Session Schedule

By Jeff Brown

Groovy is an agile dynamic language for the Java platform. The language and its libraries bring many things to the table to ease the process of building applications for the Java platform. This session provides a detailed run through Groovy with lots of code samples to drive home the power of the language.

Dynamic languages provide a lot of power and flexibility compared to statically typed languages. Groovy brings that power and flexibility to the Java platform in a way that is totally compatible with all of your existing Java code, tools and infrastructure. This session covers all of the fundamentals of Groovy and gives developers a whole lot of practical information they need to get started with the language.

By Jeff Brown

Dynamic languages bring a lot of interesting elements to the table for teams interested in doing Test Driven Development (TDD). Groovy lends itself very well to TDD and this session demonstrates many features of the language and its libraries that help teams build more testable systems and build better tests.

The value of Test Driven Development (TDD) has become widely accepted. The practice has extended beyond just XP teams. Good TDD practices yield high quality software and help teams maintain confidence in their software as complexity grows. The dynamic nature of Groovy makes TDD easy and fun. Groovy may be used to unit test not only Groovy code but other code as well. Testing Java code with Groovy is a snap. Learn to use the power of Groovy to test your systems.

By Scott Davis

There are wild-eyed radicals out there telling you that Java is dead, statically-typed languages are passe, and your skills are hopelessly out-of-date. Those extremists are the same ones who don't bat an eye at throwing out years of experience to learn a new language from scratch, pushing aside a familiar IDE for a new one, and deploying to a whole new set of production servers with little regard to legacy integration.

While this "burn the boats" approach to software development might sound exciting to some folks, it's giving your manager the cold shakes right now. What if I told you that there was a way that you could integrate seamlessly with your legacy Java code, continue to use your trusty IDE and stable production servers, and yet take advantage of many of the exciting new dynamic language features that those fanatics keep prattling on about? You'd probably say, "Groovy!" I would, too...

This talk focuses on integrating Groovy with your legacy Java codebase in a way that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in the most conservative of organizations. We'll look at the dramatic reduction in line of code you can achieve by simply flipping your POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects) to POGOs (Plain Old Groovy Objects). We'll talk about calling Java classes from Groovy, and calling Groovy classes from Java. We'll look at Groovyc, the integrated compiler that manages Groovy/Java dependencies without a hiccup. Not once will I tell you to throw out the old in favor of the new. In each case, I'll show you how to integrate the new with the old. Don't throw out your Ant build scripts; mix in a bit of Gr

By Scott Davis

This talk focuses on the ways that Groovy can turn a traditional Java developer's world-view upside down. We'll start by talking about how you can thumb your nose at The Man by leaving out many of the main syntactic hallmarks of Java: semicolons, parentheses, return statements, type declarations (aka Duck-typing), and the ever-present try/catch block. Then we'll look at features like operator overloading and method pointers that Groovy welcomes back into the language with open arms.

The bulk of this session focuses on metaprogramming with Groovy. We'll add new methods to classes at runtime -- even if they were originally implemented in Java, and even if they were declared final. (Thanks, ExpandoMetaClass!) We'll call methods that don't exist and avoid the dreaded MethodNotFound Exception. (Thanks, invokeMethod!) We'll narrowly scope our metaprogramming shenanigans using Use blocks and Categories, and then cast our changes to the wind such that every instance of a class gets our added juice. If you are happy taking the Blue Pill, this talk is not for you. You can continue using Groovy as a slimmed-down dialect of Java -- an 'After' picture to Java's 'Before'. If, howeve

By Scott Davis

Grails is a Java- and Groovy-based web framework that is built for speed. First-time developers are amazed at how quickly you can get a page-centric MVC web site up and running thanks to the scaffolding and convention over configuration that Grails provides. Advanced web developers are often pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to break out of that coarse-grained navigation model using the native Ajax support baked into the framework.

We'll start with the solid Web 1.0 foundation that Grails provides and mix in JavaScript libraries like Prototype and Scriptaculous. (Both are included with the framework.) Grails tags like remoteLink and formRemote make it easy to asynchronously replace strategic parts of the web page while leaving the whole unchanged. There is first-class support for JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) in Grails. You'll see how easy it is to return JSON (and XML) instead of the usual HTML using the grails.converters package.

By Scott Davis

How optimized is your website? YSlow, a FireFox/FireBug plugin, doesn't pull any punches. It gives any website an A, B, C, D, or F rating based on 14 individual analysis points. You'll be amazed (or depressed) at what YSlow thinks of your site. In this talk, we'll walk through these points step by step, learning what Yahoo! (the creator of this utility) does to keep its web properties running as quickly as possible.

These points are nicely summarized in "High Performance Web Sites", by Steve Souders (a companion book to the plugin). The analysis points that YSlow looks at are programming language, server, and web framework agnostic. The lessons learned here are really a deep look into HTTP, taking advantage of the native capabilities of the protocol -- making the Internet work for you.

By Scott Davis

"This code is simply too hard to unit test." That is a common refrain when dealing with software that hasn't been expressly written to be testable. In this section we look at "untestable code" and explore various ways to make it more testable. What you'll come to realize is that "untestable code" is really another way of saying "poorly architected code." We'll demonstrate simple, common-sense strategies that solve both problems.

We will take a look at some poorly written code and refactor it into something testable.

By Neal Ford

Most developers think that "TDD" stands for Test-driven Development. But it really should stand for "Test-driven Design". Rigorously using TDD makes your code much better in multiple ways.

This session demonstrates how stringent TDD improves the structure of your code. I discuss TDD as a technique for vetting consumer calls, using mock objects to understand complex interactions between collaborators, and some discussions of improved code metrics yielded by TDD. This session shows that TDD is much more than testing: it fundamentally makes your code better at multiple levels.

