Session Schedule

By Scott Davis

"The central enemy of reliability is complexity." (Dr. Daniel Geer)

Java is a powerful programming language. A smart developer can do nearly anything with Java. So the next question is, "How quickly can it be done? How many lines of code does it take to do common tasks?" Groovy greases the wheels of Java by decreasing the complexity of the language while preserving the raw power. At first glance, you might think that this talk is simply about how Groovy drastically reduces the lines of code you need to write. What this talk is really about is bringing simplicity, clarity, readability, and yes, beauty to your source code.

In this talk, you'll see common problems presented in Java and the corresponding solutions in Groovy. From something as simple as defining a JavaBean up through File I/O, XML, networking, and database interaction, Groovy offers identical capabilities in a fraction of the lines of code.

By Scott Davis

"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you aren't using enough of it." (Anonymous)

XML is everywhere. Whether you are dealing with local configuration files (web.xml, struts-config.xml) or remote web services (SOAP, REST, RSS, Atom), the modern software developer needs to be able to request, slice, and dice XML with ease. That requires a set of razor-sharp tools that reduce the inherent complexity of the problem, not multiply it. Once you see XML tremble in fear at the awesome power of Groovy, you'll wonder what you ever did without it.

In this talk, we look at various Groovy tools to create, parse, and export XML. To read in XML, we'll explore the XmlSlurper and the XmlParser. To write out XML, we'll use the MarkupBuilder, StreamingMarkupBuilder, and the XmlNodePrinter. We'll go beyond simple Plain Old XML (POX) and demonstrate using namespaces, CDATA blocks, and more.

By Scott Davis

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece." (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)

Most Grails tutorials demonstrate how easy it is to build simple CRUD (Create/Retrieve/Update/Delete) applications. While skinning a database with a web front-end is undeniably one beneficial aspect of Grails, it isn't the only thing Grails is good for. As you'll see here, Grails can be used to build a wide variety of web applications. You won't see a single HTML table with "edit" and "delete" links, I promise.

In this talk, we look at a variety of Grails applications that go beyond the simple CRUD metaphor -- blogs, wikis, maps, portals, and more.

By Scott Davis

"There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone." (Bjarne Stroustrup)

The "lizard brain" is the oldest part of the human brain -- the part responsible for autonomic functions like breathing, heart rate, and navigating websites. OK, maybe not that last part, but your website should be easy to use. Stupid easy. Lizard brain easy. Any time your user spends figuring out how to do something -- even for a split second -- is wasted time due to poor design. Inspired by Steve Krug's book "Don't Make Me Think", this talk answers the question, "Why is that website so hard to use?"

In this talk, we look at what make a "good" website "good". Simple changes in the layout or sort order can yield drastic improvements. We'll get inside the heads of typical users and see how their view of our website is drastically different than what we painstakingly planned out. You'll learn how to cater to "Browsers" and "Searchers" -- the human kind, not the software kind. "Lizard Brain Web Design" answers these questions and more in a funny and informative way.

By Scott Davis

"The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned." (Antonio Gramsci)

There are plenty of sarcastic "Web 2.0" checklists out there -- be perpetually in BETA, when in doubt add rounded corners, etc. While we can all laugh at the superficial aspects of the Web 2.0 revolution, there are plenty of serious aspects to it as well. Is your website mash-up friendly or hostile? Do you tell your visitors when things change (via RSS or Atom syndication), or do you expect them to check in daily for updates? Is your website a silo or a part of a larger ecosystem?

In this talk, we discuss what makes a "modern shiny Web 2.0" website look the way it does. But we go beyond simple look and feel as we catalog the common features in modern websites and show you how to implement them yourself.

By Neal Ford

Most of the software world has realized that BDUF (Big Design Up Front) doesn't work well in software. But lots of developers struggle with this notion when it applies to architecture and design. Surely you can't just start coding, right? You need some level of understanding before you can start work. This session describes the current thinking about emergent design & evolutionary architecture, including both proactive (test-driven development) and reactive (refactoring, composed method) approaches to discovering design. The goal of this talk is to provide nomenclature, strategies, and techniques for allowing design to emerge from projects as they proceed, keeping you code in sync with the problem domain.

