Event Details

Location

Sheraton Reston
11810 Sunrise Valley Drive
Reston, VA 20191
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NOTE: You are viewing details about a past event. We will be back in Reston April 27 - 29, 2007. You may view the event details here ».

Session Descriptions

Ben Hale - Senior Consultant at Interface21

Ben Hale

AOP and JMX: A match made in heaven

You're winding down a project and you get that dreaded email from your project manager, "How hard would it be to add some performance monitoring to the system?" Well, after this session, you'll be able to respond, "No problem at all!" It turns out that with a pinch of AOP and a dash of JMX, you can introduce amazing management and monitoring capabilities without changing your mainline code one bit.

Acegi Security: The security framework with the funny name

Security is one of the major requirements in modern day enterprise applications and yet it is also one of the weakest parts of most developers toolboxes. The problem is of course that security is HARD! It turns out that rather than reinventing the wheel for each application, developers can turn to a great security framework out there already; Acegi.

Spring 2.0: New and Noteworthy

Spring 2.0 has marked a major advance in the Spring Framework. While still maintaining backwards compatibility, this release adds quite a few new features. What are those features and how do they add value? Come by and see.

Spring Web Flow Jumpstart

Have you ever developed a web application with a long user action based on form input? Did you curse the Java community for their inability to address this very common application type? Well, attend this session about Spring Web Flow and you'll curse no more.

Brian Sletten - Forward Leaning Software Consultant

Brian Sletten

Abusing Maven For Fun and Profit : (Near) Zero-Admin Deployments

Ok, I can't promise you profit, but hopefully you'll have fun. Maven 2 introduces a number of new features (including that performance feature) that make it a swell project management tool for development.

Come hear about how we can abuse Maven to manage distributed deployment scenarios before the Modules JSR is done.

Data Integration : Beyond Cutesy Mashups

Ever since we started doing relational joins, we've looked for ways to tie data together. The web has given us no end of new data sources to integrate but it seems like the best we can come up with is locating Starbucks on Google Maps. The problem with browser-based mashups is that they don't survive the session, we have no way of referring to the results in future queries and ultimately we don't maintain ownership or control of the process.

We want control of our data and our mashup results. We want ever more ways to view, explore and requery them in multi-faceted ways. Do you know what your data integration strategy is for the next few years? Are you sure? You owe it to yourself to come find out.

Git 'R Done : Scheduling Work With Quartz

Software engineers are usually familiar with the notion of scheduled tasks and cron jobs at the OS level. Quartz is a relatively new open source Java API for scheduling jobs in your applications or Enterprise.

Give it a REST

As developers, we sometimes get to make choices about the technologies we use, sometimes not. We base these decisions on personal experiences, recommendations from others and a general sense of where the industry is going.

Web Services have been all the rage for several years now. We have been told time and again that we should be building systems around them; as an industry, we've never been more confused. Perhaps it is time to Give it a REST.

Resource-Oriented Computing w/ NetKernel : Software for the 21st Century

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.

David Bock - Principal Consultant, CodeSherpas Inc.

David Bock

Internationalization and Localization in Java

Internationalization and Localization in Java is easy, right? Everyone knows you just store your strings in some resource bundles, set the locale, wave your hands a little bit, and your application is good-to-go. Right? Maybe not... Java provides some great utilities to get started, but leaves you needing more when it comes to things like screen layout, cultural sensitivities, semantic differences in translation, use of color and iconography, and other issues.

Introducing Agility to Large Organizations

For several years, I was a member of a team of people caught in the middle of a 200+ person software development company, with senior management wanting "buzzword compliant process improvement" such as CMMI, and engineers wanting more ?agile? solutions (and people on both sides confusing Agile with ad-hoc). We were responsible for sorting it all out. Reconciling this was a herculean effort, and can be a source of lessons learned for your own process improvement efforts. Are you trying to be more agile in your organization? Are you expecting it to be harder than it needs to be because of political and bureaucratic forces beyond your control? Do you have to "educate" your senior management to protect them from buzzwords? Come learn from my successes... and mistakes.

