting perspective arose that there aren’t many Java programmers who actually WRITE C code anymore, and so the availability of something like the JNA is a good thing.

Many comparisons were made to Microsoft’s CLR and unmanaged code.

And, a lot of us remember the old recommendations to AVOID doing things using JNI because it wasn’t “pure Java”. Well, it sounds like we need to get past that, and use the right tools for the job. If it needs to be in native code, write it. Josh did a really cool demo during one of the lightning talks where he wrote a small amount of JNI code (I think he said one line!) to communicate with the motion sensor on his Mac, using that motion to change a display shelf of pictures to move to the next page. VERY cool! And totally impossible if you wanted to avoid JNI code, since the PCs don’t generally have motion sensors. We really need to be able to use the native interface for things like this, and for creating innovative user experiences. Maybe instead of scaring people away from the JNI, we should come up with some recommendations and (dare I say?) best practices for its use.

Next, I went to a discussion of applets, positioned as “Applets: Does Java need an answer to Flex?”. Very quickly, it became apparent that there was agreement that applets have a certain “suck factor”. When the audio of this session becomes available on the Java Posse, this is something that I think both Java programmers and Microsoft programmers will find interesting.

With applets, there’s simply not enough attention paid to detail. Flash, on the other hand, provides a user experience where you can’t really even tell that it’s a Flash app because the plug in was done so well.

The recommendation was made that we change the applet architecture. Perhaps a 2 phase load would make sense. Everyone agreed that a spinning Sun logo, reminding the user that s/he’s waiting on a Sun applet is bad marketing! The slow loading is not in the JVM, but rather in the plugin.

A competitive requirement is that desktop apps can directly connect with web apps. And pretty much all agreed that Flash is winning on web for user interface from a Java perspective. A great amount of stress was generated in the group, centered around how to move forward. Waiting for Java 7, even as Java 5 is still being rolled out into corporate environments, probably means death for Java. The question was ultimately raised, “Is it worth solving this problem?”. I agreed with the group of people in the room who don’t believe in playing catch-up, not with Microsoft, not with Adobe. Pick the sweet spot that Java has and work in interoperating with Flash using Flex. Forge an alliance with Adobe.

IMO, Microsoft would take both paths. They would fix the plugin AND they would forge an alliance with Adobe. I don’t know if Java will take that direction, and that’s OK as long as they don’t continue trying to play catch-up.

This session was ultimately attended by everyone who was still in the building. Little by little, the crowd grew. The energy was amazing. The audio for this session will be incredible, and I would urge anyone to listen to it, both for the ideas and for feeling the energy of an open spaces event.

The last session of the day was the closing session for the conference. We all met together, and went around the room to suggest what improvements could be made. The appreciation for the Open Spaces format was evident the night before, when the Java Posse did a live podcast recording at the house that they were renting. And Camp4Coffee got a big plug too (“second best consistent coffee in the US, according to Pete from Australia).

Anyhow, so instead of asking how people felt about the event, format, etc., the question was asked about what could be improved. This was all recorded, and will be made available through the Java Posse at some point. My suggestions included involving the people at home more. Since the Java Posse podcast has a large audience, of which only a tiny percentage actually attended, I feel like somehow keeping the people who couldn’t come involved would be a great way to build the community and keep events like this populated in the future. As it was, I think that when registration opens for Java Posse 2008, the event will sell out quickly.

For those of us who have attended several of these events, we’re cautious about changing much about the format. It works. Tread lightly so as not to break it. But one thing that a lot of people suggested was ancillary to the conference itself, and more personal in nature. It would be nice to be able to include the spouses and families in a more formal way. Bruce and I have talked extensively about arranging childcare in Crested Butte so that my family could come (without my husband being in a hotel room with 2 kids, staring off at the snowy mountains that he can’t ski). Others echoed this. Even for those who wouldn’t be bringing kids, it would be nice for the spouses to have a parallel board, where they could arrange activities among themselves. That really relieves the pressure on people who are feeling guilty about leaving families at home!

As it was, many of the spouses attended the lightning talks in the evenings. If there had been scheduled spousal activities, people felt that their spouses would have wanted to attend. I’m looking forward to that in the future, even if my spouse ends up being the only male in the group!

Evening Sessions at Java Posse Roundup

Java Posse Roundup After Hours

 In addition to the daytime (morning) sessions, we’ve been getting together in the evenings.  Someone suggested lightning talks in the evenings, and posted a signup sheet.  8-10 talks per night were quickly filled up.

The evening talks were a mix of technical and non-technical.  All talks were limited to 5 minutes.  Well, it quickly became apparent that 5 minutes was a bit too short, so we set the timer for 5 mins and gave the person 1 more minute to wrap things up.

The first night, there was an attempt to record the sessions, but they were highly visual, and since no one was really set up to capture the sessions with Camtasia (or the like), listening might not be all that useful.