By Neal Ford

Developers from the 1980s would be shocked at how inefficiently developers use their computers because of the advent of graphical operating systems. This talk describes how to reclaim productivity afforded by intelligent use of command lines and other ways of accelerating your interaction with the computer and bending computers to do your bidding. Stop working so hard for your computer!

In The Productive Programmer, I identify 4 principles of productivity: acceleration, focus, automation, and canonicality. This session defines the principles and describes their use, but the primary focus of this talk is on real-world examples of how you can use these principles to make yourself a more productive programmer. Acceleration covers ways to speed up development by taking command of your computer. This includes keyboard shortcuts (including ways to learn them and make better use of them) in both IntelliJ and Eclipse. Focus describes how you can utilize your environment (both physical and computer) to greatly enhance your productivity. Canonicality (the DRY principle from The Pragm

By Neal Ford

This session demonstrates that "Agility" and "SOA" complement each other quite well. Just because SOA is buzz-word compliant doesn't mean that you should throw good practices out the window. This session demonstrates how you can apply the principles of agility to building highly complex distributed enterprises.

Managers and ivory tower architects seem to think that all the rules that apply to "normal" software don't apply to SOA. Ironically, they matter even more. Agility and SOA are closely aligned because SOA is about building complex distributed systems and Agility is about effectively building complex software. This session unveils the pillars of successful SOA and how to achieve them in a testable, iterative fashion. It discussing testing strategies, how to make your architecture more robust and maintainable, and how to design an evolutionary architecture.

By Neal Ford

It turns out that ancient philosophers knew a lot about software -- did you know that Plato defined object-oriented programming? This keynote applies old lessons to new problems and old problems to new lessons. It describes why SOA is so hard, and why people in your company make bone-headed decisions. What other keynote includes Rube Goldberg, Aristotle, Dave Thomas, and Chindia?

Plato, Aristotle, Occam, Rube Goldberg, Dave Thomas, and Demeter...with pictures!

By Neal Ford

The Gang of Four book should have been entitled "Palliatives for Statically Typed Languages", because the recipes it provides are cumbersome solutions to the problems it poses. Using powerful languages makes the solutions in the GoF book look hopelessly complicated. This session shows how to solve the same problems concisely, elegantly, and with far fewer lines of code using the facilities of dynamic languages.

The Gang of Four book was actually 2 books: a nomenclature describing common software problems and a recipe book for solutions. The vocabulary they defined is still useful. The recipes are a disaster! Dynamic languages (like Groovy and Ruby) have powerful meta-programming facilities far beyond statically typed languages. It turns out that many of the structural design patterns in the Gang of Four book and beyond are much easier to solve with meta-programming. This session compares and contrasts the "traditional" approach of design patterns with a more nuanced meta-programming approach. Using language features creates cleaner abstractions with fewer lines of code and little or no additional s

By Neal Ford

Regular expressions should be an integral part of every developer?s toolbox, but most don?t realize what an important topic it is. Regular expressions have existed for decades, but many developers don't understand how to take full advantage of this powerful mechanism, either through command line tools and editors or in their development.

This session shows how to fully exploit regular expressions. It begins with the basic premise of how regular expressions work, then shows how to take advantage of the RegEx library built into the Java platform. This session shows how to use wildcards, escape characters, meta-tags, character class operators, look-aheads/look-behinds, and how to use the greedy operators effectively. It covers regular expressions from the beginning through to advanced usage, both in Java and in tools that support regular expressions. This session is packed with real examples of regular expressions (including a game show with no fabulous prizes). Key Session Points: Regular expressions defined Examples Using t

By Neal Ford

Provides a punchlist to ensure your shiny new web application is up to spec.

When you buy a new house, you tour the new property with the builder with a punchlist, finding all the fit and finish things that aren't quite right yet. You've built your web site, and it all seems to be working. Where's the punchlist for your web site? This session gives you just that: a checklist you can use to verify that your web application is ready for occupation. I cover things like where import your JavaScript and CSS, how to handle images so that they are aggressively cached, how much you should care about XHTML, and lots more. This talk will give you a fit and finish check list you can apply to your shiny new web application to see if it's up to spec.

By David Geary

In April 2005, annual growth rates for jobs in JavaServer Faces, Struts, and Ruby on Rails were all at about 0%. Today, Struts' growth rate still hovers around 0%, but JSF and Rails have taken off. At the end of 2007, both JSF and Rails were growing at a rate of between 400-500% annually (according to indeed.com).

JSF has passed the adoption tipping point, and is now the Java-based framework of choice, as is evidenced by its ecosystem. From vendors such as MyEclipse and RedHat to open source projects such as Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4JSF, JSF is where the action is.

Come see why JSF is so popular. In this code- and demo-intensive session, I'll show you the fundamentals of JSF.

This session is taught by a member of the JSF Expert Group for JSF 1.0 and 2.0., and co-author of the best-selling book on JSF: Core JavaServer Faces. David will take you through a whirlwind introduction to JSF including what JSF is, how it was developed, and how you can best take advantage of the technology. Here is a list of topics: Components, managed beans, value expressions, and static navigation i18n, CSS, and actions The Faces Context and Faces messages The JSF Event Model Using JavaScript with JSF This introduction to JSF also contains 5 live-code demos, where David will develop a simple, but robust application during the course of the session.

Prerequisite: Some knowledge of Java-based web applications, such as Struts, is a plus, but is not required. If you have a significant experience with JSF, you probably already know most of what's covered in this session.

By David Geary

Facelets is a combination of Tiles and Tapestry, and it's the hottest JSF-related open source project on the planet. It's popularity is well deserved, and in fact, much of what is in Facelets today will make its way into the JSF 2.0 spec due out in 2008. So not only can you come to this session and see some really cool demos that you can put to use in the real world, but you'll also be learning JSF 2.0 before it's even been defined! How's that for a ROI?

