New York Software Symposium
May 4 - 5, 2012 - New York, NY
Session Descriptions
Peter Bell - Evangelist/hacker for hackNY
NoSQL data modeling with Mongo and Neo4j
With NoSQL data stores you need to completely rethink how to model your data.
The Lean Startup - for Enterprise Software Developers
Intuit and even the US government want to be "lean startups".
Tim Berglund - GitHubber
Cassandra: Radical NoSQL Scalability
Want to go deep on a popular NoSQL database? Cassandra is a scalable, highly available, column-oriented data store in use at Netflix, Twitter, Reddit, Rackspace, and other web-scale operations. It offers a compelling combination of a rich data model, a robust deployment track record, and a sound architecture, making it a good choice of NoSQL databases to study first.
Prerequisite: None, but NoSQL Smackdown! would be helpful preparation.
Connected Data with Neo4j
Neo4j is an open-source, enterprise-class database with a conventional feature set and a very unconventional data model. Like the databases we're already used to, it offers support for Java, ACID transactions, and a feature-rich query language. But before you get too comfortable, you have to wrap your mind around its most important feature: Neo4j is a graph database, built precisely to store graphs efficiently and traverse them more performantly than relational, document, or key/value databases ever could.
Lightweight Web Apps with Ratpack
Ratpack is a hyper-lightweight, Groovy-based web framework for developing and deploying simple apps in a hurry. Like its high-achieving cousin Gaelyk, it provides Groovy developers with a way to create web apps without days of iteration zero setup time.
NoSQL Smackdown 2012
Alternative databases continue to establish their role in the technology stack of the future—and for many, the technology stack of the present. Making mature engineering decisions about when to adopt new products is not easy, and requires that we learn about them both from an abstract perspective and from a very concrete one as well. If you are going to recommend a NoSQL database for a new project, you're going to have to look at code.
Neal Ford - Application Architect at ThoughtWorks, Inc.
Build Your Own Technology Radar
A Technology Radar is a tool that forces you to organize and think about near term future technology decisions, both for you and your company.
Continuous Delivery Pt 1: Deployment Pipelines
Getting software released to users is often a painful, risky, and time-consuming process. This workshop sets out the principles and technical practices that enable rapid, incremental delivery of high quality, valuable new functionality to users. This workshop focuses on the Deployment Pipeline concept from Continuous Delivery.
Continuous Delivery Pt 2: Infrastructure
Getting software released to users is often a painful, risky, and time-consuming process. This workshop sets out the principles and technical practices that enable rapid, incremental delivery of high quality, valuable new functionality to users. This workshop focuses on the agile infrastructure required to implement a deployment pipeline and continuous delivery.
Emergent Design
Emergent design is a big topic in the agile architecture and design community. This session covers the theory behind emergent design and shows examples of how you can implement this important concept.
Prerequisite: understanding of architectural and design concepts
Victor Grazi - Java Evangelist
Java Concurrent Animated
This presentation consists of a series of animations that visualize the functionality of the components in the java.util.concurrent library. Each animation features buttons that correspond to the method calls in that component. Each click of a button creates a thread to call methods on the component, showing how the threads interact in real time. The animations are controlled by the actual Java concurrent component it is illustrating, so the animation is not only a visual demonstration, it's also a code sample.
Tiffany Lentz - Principal Consultant & Program Manager with Thoughtworks
4 Tales of Enterprise Agility
Change is upon us! We change to stay relevant. Many organizations are faced with the options of change or die. Change is admittedly painful, so how do you balance all the moving parts of finding a starting point, prioritizing which processes to change, implementing change, and dealing with the aftermath? This session covers ideas for managing the delicacy and complexity of change and looks at the successes and failures of 4 organizations who embarked on programs of change.
Iteration Management: What's in your Toolkit?
Is your Agile team running smoothly? How do you know? This answer is found in your iteration and your toolkit for constant team improvement! Comparing Iteration Management skills and tools to those of the Agile Project Manager, Scrum Master and Technical Leader roles, you will see that Iteration Management encompasses end to end activities of the iteration, which are crucial to unblocking your software production line and making your team a success.
The Agile Mindset: Applying Agile in Non-Technical Areas of an Organization
Agile techniques are often pigeon-holed as just applying to software projects and IT organizations. Agile techniques are a mindset more than a list of rules to follow and can bring efficiency and improvements to all areas of an organization.