Maintaining Project Integrity with JDepend, Macker, PMD, Maven, and other open source tools

How many times have you started a new project only to find that several months into it, you have a big ball of code you have to plod through to try to get anything done? How many times have you been the ?new guy? on an established project where it seems like the code grew more like weeds and brambles than a well-tended garden? With a few good structural guidelines and several tools to help analyze the code, we can keep our project from turning into that big ball of mud, and we can salvage a project that is already headed down that path.

David Geary - Author of Graphic Java and co-author of Core JSF

David Geary

Ajaxian Faces

JavaServer Faces is a perfect platform for implementing Web 2.0 interfaces with Ajax. This session explores how you can use these two potent technologies--JSF and Ajax--together to create applications that look and behave like desktop applications but run in the browser.

JavaServer Faces: A Whirlwind Tour

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.

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.


Killer JavaScript Frameworks: Prototype, Scriptaculous, and Rico

An introduction to the popular Prototype JavaScript framework, and two frameworks built on top of Prototype: Scriptaculous and Rico.

RAD JSF with Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4jsf, Part One

In this session, see how you can get Ruby On Rails-like productivity on the Java side of the house with this compelling combination of technologies.

RAD JSF with Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4jsf, Part Two

A continuation of a 2-session presentation on Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4jsf.

The Google Web Toolkit, Part One

Developing highly interactive web applications, for the most part requires knowledge of a wide array of technologies: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XMLHttpRequest, JSP, JSF, etc.

With the Google Web Toolkit (GWT), Google turns that notion of development on its head. Instead, you implement Ajax applications by writing almost entirely in Java. You use an AWT-like API, which the Google compiler compiles to JavaScript that runs on the client.

The Google Web Toolkit, Part Two

The second part of a 2-session presentation on the Google Web Toolkit.

David Hussman - Agility Instructor/Mentor

David Hussman

Agile Immersion

Have you heard about SCRUM or XP but never done it? If you want to give it a try, this session will allow you to participate in planning and executing several agile iterations. A working knowledge of either XP or SCRUM will be helpful but not mandatory.

Coaching Agile Projects: Finding Your Groove

Is someone asking you to lead an agile project? There are many how to books for agile methods, but the coverage of skills and techniques for leading are a bit on the light side. Whether you are a manager, tech lead, or a non-stop inspiration for your fellow developers, this session will provide you with new insights into the how and whys associated with coaching / leading an agile project or an agile transition.

Creating Agile Requirements

Successful project communities balance written requirements with a healthy amount of discussion. This is at the core of requirements that could be deemed "agile". Many agile projects choose to use user stories, but others may be using use cases or other forms of written requirements. This session is for anyone wanting to improve their requirements, including the creation of good requirement and the presentation styles that help people focus on creating great software products, and stop focusing on documents.

Executable Documentation

Why is so much documentation worthless? Wouldn't is be nice if your documentation actually reflected what your system does? One way to do this is to create what is being called executable documentation or executable specifications. If you are struggling with ambiguous requirements, lack of contact with the business, or a chasm between development and testing, this session is for you.

Getting Agile Planning and Tracking Up and Running

If your company is using agile or thinking about it, this session will show you how to plan and tracking an agile project. Examples projects will be discussed, including the glory and horrors. Various planning tools that help distributed teams will be presented as well as a collection of lo-fi tools which truly help find and address the issue that plagues so many projects: "when are we going to complete this project".

Howard Lewis Ship - Creator of Tapestry and HiveMind

Howard Lewis Ship

Introduction to Tapestry 4

An introduction to the Apache Tapestry web application framework, which will explain the concepts and features of the framework with some simple applications. We'll discsuss Tapestry forms, request cycle, component object model. The use of several important components, including BeanForm and Table will be highlighted, along with meta-programming using the Trails framework.

Introduction to Tapestry 5

Tapestry 5 is a complete rewrite of Tapestry from the ground up. It takes everything good about Tapestry and cranks the volume up to eleven, while removing the frustrating parts of using Tapestry. This session takes the wraps off this new and innovative technology, showing off important new features such as live class reloading (the ability to change your Java classes and continue using the application without interruption or redeployment), the simplified coding model, and the total lack of XML. This session is of interest to those already using Tapestry 4, and those new to Tapestry and ready to jump on the bandwagon.