This session is 90 minutes of nothing-but-Facelets, so we're going to cover a good bit of ground. You'll see all of the basics, such as templating, error handling and debugging, and some of the more advanced aspects, such as creating your own components and tag libraries.

Prerequisite: Some knowledge of JSF is essential. If you're familiar with a templating framework, such as Velocity or Tiles, that's a plus, but not required.

By David Geary

Ajax4jsf makes it very easy to add Ajax to your JSF applications. Come to this presentation to see how.

The JSF spec has changed little since JSF debuted in 2004. However, the open source community is a frentic cauldron of activity that has produced lots of cool innovations, many of them related to Ajax. In this talk, we'll look at one of the most popular open source Ajax frameworks for JSF, Ajax4jsf. Ajax4jsf gives you a very capable set of low-level Ajax tags (JSP or Facelets), along with their corresponding APIs, that let you easily incorporate Ajax features, most of the time by just using a custom tag or two. Ajax4jsf is an ideal solution if you want to add Ajax functionality to an existing JSF application. In early 2008, the JSF Expert Group has begun to focus it's attention on incorpor

By David Geary

Have you ever stopped to think that you need to learn two frameworks to develop a non-trivial, database-backed, web application? Struts and iBatis; JSF and Hibernate; Tapestry and EJB3.0.

Two frameworks. And then you have to learn to use them together. Why do we have to learn two frameworks just to retrieve "Hello World" from a database and show it in a view. Isn't that crazy? Now you can use one framework, and use one component model. One. Isn't that nice?

By David Geary

The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is truly a revolutionary framework that lets you develop Ajaxified web applications without knowing anything about Ajax or JavaScript. But the GWT goes way beyond basic Ajax by letting you implement desktop-like applications that run in the ubiquitous browser.

In this, the first of a two-part session on the GWT, you will learn about the framework and its fundamental capabilities, such as: rapid development with project and application generators; the GWT widget hierarchy; remote procedure calls; the GWT's history mechanism, including its integration with the Back button and bookmarks; and integrating JavaScript frameworks, such as Script.aculo.us, with your GWT applications.

By David Geary

In the second part of this talk, you will learn how to extend the GWT by implementing custom widgets, including a scrolling viewport and a drag and drop framework. After discussing custom widgets, you will see how to integrate database access into your GWT applications, and how to deploy your GWT applications to external servers.

You will also learn how to integrate GWT widgets into legacy applications built with web application frameworks such as Struts, JavaServer Faces, or Tapestry. The GWT is one of the most powerful Ajax frameworks on the planet, and one of the few that let you easily implement desktop-like applications that run in a browser, and because of that, it has gained incredible mindshare in a short period of time. Come to these two sessions on the GWT and see what all the buzz is all about.

By Andrew Glover

There's no question that Ant is the de facto standard for building Java applications; however, even its creator has acknowledged an inherent limitation with Ant's expressiveness due to its reliance on XML. Recently, the popularity of Ruby and the Rails framework has brought to focus Ruby's de facto build platform: Rake. Rake's expressiveness comes from its reliance on Ruby itself to define a DSL for software assembly. While Rake's ultimate focus is Ruby, there are a number of interesting projects that utilize expressive DSLs for building Java including Gant, which uses Groovy as a DSL format and builds upon Ant's existing cornucopia of tasks.

In this session, we'll examine why Ant is possibly limiting and attempt to understand why Rake for Ruby is arguably more expressive-- from there we'll see Gant in action and see first hand how brining Ant into a fully functional language yields an expressiveness unmatched in XML. By the end, you'll be eager to download Gant and put your Groovy skills into action for constructing a highly flexible and extensible build system that moves concepts to cash in short order.

By Andrew Glover

This session will walk attendees through a series of iterations on a fictional Java project where an automated build system is created that facilitates compilation, testing, inspection, and deployment. This build system is then plugged into the Hudson CI server and as features are coded using Agile techniques like developer testing, attendees will ultimately see firsthand how a Continuous Integration process reduces risk and improves software quality.

The practice of Continuous Integration facilitates early visibility into the development process by regularly conducting software builds, thus integrating disparate software pieces earlier than later, which often times minimizes the interval between when a defect is coded and when it is discovered. Often times though, Continuous Integration is thought of as a tool, which leads to a false sense of ease when it comes to adopting a Continuous Integration process. This session will walk attendees through a series of iterations on a fictional Java project where an automated build system is created that facilitates compilation, testing, inspection, and deployment. This build system is then plug

By Andrew Glover

Behavior-driven development, or BDD, has attracted a lot of attention via RSpec in the Ruby community, but BDD's roots stem from JBehave, a Java based framework modeled off of the xUnit paradigm. But JBehave isn't the only framework available for Java developers-- with the advent of Groovy, new options are available for embracing BDD in the spirit of RSpec's innovative behavior based DSL.

In this session, we'll look at what BDD is, how it is an evolutionary result of Test Driven Development, and how it shifts the traditional testing vocabulary from being test-based to behavior-based. You'll also see that this subtle shift in thinking facilitates writing behavior classes first, which is the ultimate goal of TDD style thinking in the first place. We'll examine RSpec in an effort to understand why BDD is catching on quickly in the Ruby community and then we'll study JBehave's framework for literate programming with expectations along with its Story framework for building executable user stories. With a solid understanding of JBehave, we'll probe some of the more innovative fe

By Andrew Glover

The spectacular success and market penetration of the iPod, Agile software development principles, Twitter, and even Google are just a few examples of minimalism in action.