Matthew McCullough - Head of Training, GitHub
Build Lifecycle Craftsmanship Tools
You've heard a bit about Git, Gradle, Jenkins, and Sonar, but are you putting them to use? Are you maximizing what they can offer in terms of standardized project models, faster incremental compiles, automated commit-triggered builds, and rapid source code analysis? In this intense presentation, live demonstrations will be given for all of the latest versions of the aforementioned tools and what they have to offer a highly proficient Java developer.
Git Workshop (Bring A Laptop)
Git is a version control system you may have been hearing a bit about lately. But simply hearing more about it may not be enough to convince you of its value. Getting hands on experience is what really counts. In this workshop, you'll bring your Windows, Mac or Linux laptop and walk through downloading, installing, and using Git in a collaborative fashion.
Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of a version control system. Subversion knowledge is a plus, but not imperative.
Gradle Workshop (Bring a Laptop)
Gradle. Another build tool? Come on! But before you say that, take a look at the one you are already using.
Whether your current tool is Make, Rake, Ant, or Maven, Gradle has a lot to offer. It leverages a strong object model like Maven, but a mutable, not predetermined one. Gradle relies on a directed acyclic graph (DAG) lifecycle like Maven, but one that can be customized. Gradle offers imperative build scripting when you need it (like Ant), but declarative build approaches by default (like Maven). In short, Gradle believes that conventions are great -- as long as they are headed in the same direction you need to go. When you need to customize something in your build, your build tool should facilitate that with a smile, not a slap in the face. And customizations should be in a low-ceremony language like Groovy. Is all this too much to ask?
Prerequisite: Knowledge of any build tool such as Ant, Maven, Rake, BuildR, Make, Leiningen, or SBT.
Sonar Code Metrics Workshop (Bring a Laptop)
You're serious about improving the quality of your code base, but with 10,000 lines of code, where do you start and how do you ensure the greatest ROI for the re-work your team members will perform?
Sonar is an open source tool that brings together the best of breed static and dynamic analysis of Java projects. The result is a unified view of problematic areas of your code on a time-line basis, allowing the team to attack the problems with the best ROI, and maintain a more watchful eye for positive and risky trends in the codebase in the future.
Prerequisite: Knowledge of any build tool such as Ant, Maven, Rake, BuildR, Make, Leiningen, or SBT.
Mark Richards - SOA and Integration Architect, Author of Java Message Service
AMQP: From Concept To Code
Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) is a new way of looking at messaging that is quickly gaining in popularity and use, particularly in the financial services industry. Unlike JMS, which defines a standard API across platforms, AMQP defines a standard wire-level protocol across languages and platforms, finally making true cross-platform messaging a reality. In this session I will start by describing exactly what AMQP is and what problems it specifically solves (that JMS can't!). I will then describe the basic architecture and how AMQP routes messages, and then, through live interactive coding, demonstrate how to build a simple producer and consumer using RabbitMQ to send and receive AMQP messages. We will also take a brief look at other aspects of AMQP such as performance and how to guarantee that the message reaches a consumer.
Prerequisite: basic knowledge of general messaging
Integration Architecture: Concepts and Patterns
Very few applications stand alone anymore. Rather, they are combined together to form holistic systems that perform complex business functions. One of the big challenges when integrating applications is choosing the right integration styles and usage patterns. In this session we will explore various techniques and patterns for application integration, and look at what purpose and role open source integration hubs such as Camel and Mule play in the overall integration architecture space (and how to properly use them!). Through actual integration scenarios and live coding examples using Apache Camel you will learn which integration styles and patterns to use for your system and how open source integration hubs play an part in your overall integration strategy
Know Your Enemy: Understanding AntiPatterns
The ancient Chinese warrior Sun Tzu taught his men to "know your enemy" before going into battle. For us, the same thing is knowing and understanding anti-patterns - things that we repeatably do that produce negative results. Anti-patterns are used by developers, architects, and managers every day, and are one of the main factors that prevent progress and success. In this session we will look at some of the more common and significant software development anti-patterns. Through coding and design examples, you will see how these anti-patterns emerge, how to recognize when the antipattern is being used, and most importantly, how to avoid them. Although most of the coding examples will be in Java, this is a technology-agnostic session. Remember, like motorcycles, anti-patterns are everywhere - so be careful out there!