Pragmatic Unit Testing with TestNG and EasyMock

You've heard about unit testing but were daunted when it came time to put the pedal to the metal. That's because JUnit is just one tool and there's others you need to learn about, including the wonderful and wierd EasyMock and the easy and powerful TestNG.

Jared Richardson - Agile coach and co-author of Ship It

Jared Richardson

Agile Software Testing Strategies

Creating and maintaining a solid automated test suite is critical to an Agile strategy, but often we're just told to "Do it." In this talk we'll look at several pragmatic strategies for creating and building your suite.

Build Teams, Not Products

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

Distributed Teams: Remote Agility

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

Software Development Techniques

Throughout our software careers we learn habits from our coworkers, from books we've read, and occasionally, from conferences we attend. Much of our competence comes from the tips and tricks we pick up as we go.


Jason Hunter - Author of Java Servlet Programming

Jason Hunter

Forgotten Web Algorithms

In this talk I'll explain -- without any needless math or boring proofs -- several fun algorithms of interest to back-end web programmers. Each algorithm was selected because it's really practical, really interesting, or both. The algorithms aren't always the same but can include: public key cryptography, credit card checksum validation, TCP Slow Start, two's complement, priority queues, the XOR swap, and the Google MapReduce function for massively distributed calculation.

New Features in Java 5

The new Java 5 release introduces a number of significant Java language enhancements: generics, typesafe enums, autoboxing, an enhanced "for" loop, a static import facility, and a general-purpose metadata facility. This talk gives an overview of the changes and helps you understand what all the funny new syntax means.

Web Publishing 2.0

If we're moving toward Web 2.0, what does that mean for online publishing? In this talk I'll answer that question. Based on my experience as Principal Technologist at Mark Logic working with dozens of the largest online publishers, I'll present a vision for how the Web 2.0 concepts like personalization, collective intelligence, the long tail, and the importance of "owning the data" can and should reshape the face of online publishing -- and how XML, XQuery, and XML-aware text search act as the key enablers. I'll also introduce new Web Publishing 2.0 concepts like "Sweat the content" and "Give answers not links".

What's New in Java 6

The Java 6 (Mustang) release should make your life easier, for a change. It doesn't alter the core language like Java 5 did. It doesn't pack in so many sub-JSRs that you'll be overwhelmed by the amount you have to learn. Instead Java 6 adds several handy things that honestly should have been added before. Among the improvements we'll cover in this fast-paced class:

* A new Console class
* A real Compiler API
* A GIF writer
* Pluggable Locale data
* Access to disk partition size data
* Array reallocation
* Low-level floating point functions
* Reflective access to parameter names
* Access to network interface details
* Pluggable annotation processing
* Improved class file format
* Streaming XML with StAX
* A new Scripting interface

XQuery By Example: Building an Email Archive System

The classic searchable email archive system is cluged together -- a frankenstein monster combining a relational database with a search engine, with Java just barely able to keep the two together. In this talk we'll demonstrate how email is more content than data, how it's better encoded in XML rather than relational tables, and how Java can convert emails to XML and drive an XQuery backend to produce a simpler and more scalable email archive system.

Karthik Shyamsunder - Principal Engineer w/Verisign

Karthik Shyamsunder

You are Hacked: Ten Strategies to Secure your Enterprise Java Web Applications

Hundreds of mission critical Enterprise Java Web applications are being developed and deployed worldwide. Many of these applications provide valuable functionalities for their legitimate users, but only a few of these applications can be considered truly secure. With the number of white collar crimes going up, the cost of a security attack on a company's web application/service could be detrimental.

Mark Richards - SOA and Enterprise Architect, Author of Java Transaction Design Strategies

Mark Richards

Advanced Java Persistence API (JPA)

This session picks up where the Intro to JPA session left off and covers some of the more advanced topics in the Java Persistence API. Some of the topics covered in this session include switching persistence providers, versioning, compound keys, entity inheritance, and finally handling both simple and complex stored procedures. Some knowledge of JPA is recommended for this session as I will not be covering the basics of JPA (that is covered in a separate Intro to JPA session). Through a combination of slides and interactive coding I will demonstrate these advanced topics using both Hibernate and Toplink JPA.