Yet, there are countless counterparts to each success previously listed that, unfortunately, didn't make it; what's more, each counterpart tried to solve the same complex problem. Was it market timing, smarter people, access to capital, savvy marketing, or a combination of any of these aspects that made the difference? Or was it because when it comes to coding, design, functionality, project teams, and even testing, less is, indeed, more?

By Stuart Halloway

Over the last few years, we have taken dozens of projects to 100% coverage, and there are still plenty of things that can go wrong. We will look at examples the various problems, and show how to prevent them from infecting your project.

With an expressive language such as Groovy or Ruby and with modern test practices, 100% C0 test coverage is readily achievable. But 100% coverage is meaningless without other supporting habits and practices. Over the last few years, we have taken dozens of projects to 100% coverage, and there are still plenty of things that can go wrong. We will look at examples of each of these problems, and show how to prevent them from infecting your project: * Fragile mocking * Pair bravado * The ugly mirror * Parallel abstraction * Overspecification * Underspecification * Invisible code * Misplaced exemplar

By Stuart Halloway

The rise of Ajax and Rich Web Applications, plus the success of dynamic languages, has caused people to revisit the JavaScript language. Now that we take JavaScript seriously as a language, it is time to get serious about the quality of JavaScript code, through refactoring. In this talk, we will test and refactor a real-world jQuery plugin.

As we refactor a real-world jQuery plugin, you will learn how to test JavaScript code with Screw.Unit, Smoke, and blue-ridge write covering tests for existing code perform common refactorings such as extract method and "use the right tools" rethink refactoring in light of functional programming style think about when and how refactoring shades into breaking changes and redesign

By Stuart Halloway

In this talk, we will explore and compare four of the most interesting JVM languages: Clojure, Groovy, JRuby, and Scala. Each of these languages aims to greatly simplify writing code for the JVM, and all of them succeed in this mission. However, these languages have very different design goals. We will explore these differences, and help you decide when and where these languages might fit into your development toolkit. For more information see http://blog.thinkrelevance.com/2008/9/24/java-next-overview.

As we reach the middle of our second decade of Java experience, the community has learned a lot about software development. Many of our best ideas on how to use a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) are now being baked into more advanced languages for the JVM. These languages tend to provide two significant advantages: They reduce the amount of ceremony in your code, allowing you to focus on the essence of the problem you are solving They enable some degree of functional programming style. Think of it as a dash of verb-oriented programming to spice up your noun-oriented programming. In this talk, we will explore and compare three of the most interesting new JVM languages: Clojure, Groovy, JRuby, an

By Stuart Halloway

Dispatch takes many forms. Single dispatch, switch statements, pattern matching, and multiple dispatch all meet similar needs: Selecting runtime behavior in response to varying runtime conditions. Flexible dispatch is a key element of Java.next. All of the Java.next languages support dispatch strategies that are far more flexible than Java's single dispatch. In this talk (Part 3 of the Java.next series), I will explore how the Java.next languages (Clojure, Groovy, JRuby, and Scala) support dispatch.

For more information, see http://blog.thinkrelevance.com/2008/8/26/java-next-3-dispatch-2.

By David Hussman

Being agile does not mean living life one iteration at a time. Agile projects without a long view can run into the common design problems of the past. Planning iteration by iteration is often foolish and feeds the myth that agile projects do not think beyond a few weeks. Successful agile projects plan within iterations and across iterations. The later planning is called release planning and it is the forum where agility first engages architecture and other cross cutting concerns.

Architects who think that agile projects evolve code one test at a time are only partially correct. Agile projects review and evolve architecture with unit tests, acceptance tests, architectural spikes, and continuous review of the system's ability to adapt and respond. There is a home for architects and architecture on agile projects, and other traditional roles, but the there are some new variations. This session will talk about the relationship of agile methods and architecture and design and how they can work together to make stronger products and systems. The session will draw on information and anecdotes will come from projects of all sizes within companies of all sizes, including so

By David Hussman

Management and agility are not mutually exclusive. Many managers are already working in an agile manner as a means to improve, produce, or simply survive. Other managers hear about projects using agile methods and struggle to find a place in the project community.

This session provides a new way to think about managing projects. Some managers will find that their existing practices and skills are supported and enhanced by the forums and metrics provided within an agile project while others will be challenged by some of the principles and practices.

From product definition to project chartering to planning, estimating, and tracking, this session will discuss practices of agile managers working on agile projects of all sizes. The session will contains a collection of interactions meant to teach, challenge, and immerse you in the managing and leading an agile project.

By David Hussman

Successfully coaching agile communities involves using a wide variety of skills. Coaches help guide coding and design, collaboration and communication, the writing and telling of user stories and much more. The coach needs to continuously show and teach the varied interactions that connect and support the entire project community.

This session will explore and teach coaching skills. The session will reference a wide variety of agile coaching as well as drawing from cross disciplinary techniques like those used by music producers to help foster creativity while helping to ensure products are delivered and challenges confronted.

We will discuss ways to help a community find their groove in the first few iterations and we will end by talking about techniques for keeping the groove alive past the first release and into the future of the project. Some of the many areas that will be covered are: - Organizing and leading a chartering session - Creating a creative work space - Helping to write stories and build an initial backlog - Getting people talking and collaborating - Raising awareness with meaningful metrics and information radiators - Connecting with the difficult or uninterested players - Growing community coaches

By David Hussman

Why should the value of test driven development (TDD) stay stuck in the realm of coding? The ideas behind TDD are now being successfully applied to the automation of business value. While this has been going on for some time within the agile community, it is not starting to spread to main stream development.

There are more tools are coming available everyday which allow developers, testers, and customers (or product owners) to work together to automate acceptance tests. This process helps clarify the needs of the end user before development begins and removes more of the wasteful work based on incorrect assumptions from vague requirements.