The Art of Problem Solving
I commonly think of those of us in the IT industry as problem solvers. Whether developer, designer, or architect, we are all presented with problems and work to find a way to solve them, usually through technology. In my opinion this is what makes this industry so much fun. Let's face it - we all love challenges. Sometimes, however, the problems we have to solve are hard - really hard. So how do you go about solving really hard problems? That's what this session is about - Heuristics, the art of problem solving. In this session you will learn how to approach problems and also learn some the common techniques for solving them effectively. So put on your thinking cap and get ready to solve some easy, fun, and hard problems.
Prerequisite: An open mind and a willingness to learn how to better approach and solve problems
Understanding Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is one of the most misunderstood terms in our industry. Ask 10 people what EA is and you will get 10 different answers. To better understand what EA is and how it impacts your company (and you!) we will go back in time to maritime Britain in the late 1700's. Through exercises in designing a fleet of war ships and making decisions about what to do with the fleet you will understand the various approaches, directions, and implications of EA and how necessary EA is to achieve any company goal. So put your admirals hat on and climb aboard for a maritime adventure you won't forget!
Prerequisite: Not prone to sea sickness, willingness to have fun
Nathaniel Schutta - Author, speaker, software engineer focused on user interface design.
Designing for Mobile
The word just came down from the VP - you need a mobile app and you need it yesterday. Wait, you've never built a mobile app...it's pretty much the same thing as you've built before just smaller right? Wrong. The mobile experience is different and far less forgiving. How do you design an application for touch? How does that differ from a mouse? Should you build a mobile app or a mobile web site? This talk will get you started on designing for a new, and exciting, platform. Whether that means iPhone, Android, Windows Phone or something else, you need a plan, this talk will help.
Hacking Your Brain for Fun and Profit
The single most important tool in any developers toolbox isn't a fancy IDE or some spiffy new language - it's our brain. Despite ever faster processors with multiple cores and expanding amounts of RAM, we haven't yet created a computer to rival the ultra lightweight one we carry around in our skulls - in this session we'll learn how to make the most of it. We'll talk about why multitasking is a myth, the difference between the left and the right side of your brain, the importance of flow and why exercise is good for more than just your waist line.
Leading Technical Change
Technology changes, it's a fact of life. And while many developers are attracted to the challenge of change, many organizations do a particularly poor job of adapting. We've all worked on projects with, ahem, less than new technologies even though newer approaches would better serve the business. But how do we convince those holding the purse strings to pony up the cash when things are "working" today? At a personal, how do we keep up with the change in our industry?
The Mobile App Smackdown: Native Apps vs. The Mobile Web
Mobile is the next big thing and your company needs to there. But what does there actually entail? Should you build a native app? On which platforms? Do you have the skills for that? What about the web? Can you deliver an awesome experience using nothing but a mobile web browser? This talk will help you navigate these treacherous waters. We'll discuss the pros and cons of the various approaches and give you a framework for choosing.
Ken Sipe - Architect, Web Security Expert
Groovy Power Tools
Groovy has been around for some time and is generally recognized as a highly productive object-oriented language with a tight association with Java. Groovy seems to be going through a second wave of popularity with a more diverse repertoire of benefits, including building, deploying and testing, in addition to rapid web development. The fastest growth of productivity tools are all powered by Groovy. Discover the Groovy Truth!
Spock - Unit Test and Prosper
Spock is a groovy based testing framework that leverages all the "best practices" of the last several years taking advantage of many of the development experience of the industry. So combine Junit, BDD, RSpec, Groovy and Vulcans... and you get Spock!
This is a significant advancement in the world of testing.
Prerequisite: junit
Web Security Workshop
As a web application developer, most of the focus is on the user stories and producing business value for your company or clients. Increasingly however the world wide web is more like the wild wild web which is an increasingly hostile environment for web applications. It is absolutely necessary for web application teams to have security knowledge, a security model and to leverage proper security tools.
Brian Sletten - Forward Leaning Software Engineer
Resource-Oriented Architectures : REST I
The first in a series of talks that are part of an arc covering next-generation information-oriented, flexible, scalable architectures. The ideas presented apply to both external and internal-facing systems.
Resource-Oriented Architectures : REST II
The second in a series of talks that are part of an arc covering next-generation information-oriented, flexible, scalable architectures. The ideas presented apply to both external and internal-facing systems.
Semantic Web Workshop
The Web is changing faster than you can imagine and it is going to continue to do so. Webs of Documents are giving way to machine-processable Webs of Information. We no longer care about data containers, we only care about data and how it connects to what we already know.
Perhaps the concepts of the Semantic Web initiative are new to you. Or perhaps you have been hearing for years how great technologies like RDF, SPARQL, SKOS and OWL are and have yet to see anything real come out of it.