EJB3 Core Specification (JSR-220)

EJB3 (JSR-220) offers some great improvements over the prior EJB specs in terms of development simplicity and new features. In this session we will explore in detail some of the new features of the core EJB 3 specification. Included in this session will be defining and accessing session beans, dependency injection, declarative security, interceptors (aop), and Message-Driven Beans (MDB). For those of you who still like to write XML, I will also discuss and show how we can use XML rather than annotations within EJB3. During the session I will demonstrate the new features of EJB 3 through interactive coding examples. Note: this session does not cover the new Java Persistence API (JPA) - only the core specification.

Intro to Java Persistence API (JPA)

In addition to providing a simplified API, the new EJB3 specification (JSR-220) defines a standard ORM Java Persistence API (JPA) that is rapidly gaining in popularity. As you will see in this session, JPA bears a striking resemblance to popular ORM solutions like Hibernate and Toplink. In this session we will explore in detail the new Java Persistence API offered by JSR-220. We will start by discussing the overall design and architecture of the JPA and how the major components within JPA interact. We will then look at defining mapping objects (entities) and how to use the EntityManager to manage these entities. Through interactive coding examples we will investigate the pros and cons of detached entities and merging, how to map and use entity relationships (1-1, 1-N, N-1, and N-N), discuss Lazy Loading, and finally see how to use XML mappings rather than annotations. More advanced features of JPA will be covered in a separate session.

Java Persistence: Approaching the Silver Bullet

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.


Making Architecture Work Through Agility

As companies continue to change the way they do business, so must the IT systems that support the business. Changes due to regulatory requirements, competitive advantage, mergers, acquisitions, and industry trends require flexible IT systems to meet the demands of the business. Software Architects must therefore make their architectures more agile to meet the flexible demands of today's business. Through real-world examples and scenarios we will explore some of the challenges facing Software Architecture and discuss several concrete techniques for applying agility to both the architecture process and the technical architecture itself. We will also look at various architecture refactoring techniques, and discuss the pros and cons of each. By attending this session you will learn how to apply various agile techniques to improve your architectures and overcome some of the challenges facing software architecture in today's ever-changing market.

Nathaniel Schutta - Author, speaker, software engineer focused on user interface design.

Nathaniel Schutta

Ajax Libraries

Ajax might not be the most complex thing the average web developer has ever encountered but that doesn't mean building Ajax applications is without some quirks. While you can certainly use the raw technologies beneath Ajax or even roll your own framework, there are a number of well-designed open source libraries that you can take advantage of. After providing a quick survey of the field, this talk will feature live coding examples comparing and contrasting some of the more mature Ajax toolkits including Dojo, Prototype, script.aculo.us and YUI. We'll show you what these various libraries do and do not provide and give you some ideas about which ones make the most sense for your needs.

Designing for Ajax, part 1

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.

Dynamic Languages and the JVM

With all the attention being paid to Ruby and it's hip cousin Rails, many in the Java camp may be feeling like their party invitation is "lost in the mail". Fear not loyal Java lovers, the dynamic language meme is alive and well in your space! Between numerous JSRs and various languages, the JVM is becoming quite the dynamic disco. After an overview of what it means to be dynamic, this talk will look at JRuby, Groovy, and Rhino.

Test Infecting the Legacy Organization

When starting a new project, most developers make sure that testing is a priority. However, only the lucky few live in the idyllic world of greenfield development; the vast majority of us must contend with code written when "test" was a four letter word and testing was the sole responsibility of that "other" organization. We'll examine some techniques for introducing testing - not just to your code but to the rest of your development organization.

Neal Ford - Application Architect at ThoughtWorks, Inc.

Neal Ford

10 Ways to Improve Your Code

No one writes perfect code: even the best developers fall into bad habits and traps. This talk illustrates blind spots and helps you write better code.

Building DSLs in Static and Dynamic Languages

This session discusses building Domain Specific Languages and DSL-style code in Java, Groovy, and Ruby. It discusses the different types of DSLs, details on how to implement them in Java, Groovy, and Ruby, and example problem domains where DSLs make sense.

Implementing SOA

This talk avoids SOA hype and gets to the meat of the matter: how do you implement a Service-Oriented Architecture, what are the technological pitfalls, how do you test it, and what traps should you avoid. No marketecture: just implementation details.