This session will talk about how to get people working together to automate acceptance testing. We will cover the creation of testable work units, like user stories, the collaboration around creating the initial acceptance tests, and several ways for various people in your project community to come together to automate acceptance tests and delivery more and better software.

By Scott Leberknight

This session introduces the Hibernate Object/Relational Mapping (ORM) framework, showing the basics of persisting Java objects to relational databases. No prior knowledge of Hibernate or ORM is assumed.

Persistence is a key element of most applications, whether web or desktop. Relational databases are the defacto standard for enterprise data storage and object-oriented (OO) programming, for example in Java, is the predominant technique to build applications today. Relational databases and OO, however, are completely different paradigms. Object/Relational Mapping (ORM) seeks to bridge this gap to allow easy persistence of objects to relational databases. Hibernate is a leading ORM framework providing persistence of Java objects to relational databases. This session introduces Hibernate and covers ORM alternatives available today; getting started with Hibernate; mapping objects to database st

By Scott Leberknight

Hibernate is a very powerful object/relational mapping framework. With the vast amount of power also comes the responsibility to choose which features of Hibernate to use and how to use them, as well as things to avoid. We'll look at some real world Hibernate tips and tricks in this session.

Hibernate is one of the most popular and successful object/relational frameworks available today. In this session we'll look at some real world tips for using Hibernate effectively. Topics we'll cover include: logging and debugging Hibernate-generated SQL; using annotation mappings, ImprovedNamingStrategy, and MappedSuperclass; understanding lazy-loading and the n+1 problem; basics of performance tuning Hibernate applications; using inheritance in your domain model; managing sessions; effective use of the second-level cache; validation using Hibernate Validator; and when not to use Hibernate in an application.

By Scott Leberknight

Hibernate is one of the pre-eminent object/relational mapping technologies, but the Hibernate Search project adds full-text search capabilities to an already extremely capable tool to allow you to Google your domain objects.

Hibernate Search provides the means to add full-text search to your domain objects by leveraging Apache Lucene under the covers. You control which domain objects are searchable, how they should be indexed, and Hibernate Search takes care of the dirty work for you. It handles the object/index impedance mismatch and the task of managing the search indices. You can also execute full-text searches and retrieve actual domain objects transparently. We'll also discuss various architecture alternatives including using Hibernate Search in both clustered and non-clustered environments.

Prerequisite: A basic understanding of Hibernate.

By Scott Leberknight

Spring provides a solid foundation for web and enterprise applications. Its support for dynamic languages like Groovy adds interesting capabilities that can make your application architecture more flexible and dynamic.

This presentation will look at how Spring's support for dynamic languages, and Groovy in particular, can enhance your application.

By Alex Miller

Possible library and language changes for Java 7 have been in discussion since early 2007 and many things have been proposed. This talk will focus on those items that are most likely to be included and some of the more controversial language changes that might be included in a future release. For a comprehensive list of almost everything being considered, see http://tech.puredanger.com/java7.

Some examples of topics that will be discussed include: * Java Module System * NIO 2 (new NEW IO) * Swing Application Framework, Bean Binding, and Bean Validation * Date and Time API * Fork/Join framework * JMX 2.0

By Alex Miller

The Design Patterns book launched a revolution in object-oriented design and provided a vocabulary for OO developers to communicate their ideas. However, in some cases, patterns used blindly can lead to awkward, confusing, or hard to maintain code. It is time for some common patterns used in Java to be reconsidered so that we can derive the benefits from patterns while minimizing their concerns.

This talk will re-evaluate key patterns like Singleton, Template Method, Visitor, and Proxy. These patterns have downsides and in some cases, do more harm than good. Examples of each pattern will be give in Java and examined for clarity, testability, and flexibility. Important problems will be discussed and examples of alternate solutions will be given.

In the Singleton pattern, we'll look at problems like hidden coupling, testability, and extensibility and examine ways to use interfaces and dependency injection to avoid the need for the classic Singleton pattern. We'll also re-examine the double checked locking idiom and update it with current advice. In the Template Method pattern will look at problems with communicating intent, composition, and API evolution and examine ways to refactor your code to use composition instead by way of interfaces, factories, and strategies. In the Visitor pattern we'll look at how changes in data structures break existing visitors, problems with intermingling navigation and behavior, return values, excep

By Alex Miller

This presentation will look at the many new additions in Java 5 and 6 for concurrent programming such as Atomics, Locks, synchronizers, and concurrent collections. In particular, we will be looking at common concurrency idioms around locking and access to shared state, thread coordination, thread pooling, and work execution. Each of these topics will be presented with code examples demonstrating common idioms and the usage of these new concurrency primitives.

Some topics we will cover in detail include: * Thread coordination with Thread.join(), CountdownLatch, and CyclicBarrier * Access to shared state with synchronized, volatile, Atomics, Lock, ReadWriteLock * Using Locks and Conditions to achieve more flexibility than synchronized and wait/notify * Concurrent collections like ConcurrentHashMap, CopyOnWriteArrayList, and ConcurrentSkipListMap * Work execution with Queues, ThreadPools, and Executors

By Alex Miller

Did you know that Java 5 and 6 added 8 new interfaces and 16 new collection implementations to the JDK, more than doubling the size of the collection API? Collections 201 gives you an update on all of the interfaces, implementations, and utilities and gives you guidance on picking the perfect collection. In particular, Java 5 introduced a new major collection type Queue and a whole new java.util.concurrent package with data structures optimized for concurrent use.

This presentation will give an overview of the major collection types, with a particular focus on additions in Java 5 and 6 with interfaces like Queue, Deque, NavigableSet as well as new implementations like ConcurrentHashMap, ConcurrentSkipListSet/Map, and the family of Queue implementations like LinkedBlockingQueue. In addition to covering the interfaces and implementations, we will also look at the backing data structures, iterator types, concurrency and performance concerns, and more.