So, Wednesday night, we had talks on such diverse topics as:

Thursday night, people got a little bit more creative in terms of talking “outside of the Java box”.  It was a tribute to the format of the lightning talks that several people chose to bring their spouses that evening, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Those talks included (not complete list):

  • Yahoo Pipes
  • Flex running with Apollo (and communicating between them)
  • Orienteering
  • Java Docs in the year 2020
  • More racing from Joe (book link: http://tinyurl.com/2bd6vp)
  • Optimal letter spacing from Joel (who does beautiful calligraphy)
  • Right brain vs. left brain

We did the lightning talks at the very large house where the Java Posse was staying.  It was really perfect for this sort of a gathering.

On Thursday night, after the lightning talks, the Java Posse surprised us by telling us their intended format for that evening’s recording of the podcast.  As *** put it, “We provide this show for YOU guys all of the time.  How about this time, we just start it off and then go around the room and ask each of you what you thought about the Roundup?”.  Nice idea, but much stress in the room as we all contemplated actually speaking.  All in all, it was really great (for those present at least) to hear what the others thought about the Roundup, the Open Spaces format, the skiing, etc.

On Friday night, it was even more laid back.  Everyone showed up at the Secret Stash (a unique Crested Butte restaurant, that serves interesting pizza).  The menu is online, so I’m able to share our selections here:

ME & MY UNCLE'S PIE
grilled chicken ~ black beans & corn ~ chipotle sauce ~ cheddar cheese ~ fresh cilantro ~ roasted red peppers

KALADI'S FAVORITE
Grilled Assorted Veggies ~ Fresh Goat Cheese ~ and our Balsamic Reduction

We also had a blue cheese pizza, but I don’t see it on the online menu.

We sat at a table on the floor, with pillows.  This was a bit uncomfortable for the (inflexible) guys with long legs, but I was OK!  A good time was had by all, and those who drank a local beer called Mojo gave it high ratings.  After that, we all descended upon Bruce’s house and watched amusing stuff on YouTube, Google video, etc. well into the night.

 

 

CodeMash 2007

Well, the CodeMash conference has come and gone. Ah, all of that planning and now it’s over. How will I spend my days if I don’t have to help plan and publicize this event? Maybe I’ll actually get some work done (and see my kids)!

The conference was very cool. One problem in helping to arrange the event is that I had a lot of input into which talks were accepted. That meant that in every time slot, there were multiple talks that I wanted to attend! Ugh! So I moved in and out of the talks, sampling each. Sometimes, I got captivated with a talk and stayed until the end. Other times, some conference organization thing came up and I had to step out. But all in all, people seemed thrilled with the talks, the keynotes, and the venue. And I had lively conversations with attendees and speakers alike, WAY past my bedtime. The 6:30 am organizer scrum came very early on Thursday morning (since I had barely gotten to sleep, it seems). I dashed off without so much as washing my hair (eek, I had to be on stage to introduce Bruce Eckel’s keynote and there would certainly be photos!). Sigh. I had planned to get more sleep on Thursday night, but instead, I found myself talking to speakers and other attendees, including both Mark Ramm and Mike Levin (who I hear continued the conversation even later!) until 1:30 am. Friday night, much of the same. Oh well, maybe I can catch up on my sleep this week.

We kicked off the conference with an “Expert Panel on Languages”, which was moderated by Bruce Eckel and panelists included: Neal Ford, David Stanek, Bill Wagner, James Ward, and Jay Pipes. Many thanks to both Jay and James who stepped in at the last minute to round out the panel!

In addition to the scheduled talks, I attended (and convened) some Open Spaces talks. These are interactive conversations, decided by the makeup of the group. I was introduced to Open Spaces by Bruce Eckel at several conferences in Crested Butte (the next of which is the Java Posse Roundup in March). As he warned often happens, Open Spaces conferences have really spoiled me for eyes-forward talks. Sure, sitting in a lecture and listening to someone talk about something is often an effective way to learn. But I LOVE the interaction of Open Spaces, where every participant is actively involved in the conversation, sitting on the edge of their chairs, engaged. Not falling asleep.

Ah, anyhow, since Bruce was at CodeMash, we had him introduce the concept of Open Spaces and provided a board where people could post talks. His conferences are ALL open spaces, while this one had open spaces “on the side”. I think that we could have done things better in this regard, but I saw some engaging open spaces talks, including some convened by Bruce Eckel (for questions after his keynote) and Mary Poppendieck (for questions after her talk on Lean Software Development).