Introduction to JRuby

This session describes JRuby, the 100% pure-Java implementation of the Ruby programming language. It covers the basics of programming with JRuby and examples of how to integrate it into existing Java projects.

Productive Programmer: Acceleration, Focus, and Indirection

This session discusses how to use the Productive Programmer principles of acceleration, focus, and indirection to become a more productive programmer. This session describes these principles, but the primary focus of this session is demonstration of these principles with real-world examples.

Productive Programmer: Automation and Canonicality

This session discusses how to use the Productive Programmer principles of automation and canonicality to become a more productive programmer. This session describes these principles, but the primary focus of this session is demonstration of these principles with real-world examples.

Rails for JRuby

This session explains all the hype surrounding Ruby on Rails, in a context familiar to Java developers. It covers convention over configuration, ActiveRecord, controllers, views, Ajax, scaffolding, testing, and deployment...on the JVM, using JRuby.

Regular Expressions in Java

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.

Scott Davis - Author of "Groovy Recipes" & TDD Expert

Scott Davis

Groovy and Java: The Integration Story

I'm attracted to Groovy because of its spirit of inclusiveness. Because it extends my platform of choice, not replaces it -- include a single JAR in your classpath and you are Groovy-enabled. Because it offers full bidirectional integration with Java. Because it offers a nearly flat learning curve for experienced Java developers. Come see how you can use Groovy to augment your existing Java codebase.

Groovy: The Next Generation of Java

This is the year of the dynamic scripting language. Ruby (and Rails) has won the hearts and minds of many independent software developers. JavaScript is experiencing a renaissance thanks to the wild success of AJAX and websites like Google Maps. And Groovy (JSR-241) brings the same level of excitement and "scripting goodness" to the Java platform.


KEYNOTE: No, I Won't Tell You Which Web Framework to Use: or The Truth (with Jokes)

"Which framework should I use?" is the question most often heard on the No Fluff, Just Stuff tour. It's well worth asking. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. After years on the tour, most speakers have crafted a response that would make any Washington politician proud -- long on style, but essentially, "Well, it depends..."

Mocking Web Services

In this talk, we'll survey the web services exposed by leading websites (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay) and discuss how they can be easily mocked up for testing purposes and to aid offline development. You'll see working examples of RESTful, SOAP, and JSON web services, as well as strategies for unit and functional testing your asynchronous, service-oriented architecture.

Real World Grails

Scott Davis is the Editor in Chief of aboutGroovy.com. The website, in addition to being, umm, about Groovy, is implemented in Grails. This talk shows you how to get started with Grails, but also talks about the experience of using it in a live, production web site.

The Zen of REST

Google quietly deprecated their SOAP search API at the end of 2006. While this doesn't mean that you should abandon SOAP, it does reflect a growing trend towards simpler dialects of web services. Google joins a number of popular websites (Yahoo, Flickr, YouTube, del.icio.us) that offer all of the benefits of web services without all of the complexity of SOAP.

Scott Leberknight - Chief Architect at Near Infinity

Scott Leberknight

Effective Hibernate

Hibernate seems simple on the surface yet when you go beyond very simple use cases it can become much more complex. Intended for beginner to intermediate-level Hibernate developers, come see how to put Hibernate to effective use on your projects.

Spring/Hibernate Integration Patterns, Idioms, and Pitfalls

Using Spring's Hibernate integration significantly simplifies applications that use Hibernate for data persistence by removing tedious and repetitive infrastructural code that you need to write. Intended for developers familiar with Spring/Hibernate integration basics, who want to learn additional idioms and solutions to common problems.

Venkat Subramaniam - Founder of Agile Developer, Inc.

Venkat Subramaniam

Annotation Hammer

Annotation is an interesting feature in Java.
However, like any features, there are good uses and bad uses.
When should you use Annotation? This presentation will answer that question for you.

Domain Driven Design

Domain Driven Design (DDD) is an approach that places emphasis on the domain model and carrying it into implementation. DDD is mostly repackaging of fundamental OO Design. It brings new emphasis to what we should be already doing, but often find it hard and confusing given the realities and complexities of our real world. In this presentation we will take a close look at what DDD is and how to use it for agile development. We will discuss several design options, and also look at some examples of good modeling and layering.