By Alex Miller

Terracotta is an open-source Java clustering technology. It creates a virtual, durable Java heap that is shared across a cluster of Java Virtual Machines. This is done by dynamically instrumenting bytecode at load time to intercept calls to read and write fields, and also to enter and exit monitor locks. Information about these calls is then transmitted to the Terracotta Server (which can also be clustered) and out to other nodes in the cluster as needed. The advantage of this approach is that many Java programs can be clustered without code changes by providing just external Terracotta configuration. Many performance optimizations are performed to minimize communication and locking costs. Terracotta is commonly used for session sharing in web applications, distributed caching, and distributed workflow processing.

This presentation will give an overview of the Terracotta technology, how it's implemented, and common use cases that can benefit from the technology. We will look at some code and cluster some Java applications during the presentation.

Some topics that will be covered include: * Terracotta architecture * Heap replication without serialization * Distributed synchronized and wait/notify, cluster locking * Use cases * Example programs

By Mark Richards

Java Persistence has come along way since the days of straight JDBC coding and custom framework development. We have at our disposal several outstanding open source frameworks such as Hibernate, Toplink, iBatis, and OpenJPA (just to name a few), and we now have a promising and emerging standards-based solution called Java Persistence API (JPA). However, all to often we find in the Java persistence space that it is a world of one-size-does-not-fit-all. We continually struggle with traditional ORM solutions like Hibernate when it comes to reporting queries, complex queries, complex relationships, and stored procedures, and we also struggle with managing the enormous amount of SQL required for solutions such as iBATIS or JDBC-based frameworks. In this coding-intensive session we will take a detailed look at identifying and overcoming the challenges we face when using frameworks such as Hibernate, iBATIS, and JPA, and how to combine the various persistence frameworks to create an effective Java persistence solution that approaches (but of course does not reach) the silver bullet.

Agenda: - Introduction - Framework Differences - Brief Overview of iBatis - Brief Overview of JPA - Aspect Analysis - Inserts and Updates - Reporting Queries - Stored Procedures - Complex SQL - Debugging and Testing Techniques - The Fast Lane Reader Pattern - Combining ORM and SQL Mapping Frameworks - Summary and Q&A

By Mark Richards

The chances are good that at some point in your career you will need to use messaging to pass information between applications, subsystems, or external systems, particularly with service-oriented architecture on the rise. The Java Messaging Service (JMS) allows Java applications to implement messaging using a standard API, thereby removing the dependency on any particular messaging provider. In Part 1 of this session we will take a look at some of the basics of messaging, including sending and receiving messages, message types, and request/reply messaging. I will begin the session by going over the basics of messaging and the JMS API. Then, through interactive coding using OpenJMS I will demonstrate how to connect to JMS providers, send messages, receive messages, and use message properties. Please note that this is a two part session.

Agenda: JMS Basics - Messaging Models Overview - JMS Message Structure - Primary JMS Interfaces - JMS Providers - Internal vs. External Destinations Practical JMS - Obtaining a JMS Connection - Sending a Message to a Queue - Receiving a Message from a Queue - Using Message Properties - Implementing Request/Reply Messaging - Message Correlation

By Mark Richards

In Part 1 of the JMS session I covered messaging models, messaging basics, the JMS API, and point-to-point messaging. In this interactive code-intensive session I will cover some additional JMS topics such as browsing queues, load balancing, publishing and subscribing to messages within the pub/sub model, durable and non-durable subscribers, message selectors, and message filtering. I will also discuss and demonstrate message prioritization, persistent and non-persistent messages, and finally message expiration (expiry). Note that this is Part 2 of a two-part JMS session.

Agenda: - Browsing Messages - Load Balancing - Publish and Subscribe Model - Durable Subscribers - Message Selectors and Filtering - Persistent and Non-Persistent Messages - Message Priority and Expiration (Expiry)

Prerequisite: Enterprise Messaging With JMS (Part 1) or some knowledge of JMS

By Mark Richards

Most web-based applications rely solely on the database to manage transactions, thereby freeing the developer from having to worry about transaction management. While this works in some circumstances, there are times when the use of transactions is vital to the integrity and operations of an application and its corresponding data. In this session I will demonstrate through real-world coding examples why transactions are such a critical part of the application development process. I will review the basics of both programmatic and declarative transactions, then introduce three transaction design patterns and explain when they should be applied, how to use them, and what problems they solve. By the end of this session you will see that by using transaction design patterns you can build an effective transaction management strategy for your application with very little effort.

Agenda: Why Transactions Are Necessary Programmatic Transaction Management (EJB, Spring) Declarative Transaction Management (EJB, Spring) Transaction Design Patterns Overview Client Owner Transaction Design Pattern Domain Service Owner Transaction Design Pattern Server Delegate Owner Transaction Design Pattern Summary

By Mark Richards

The Java Message Service (JMS) provides an standard messaging API that allows you to send and receive messages using a variety of messaging providers (including Java EE application servers). The Spring Framework takes this abstraction one step further by providing an robust JMS messaging framework that greatly simplifies message processing. In this session we will see how to use the JMS Messaging Framework provided in Spring 2.5. I will start by describing Spring's overall messaging architecture and how to configure the various beans needed for messaging. Then, through interactive coding I will discuss and demonstrate Spring's JMS Template. which is used for sending messages and receiving messages synchronously. I will then discuss and demonstrate Message Driven POJOs, which are Spring's answer for asynchronous message listeners. After attending this session you will have all the necessary knowledge and code examples to use JMS in your Spring applications.