Other Open Spaces sessions that I attended …

Social Networking for Nerds (Versions 1 and 2):

One of the scheduled talks, for example, was “Networking for Nerds” (hardware stuff), but a few of us were thinking that a “social” networking for nerds might be a good thing to do, so we convened an open spaces session, “Social Networking for Nerds”. But as we were about to begin, there were rumblings about hitting the water park (CodeMash was at the Kalahari Resort and Indoor Water Park in Sandusky). So, we simply moved the “social networking” open spaces TO the water park. “Meet at the Lazy River!” And we did. A bunch of geeks in swimsuits … hmm, that knocks down some social barriers. As I explained to Josh Holmes later, “Once you’ve floated down the Lazy River in a raft, or raced down a water slide side by side with another conference participant, you don’t really feel too shy about asking if you can sit next to him at lunch!”.

Later, we did convene a second session, “Social Networking for Nerds 2”, in a more traditional venue … in the Nia Conference Center midday on Friday. It was well-attended as well. I think about 20 people showed up. I voiced my one regret in my career as not having kept in touch with people from prior jobs in my 20 years as a professional developer. One guy said that he keeps birthdays in Outlook and emails people yearly! He doesn’t feel like he’s “using” another person when he has a question for them later. Good idea (and it was his birthday as well, so we all wished him a happy birthday). Another guy (Barry Hawkins, who I first met in Crested Butte), indicated that his first Java User Group meeting was an eye-opener for him. He realized that people went and heard the presentation, but didn’t interact otherwise. So he announced a “pre-event” meeting where he would be at a local restaurant beforehand, and he gets a great turnout for that. Like our “social networking” session, it’s self-selecting. Those who are interested in networking, go! And while geeks have a bad reputation for being antisocial, I think that those who attend conferences perhaps have a bit more interest in socializing than the standard geek. The consensus seemed to be that most of us feel socially awkward at one point or another, but we push on and do it anyhow. And so we get better at it, just like software development!

Building a TurboGears Widget with Flex:

James Ward, Flex evangelist from Adobe, and Kevin Dangoor, the creator of TurboGears, paired to build a widget in TurboGears that embodied a Flex component. They built a DisplayShelf widget and deployed it to the Python Cheese Shop in under an hour. In a nice demonstration of pair programming, it actually worked the FIRST TIME. Phenomenal. About a dozen people sat around and watched the two at work, and later went to work themselves, grabbing the widget from the cheese shop and quickstarting a TurboGears app and using it themselves. When I got home from the conference and explained this to my husband, he insisted that I do the same. I easy_installed the widget and had it working in about 16 minutes (including copying images to use), in spite of me NOT wearing my glasses. Impressive.

Women in Software:

We brainstormed a bit on why there are so few women in software development these days. Mary Poppendieck explained that when she first got into software, about 40% of the developers were women. She thinks that companies were afraid to hire men because they might be drafted for Vietnam, and so it was “safer” to hire women. And women did it. Another attendee landed in software development from a secretarial field because of an awesome role model and mentor in her (female) boss. Another woman who attended came from a mechanical engineering background. Several men attended as well. We tried to work out some differences, and the one thing that kept coming up was … what drives us. Several of the women in attendance were really drawn by fulfilling customer’s (or company’s) needs. HELPING people. As a generalization, the men seemed more drawn by “building cool things”. Interesting. So maybe when we talk to girls about computer science, we need to talk to them about the human interaction component? That’s a thought. Mary Poppendieck brought up an interesting point as well. She doesn’t think that we need to reach young girls to convince them to go into computer science. She thinks we need to reach their PARENTS. Ah, interesting, especially since many of us indicated that our parents were guiding influences in our choice of professions. So we didn’t come up with “a solution” but that wasn’t really the goal. We have some insight and that’s a start.

User Stories: Reaping the Benefits of Agile Software Development:

Barry Hawkins convened an Open Spaces session on User Stories. A few of us gathered and described why user stories are so critical to the success of agile development. We delved into the representation of personas and we all really feel that these are key to user stories. It’s not all that productive to talk about “the user” as if my 67 year old retired dad and my 23 year old neighbor with a college degree see and use software in the same way. Should we just ban the words “THE USER” in our discussions? OK, maybe not, but building up personas really does help us keep in mind how people use software differently. And building stories for what the components are in software is a great way to help management define not only the complexity of a task but also how essential it is. Ah, now that we all clearly SEE what we’ve been talking about, maybe we can live without it. Or maybe it’s even more critical and needs to be elevated in priority. User stories really help that.

There have been a lot of blogs about CodeMash, since the conference ended. Those that say that they’re glad that they attended and that they would come again, or that they would recommend the conference to their colleagues, make me feel like I didn’t spend the last few months planning this conference for nothing. The real benefit in community-organized events is, however, in letting people know what you would like done differently next time. We’re not a bunch of conference organizers. We’re developers. As I said several times at the conference, this is the conference (and content) that WE wanted to attend. If others in the development community pitch in with ideas and speakers and keynoters and what to do differently, it can be even MORE awesome next time. Did I say “next time”? EEK! Don’t tell my family …. But do join the CodeMash google group and provide feedback, suggestions, etc.!

CodeMash website

CodeMash google group