Drooling with Groovy and Rules

Rule based programming allows us to develop applications using declarative rules. These can simplify development in applications where such rules based knowledge is used for decision making.

OSGi: A Well Kept Secret

In this presentation we will introduce OSGi and
discuss how it can help modularize and version
your enterprise Java applications.

Spring into Groovy

What do you get when you mix an agile, object-oriented, dynamic language with a lightweight, flexible, and extensible framework? You get a Groovier Spring. Spring allows you to develop using Groovy as much as Java. Groovy brings some neat concepts to the Java Platform that is hard to realize directly through the Java language. Using these capabilities can lead to elegant and easier Spring development.



Ben Hale

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Ben Hale Senior Consultant at Interface21
Ben Hale is a senior consultant for Interface21, the company behind the Spring Framework and the Spring family of products. Ben's specialties include middle tier architecture with an emphasis on integration technologies such as JMS and JMX. Leading up to his role at Interface21 Ben has led teams in the architecture and development of large-scale enterprise management applications.


Brian Sletten

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Brian Sletten Forward Leaning Software Consultant
Brian Sletten is a liberal arts-educated software engineer with a focus on forward-leaning technologies. He has a background as a system architect, a developer, a mentor and a trainer. His experience has spanned defense, finance and commercial domains with security consulting, network matrix switch controls, 3D simulation/visualization, Grid Computing, P2P and Semantic Web-based systems. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary and currently lives in Fairfax, VA. He is a partner in Zepheira, LLC, a new services company focused on using semantic-oriented technologies to solve architectural and data integration problems not handled by conventional tools and techniques.


David Bock

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David Bock Principal Consultant, CodeSherpas Inc.

David Bock is a Principal Consultant at CodeSherpas, a company he founded in 2007. Mr. Bock is also the President of the Northern Virginia Java Users Group, the Editor of O'Reilly's OnJava.com website, and a frequent speaker on technology in venues such as the No Fluff Just Stuff Software Symposiums.


In January 2006, Mr. Bock was honored by being awarded the title of Java Champion by a panel of esteemed leaders in the Java Community in a program sponsored by Sun. There are approximately 100 active Java Champions worldwide.


David has also served on several JCP panels, including the Specification of the Java 6 Platform and the upcoming Java Module System.

In addition to his public speaking and training activities, Mr. Bock actively consults as a software engineer, project manager, and team mentor for commercial and government clients.




David Geary

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David Geary Author of Graphic Java and co-author of Core JSF
David Geary is the president of Clarity Training, Inc. (corewebdevelopment.com), where he teaches developers to implement web applications using JSF, GWT, and Grails.

A prominent author, speaker, and consultant, David holds a unique qualification as a Java expert: He wrote the best-selling books on both Java component frameworks: Swing and JavaServer Faces (JSF). David's Graphic Java Swing was one of the best-selling Java books of all-time and Core JSF, which David wrote with Cay Horstman, is the best-selling book on JavaServer Faces.

David was one of a handful of experts on the JSF 1.0 Expert Group (EG) that actively defined the standard Java-based web application framework, and he's currently helping to define the next version of JSF on the JSF 2.0 EG.

Besides serving on the JSF and JSTL Expert Groups, David has contributed to open-source projects and co-authored Sun's Web Developer Certification Exam. He invented the Struts Template library which was the precursor to Tiles, a popular framework for composing web pages from JSP fragments, was the 2nd Struts committer and contributed to Shale.

A regular on the NFJS tour, David also speaks at other conferences such as JavaOne and JavaPolis. David has taught at Java University and was twice voted a JavaOne rock star, for presentations in 2005 and 2007.



David Hussman

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David Hussman Agility Instructor/Mentor
David has been creating software for more than 15 years in a variety of domains: digital audio, digital biometrics, medical, financial, retail, legal, and education to name a few. For the past 8 years, David has mentored and coached agile teams in the U.S., Canada, Europe, India, Egypt, Russia, and Ukraine. Along with presenting and leading workshops / tutorials at conferences in the U.S. and Europe, David has contributed to several books (Managing Agile Projects and Agile in the Large), and worked on agile curriculum for The University of Minnesota and Capella University. David is currently writing a book for the Pragmatic Programmer series.