Agenda: - Spring Messaging Framework Overview - Configuring Spring JMS Resources - Using the JMS Template - Using Message Driven POJOs

Prerequisite: Knowledge of JMS and Spring

By Jared Richardson

Software projects fail over and over for many of the same reasons. We'll look at some of the more avoidable problems and some solid ways to fix them, or avoid them in the first place.

We'll talk about discovering what went wrong (and what went right!) with your last project, solving code integration issues, resolving lingering quality problems, establishing automated test suites, reining in soaring project requirements and more.

By Jared Richardson

There are a number of great techniques you can use across technologies and projects. Come hear some of my favorite ways to move "beyond" and contribute a few of your own. We'll discuss topics ranging from glue languages to ditching your IDE to building your brain.

In this session we'll discuss: - Move beyond tools - Glue languages - Inbox Zero - Learning to learn - Not being a cog anymore - Macro Object Orientation - Clean code - Looking smarter than you are - Open source tool stacks - Tighter feedback loops - Scripted deployments - Scripting databases - Virutalization And more...

By Jared Richardson

Technical debt has long been recognized in technical circles for years, but convincing your manager to budget time to repay "technical debt" has always been problematic. Let's couch the term technical debt concept in language more familiar to our managers: credit card debt.

Like credit card debt, technical debt accumulates slowly over time, and usually takes just as long to pay off. The interest slowly builds up until you're no longer able to pay off the principle: your entire development cycle is devoted to just "paying the interest". We'll examine common types of technical debt and strategies to effectively communicating the problems, and their solutions, to your managers.

By Jared Richardson

How do you keep a team scattered across time zones in sync?

It's difficult to keep a local team coordinated. When we add geographical distance to the equation, problems are immediately magnified. We'll talk about techniques that you can use to be sure everyone is sharing information and on the same page whether they're in the same office or in different time zones.

By Jared Richardson

A great team builds great software, but how do you build a great team?

Let's move beyond getting lucky and look at some key practices that will help you build your scattered cats into a well-oiled machine.

By Nathaniel Schutta

So you've convinced the boss that your new web application just has to have Ajax...but now what? With dozens of libraries making even the most blinkish of interactions trivial, how do you decided where to sprinkle the magic Ajax dust? This talk will give a plain old boring "web 1.0" an Ajax facelift with a focus on improving the user experience providing you with a game plan for introducing Ajax to your world.

So you've convinced the boss that your new web application just has to have Ajax...but now what? With dozens of libraries making even the most blinkish of interactions trivial, how do you decided where to sprinkle the magic Ajax dust? This talk will give a plain old boring "web 1.0" an Ajax facelift with a focus on improving the user experience providing you with a game plan for introducing Ajax to your world.

By Nathaniel Schutta

We'll pick up where Part 1 left off working in even more advanced approaches such as offline support with Google Gears.

We'll pick up where Part 1 left off working in even more advanced approaches such as offline support with Google Gears.

By Nathaniel Schutta

It seems that software follows the second law of thermodynamics - in other words, code tends towards disorder. Of course it doesn't have to be that way, and we have a number of tools and techniques that we can apply to keep our code in tip top shape. This talk will discuss ten things you can do to fight back!

It seems that software follows the second law of thermodynamics - in other words, code tends towards disorder. Of course it doesn't have to be that way, and we have a number of tools and techniques that we can apply to keep our code in tip top shape. This talk will discuss ten things you can do to fight back!

By Nathaniel Schutta

We all know that code can have a certain...odor but frankly so can projects. Everyone has their favorite horror story or tale of a death march. In this talk, we'll discuss common project smells and what you as a developer can do to maintain your sanity - and your hair line!

We all know that code can have a certain...odor but frankly so can projects. Everyone has their favorite horror story or tale of a death march. In this talk, we'll discuss common project smells and what you as a developer can do to maintain your sanity - and your hair line!

By Nathaniel Schutta

Thanks to Ajax, JavaScript is cool again and developers are taking a second look at this much maligned language.

This session will give you an overview of this misunderstood language as well as opening your eyes to some of the excellent tools available to ease the pain of developing in this dynamic language.

By Ken Sipe

Well the standards created EntityBeans.... yea. and the community created Hibernate. Fortunately the standards body learned some lessons and created JPA. JPA requires a vendor implementation and none make a better choice then Hibernate. Combined with Spring this trio is a powerhouse when it comes to developer productivity on applications requiring persistence.

This session will look at in detail the persistence capabilities of the latest Spring 2.5 and how to provide data access capabilities, including nicely added features for unit tests. We'll focus the persistence discussion on JPA and examine a number of ORM mapping scenarios and how JPA maps to them. We'll focus on the spring integration including transactional capabilities.

By Ken Sipe

Spring 2.5 is brand spanking new, with a number of fantastic features. With growth of large and complex Spring applications which struggle with xml manageability and with the added pressure of Guice and SEAM there is a push for less XML, with solution leaning towards annotations. Spring 2.5 adds to the toolset provided in Spring 2.0 to provide a development environment where XML is greatly reduced... or eliminated if you so choose.

The session walks through the new Spring 2.5 enhancements, then dives deep into annotation oriented injection. The demonstrations include standard applications as well as a look at the new Spring MVC.

By Ken Sipe

Scale... what is scale... how do you applications that are scalable. How do you know if the application scales?

This session will look at server topologies and state management and how it affects scale. We'll detail a number of metrics to know and observe. In addition tools of the trade will be demonstrated such as jmeter.

By Ken Sipe

Thoughts lead to words, words lead to action, actions lead to habits. In this session we'll sharpen the development saw in the process of understanding what makes a hyper-productive programmer. The focus will consist of developer habits and development processes.