Whether you are jazzed or jaded, this workshop will provide you with the understanding of a technological tidal wave that is heading in your direction.
Matt Stine - Community Engineer @CloudFoundry
Code Archaeology
Feature requests are steadily pouring in, but the team cannot respond to them. They are paralyzed. The codebase on which the company has "bet the business" is simply too hard to change. It's your job to clean up the mess and get things rolling again. Where do you begin? Your first task is to get the lay of the land by applying a family of techniques we'll call "Code Archaeology."
Effective Java Reloaded
Even with the recent explosion in alternative languages for the JVM, the vast majority of us are still writing code in "Java the language" in order to put bread on the table. Proper craftsmanship demands that we write the best Java code that we can possibly write. Fortunately we have a guide in Joshua Bloch's Effective Java.
Effective Java Reloaded, Part II: Hello, Project Coin!
Even with the recent explosion in alternative languages for the JVM, the vast majority of us are still writing code in "Java the language" in order to put bread on the table. Proper craftsmanship demands that we write the best Java code that we can possibly write. Fortunately we have a guide in Joshua Bloch's Effective Java.
Prerequisite: Incredibly useful to attend Part I, but not strictly required.
Venkat Subramaniam - Founder of Agile Developer, Inc.
Automated testing tools and techniques for JavaScript
Programmers often complain that it is hard to automate unit and acceptance tests for JavaScript. Testability is a design issue and with some discipline and careful design we can realize good automated tests.
Programming Concurrency with Akka
I call the JDK concurrency API as the synchronize and suffer model. Fortunately, you don't have to endure that today. You have some nice options, brought to prominence on the JVM by Scala and Clojure.
Programming with HTML 5
Developing a rich user interface for web applications is both exciting and challenging. HTML 5 has closed the gaps and once again brought new vibe into programming the web tier. Come to this session to learn how you can make use of HTML 5 to create stellar applications.
Rediscovering JavaScript
JavaScript is one of those very powerful languages that is often misunderstood and underutilized. It's quite popular, yet there's so much more we can do with it.
Scala for the Intrigued
Scala is a statically typed, fully OO, hybrid functional language that provides highly expressive syntax on the JVM. It is great for pattern matching, concurrency, and simply writing concise code for everyday tasks. If you're a Java programmer intrigued by this language and are interested in exploring further, this section is for you.
Taming Shared Mutability with Software Transactional Memory
Mutability is something we're quite used to in Java. Sharing is a good thing. However, shared mutability is pure devil's work. If we remove shared mutability, all the problems of concurrent go away. In practice, however, it's hard to completely get rid of shared mutability. This is where STM comes in with managed shared mutable variables. In this presentation we will take an example driven approach to dive deep into STM, look at what it has to offer, explore different implementations, and how we can design concurrent applications without any explicit locks.
Craig Walls - Author of Spring in Action
Developing Next-Generation Applications
For a long while, we've built applications pretty much the same way. Regardless of the frameworks (or even languages and platforms) employed, we've packaged up our web application, deployed it to a server somewhere, and asked our users to point their web browser at it.
But now we're seeing a shift in not only how applications are deployed, but also in how they're consumed. The cost and hassle of setting up dedicated servers is driving more applications into the cloud. Meanwhile, our users are on-the-go more than ever, consuming applications from their mobile devices more often than a traditional desktop browser. And even the desktop user is expecting a more interactive experience than is offered by simple page-based HTML sites.
With this shift comes new programming models and frameworks. It also involves a shift in how we think about our application design. Standing up a simple HTML-based application is no longer good enough.
Effective Spring
After almost a decade and several significant releases, Spring has gone a long way from challenging the then-current Java standards to becoming the de facto enterprise standard itself. Although the Spring programming model continues to evolve, it still maintains backward compatibility with many of its earlier features and paradigms. Consequently, there's often more than one way to do anything in Spring. How do you know which way is the right way?
Securing the Modern Web with OAuth
In this session, we'll look at OAuth, focusing on OAuth 2, from the perspective of an application that consumes an OAuth-secured API as well as see how to use OAuth to secure your own APIs.
Spring Data
This session starts with a high-level look at all that the Spring Data project has to offer. Then we'll dive deeper into a few select Spring Data modules, including Spring Data Neo4j, Spring Data MongoDB, Spring Data Redis, Spring Data JPA, and Spring Data JDBC Extensions