David leads DevJam, a Minneapolis based company composed of agile collaborators. As mentors and practitioners, DevJam focuses on using agile to help people and companies improve their software production skills. DevJam provides seasoned leaders that strive to pragmatically match technology, people, and processes in a way which produces software that makes people happier and more productive.

For more information, check out the DevJam website www.devjam.com



Howard Lewis Ship

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Howard Lewis Ship Creator of Tapestry and HiveMind
Howard Lewis Ship is the creator and lead developer for the Apache Tapestry project, and the creator of the Apache HiveMind project. He has over fifteen years of full-time software development under his belt, with over nine years of Java. He cut his teeth writing customer support software for Stratus Computer, but eventually traded PL/1 for Objective-C and NeXTSTEP before settling into Java.

Howard is the author of Tapestry in Action for Manning Publications (which covers Tapestry 3.0), and is currently the Director of Open Source Technology for Formos Software Development. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Suzanne, a novelist.

Howard is polishing the last rough edges of Tapestry 5 in anticipation of a final 5.0 release.


Jared Richardson

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Jared Richardson Agile coach and co-author of Ship It
Jared Richardson, co-author of Ship It! A Practical Guide to Successful
Software Projects
, is a speaker and agile coach at 6th Sense Analytics. Jared has been in the industry for more than fifteen years as a consultant, developer, tester, and manager.

Until recently he was an independent consultant focused helping teams build better software. He's now bringing that same focus to 6th Sense Analytics and their clients, using both the 6th Sense toolset and his unique experience. Jared can be found online at Agile Artisans and the Sixth Sense Analytics blog.




Jason Hunter

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Jason Hunter Author of Java Servlet Programming
Jason Hunter is Principal Technologist with Mark Logic, specializing in large-scale XML content manipulation using XQuery. He's probably best known as the author of "Java Servlet Programming" (O'Reilly Media). He's also an Apache Member and as Apache's representative on the Java Community Process Executive Committee he established a landmark agreement allowing open source Java. He's publisher of Servlets.com and XQuery.com, an original contributer to Apache Tomcat (and Apache Ant committer), the creator of the JDOM open source project, a member of the expert groups responsible for Servlet, JSP, JAXP, and XQJ API development, and was recently appointed Sun Java Champion. In 2003, he received the Oracle Magazine Author of the Year award, and in both 2005 and 2006, the JavaOne Outstanding Talk award. His largest audience was 15,000 at a JavaOne conference keynote.



Karthik Shyamsunder

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Karthik Shyamsunder Principal Engineer w/Verisign
Karthik has 15 years of wide spectrum experience in the software industry, strengths include Architecture, Design and Development of both web and standalone enterprise applications using Distributed and Object Oriented technologies. His expertise also includes performance tuning enterprise applications and building highly scalable and secure solutions.

Besides having widespread and hands on knowledge on various technologies, has excellent communication skills and has a unique ability to teach and mentor other junior/senior developers in current and emerging technologies.

Karthik Shyamsunder also serves as an adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University, Computer Science School (EPP Program), teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses in the the field of Distributed computing. Some of the courses he teaches are "Distributed Computing on the World Wide Web" and "Enterprise Computing Using Java".




Mark Richards

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Mark Richards SOA and Enterprise Architect, Author of Java Transaction Design Strategies
Mark Richards is an SOA and Enterprise Architect involved in the architecture and design of large-scale Service Oriented Architectures in J2EE and other technologies, primarily in the financial services industry. He has been involved in the software industry since 1984, and has significant experience and expertise in J2EE architecture and development, Object-oriented design and development, and systems integration. Mark served as the President of the Boston Java User Group in 1997 and 1998, and the President of the New England Java Users Group from 1999 thru 2003. He is the author of "Java Transaction Design Strategies", contributing author of "NFJS Anthology Volume 1", contributing author of "NFJS Anthology Volume 2", and contributing author of the Java Coding Standards book produced by the Nejug. Mark is an IBM Certified Application Architect, Certified Master IT Architect (TOG), Sun Certified J2EE Business Component Developer, a Sun Certified J2EE Enterprise Architect, a Sun Certified Java Programmer, a BEA WebLogic Certified Developer, a Certified Java Instructor, and holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science from Boston University. He is a regular conference speaker at the No Fluff Just Stuff Symposium Series and speaks at conferences and user groups around the country. When he is not working Mark can usually be found hiking with his wife and two daughters in the White Mountains or along the Appalachian Trail.