As described in the book "7 Habits for Highly Effective People", there are habits which are characteristic of highly effective people. Clearly there are hyper-productive developers which distinguish themselves from the development pack? what is it that makes the difference? What are the habits and practices of highly effective developers? This session will focus on individual developer habits, as well as team practices and the processes which result in high quality running software.

By Ken Sipe

You are using Java, whew!!! No need to worry about memory, the garbage collector will handle that. Those who have had a memory issue in Java are not so naive any more. Often memory utilization and heap sizes are an after thought and are not recognized until the application is in production, often caused by application uptime, production request volume or production sets of data. When the OutOfMemory Error occurs, often the science of development seems to brake down and knobs are turned. First the (-mx) maximum heap space gets adjusted... More is better right. The next OutOfMemory, heads start scratching, code reviews start in earnest, and Google gets several new hits. Did you know that it is possible to get an OutOfMemory error without running out of heap space?

This talk will walk through the underlying details of memory management in the JVM with a focus on VM flags available to help configure the VM. However we can't configure the VM without a detailed understanding of what is going on inside the VM. We'll focus on tools available for analyzing the memory in a running VM. Two actual client case examples will be presented. We'll discuss the differences between the two cases and why the end configurations were quite different.

By Ken Sipe

The success of an Agile / SCRUM project is a successful start. The first interaction is often referred to as iteration 0. Other iterations have a set of stories with clear acceptance, certain which establishes the velocity of the team and its effort. What then is accomplished in iteration 0? How do we get an Agile process started?

This session will outline all the "pre" activity tasks that lead into an agile development process. As well as the establishment of a task list of iteration 0, include the establishment of development environment, configuration management details. This will include several case histories examples of Iteration 0.

By Ken Sipe

A live Hacking demonstration exposing the tools and techniques used by Hackers.

A look at the growing space referred to as ethical hacking or penetration testing. We'll look at example attacks which include: Client-side exploits Sql-Injections Brute force attacks Man-in-the-middle attacks Key logging

By Brian Sletten

There is a shift going on in the Enterprise. While still used and useful, the promises of the SOAP/WSDL/UDDI Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) stack have failed to live up to their promise. A new vision of linked information is enveloping online and Enterprise users. The REST architectural style is squarely behind this thinking as a way of achieving low-cost, flexible integration, increased data security, greater scalability and long-term migration strategies.

If you have dismissed REST as a toy or are unfamiliar with it, you owe it to yourself to see what is so interesting about this way of doing things.

There is tremendous interest in REpresentational State Transfer (REST) as an architectural style for building scalable, flexible, information-driven architectures in the Enterprise. The success of the Web has caught our attention in the face of increased complexity and many failures with more traditional Web Services technologies. The problem is that it is difficult to sell a way to do things. Managers do not want to feel like they are innovating in the middleware space. They want to understand why they should deviate from the blue prints laid down by the industry leaders. They want to understand when they should use REST, when they should use SOAP and when they might fallback to regular old

By Brian Sletten

If you have started to take a look at REST as way of exposing web services or managing information spaces, you may be frustrated by the support offered by legacy containers. There is no direct support for REST concepts in the J2EE specs (yet). XML-based configurations are so 1990's. Come learn about Restlets, a little API that has caught the attention of many in the RESTafarian community.

The Restlet API was created by a guy who wanted object-level support for RESTful concepts, but didn't want to make the move to an advanced resource-oriented environment like NetKernel. He wanted his REST and conventional environments too. He also wanted a path to more modern containers that aren't tied to a blocking I/O model like the Servlet spec is. This talk will include a brief review of REST and its primary concepts and will then provide an introduction to the Restlet API and how it supports these ideas. It will then focus on standing up a REST-oriented infrastructure using the Restlet API and a variety of other open source tools to support a publish/find/bind infrastructure without to

Prerequisite: REST (unless you are very comfortable with REST)

By Brian Sletten

Imagine the simplicity of REST married to the power of Unix pipes with the benefits of a loosely-coupled, logically-layered architecture. If that is hard to imagine, it may because the architectures available to you today are convoluted accretions of mismatched technologies, languages, abstractions and data models.

NetKernel is a disruptive technology that changes the game. It has been quietly gaining mind share in the past several years; people who are exposed to it don't want to go back to the tired and blue conventions of J2EE and .NET. Not only does it make building the kinds of systems you are building today easier, it does it more efficiently, with less code and a far more scalable runway to allow you to take advantage of the emerging multi-core, multi-CPU hardware that is coming our way.

Come see how this open source / commercial product can change the way you think about building software.

NetKernel makes the things you are doing now easier, but also makes new types of systems possible. A wise man once said, "XML is like lye. It is very useful, but humans shouldn't touch it." If you've had to incorporate XML into your project by hand, you have probably been burned by getting too close. NetKernel turns this wisdom on its head and encourages you to use XML like the liquid data stream you want it to be. But, XML is only part of the story. Resource-oriented computing is a generalized and revolutionary approach to modern, flexible systems. There is less code to write, but it is more fun to do. Orchestration of existing services and data sources is faster, easier and more encompas

By Brian Sletten

Just as the world is feeling comfortable with the Web, Tim Berners-Lee et al inform us that what we have seen so far is just the beginning. His original plans at CERN were larger and grander. The Semantic Web is a vision of machine-processable documents and metadata to improve search, knowledge discovery and data integration and management. The only problem is that there is no such thing. There is no Semantic Web, just the Web we have that is increasingly semantics-enabled.

Forget the hype. Come learn how the technologies of this vision are being used today on the Web and in the Enterprise by more people than you might think.

Attendees will learn: The history and motivations behind the Semantic Web vision An honest assessment of where we are and what is likely to unfold The technology stack involved (including RDF, RDFS, SKOS and OWL) Tools built around this stack Introduction to how they can help you today