Nathaniel Schutta

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Nathaniel Schutta Author, speaker, software engineer focused on user interface design.
Nathaniel T. Schutta is a senior software engineer in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with extensive experience developing Java Enterprise Edition–based Web applications. He graduated from St. John’s University (MN) with a degree in Computer Science and has a master’s of science degree in software engineering from the University of Minnesota. For the last several years, he has focused on user interface design. A long-time member of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group, Nathaniel believes that if the user can’t figure out your application, then you’ve done something wrong. Along with his user interface work, Nathaniel is the cocreator of the open-source Taconite framework, has contributed to two corporate Java frameworks, has developed training material, and has led several study groups. During the brief moments of warm weather found in his home state of Minnesota, he spends as much time on the golf course as his wife will tolerate. He’s currently exploring Ruby, Rails, and (after recently making the switch) Mac OS X. Nathaniel is the coauthor of the bestselling book, Foundations of Ajax.


Neal Ford

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Neal Ford Application Architect at ThoughtWorks, Inc.
Neal Ford is an Application Architect for ThoughtWorks. He is an architect, designer, and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, and video/DVD presentations. Neal is also the author of Developing with Delphi: Object-Oriented Techniques (Prentice Hall PTR, 1996), JBuilder 3 Unleashed (SAMS Publishing, 1999), and Art of Java Web Development (Manning, 2003). His language proficiencies include Java, C#/.NET, Ruby, Object Pascal, C++, and C. Neal’s primary consulting focus is the design and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. He is also an internationally acclaimed speaker, having spoken at over 30 developers’ conferences worldwide.


Scott Davis

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Scott Davis Author of "Groovy Recipes" & TDD Expert
Scott Davis is an internationally recognized author and speaker. He is passionate about open source solutions and agile development. He has worked on a variety of Java platforms, from J2EE to J2SE to J2ME (sometimes all on the same project).

Scott's books include Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java, GIS for Web Developers: Adding Where to Your Web Applications, The Google Maps API, and JBoss At Work.

Scott is the Editor in Chief of aboutGroovy.com, a news and information website that tracks the latest developments in Groovy and Grails. He also writes a regular column for IBM DeveloperWorks -- Mastering Grails.

Scott is a frequent presenter at national conferences (such as No Fluff, Just Stuff) and local user groups. He was the president of the Denver Java Users Group in 2003 when it was voted one of the top-ten JUGs in North America. After a quick move north, he is currently active in the leadership of the Boulder Java Users Group. Keep up with him at http://www.davisworld.org.


Scott Leberknight

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Scott Leberknight Chief Architect at Near Infinity
Scott is Chief Architect at Near Infinity Corporation, an enterprise software development, training, and consulting services company based in Reston, Virginia. He has been developing enterprise and web applications for 13 years professionally, and has developed web applications using Java, Ruby/Rails, Groovy/Grails and a smidgeon of Python. His main areas of interest include object-oriented design, system architecture, testing, and frameworks of all types including Spring, Hibernate, Ruby on Rails, Grails, and Django. In addition, Scott enjoys learning new languages to make himself a better and more well-rounded developer a la The Pragmatic Programmers' advice to "learn one language per year."

Scott holds a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Tech, and an M. Eng. in Systems Engineering from the University of Maryland. Scott speaks at the No Fluff Just Stuff Symposiums and various other conferences. In his (sparse) spare time, Scott enjoys spending time with his wife, two daughters, and two cats. He also tries to find time to play soccer, go snowboarding, and mountain bike whenever he can.


Venkat Subramaniam

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Venkat Subramaniam Founder of Agile Developer, Inc.
Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects, and speaks frequently at international conferences and user groups. He is author of ".NET Gotchas" (O'Reilly), coauthor of 2007 Jolt Productivity Award winning "Practices of an Agile Developer" (Pragmatic Bookshelf), and author of "Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer" (Pragmatic Bookshelf).