Most of the software world has realized that BDUF (Big Design Up Front) doesn't work well in software. But lots of developers struggle with this notion when it applies to architecture and design. Surely you can't just start coding, right? You need some level of understanding before you can start work. This session describes the current thinking about emergent design & evolutionary architecture, including both proactive (test-driven development) and reactive (refactoring, composed method) approaches to discovering design. The goal of this talk is to provide nomenclature, strategies, and techniques for allowing design to emerge from projects as they proceed, keeping you code in sync with t

By Neal Ford

Refactoring is a fine academic exercise in the perfect world, but we don't really live there. Even with the best intentions, projects build up technical debt and crufty bad things. This session covers refactoring in the real world, at both the atomic level (how to refactor towards composed method and the single level of abstraction principle) to larger project strategies for multi-day refactoring efforts. This talk provides practical strategies for real projects to effectively refactor your code.

Refactoring is a fine academic exercise in the perfect world, but we don't really live there. Even with the best intentions, projects build up technical debt and crufty bad things. This session covers refactoring in the real world, at both the atomic level (how to refactor towards composed method and the single level of abstraction principle) to larger project strategies for multi-day refactoring efforts. This talk provides practical strategies for real projects to effectively refactor your code.

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

Judicious use of metrics improves the quality of your code. But interpreting metrics presents a challenge. You have a list of numbers for a project - what does it mean? And what does it tell me about the health of the project overall? This sessions shows how to produce visualizations for software metrics, making them easier to understand and more valuable. It covers metrics at the individual method level all the way up to the overall architecture of the application. This isn't just a talk about how some tools produce visualizations: this session shows you how to generate your own visualizations, allowing you to customize it to the level in information density that shows real value on your project. I show how to produce projected graphs from dependencies, heat-maps for cyclomatic complexity and code coverage, using XSLT to extract visual information from XML configuration documents, and others. Metrics can't help you if you can't understand them. By creating visualizations, it helps leverage metrics to make your code better.

Judicious use of metrics improves the quality of your code. But interpreting metrics presents a challenge. You have a list of numbers for a project - what does it mean? And what does it tell me about the health of the project overall? This sessions shows how to produce visualizations for software metrics, making them easier to understand and more valuable. It covers metrics at the individual method level all the way up to the overall architecture of the application. This isn't just a talk about how some tools produce visualizations: this session shows you how to generate your own visualizations, allowing you to customize it to the level in information density that shows real value on your pr

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

BRING YOUR LAPTOP WITH YOU, BUT A LAPTOP ISN'T REQUIRED! Reading and hearing about agile practices is one thing, but actually doing it is completely different. This session puts you to work in an agile fashion, applying agile developer practices.

Reading and hearing about agile practices is one thing, but actually doing it is completely different. This session puts you to work in an agile fashion, applying agile developer practices. During this session, we're going to take a problem and iteratively develop the solution, using test-driven development, pair programming, retrospectives, pair rotation, and other agile development techniques. We should be able to get through about 3 20-minute iterations during the 90 minutes, giving you a hands-on feel for real agile development. If you have a laptop, bring it, but only half the class needs one, so if you don't have a laptop, don't let it discourage you. Come see what it's like to work on

By Neal Ford

Unit testing seems to a lot of managers and developers like pure overhead, but professionally responsible developers know that it is one of the keys to quality. This session covers a bunch of small tools that makes testing easier & faster. I talk about tools like Infinitest, Jester, MockRunner, Hamcrest, Groovy, RSpec/EasyB, Selenium, and others. While none of these tools is elaborate enough for it's own session, together they add up to more than the sum of the parts. This session shows tools and strategies to streamline testing, making easier and more palatable for both managers and developers.

Unit testing seems to a lot of managers and developers like pure overhead, but professionally responsible developers know that it is one of the keys to quality. This session covers a bunch of small tools that makes testing easier & faster. I talk about tools like Infinitest, Jester, MockRunner, Hamcrest, Groovy, RSpec/EasyB, Selenium, and others. While none of these tools is elaborate enough for it's own session, together they add up to more than the sum of the parts. This session shows tools and strategies to streamline testing, making easier and more palatable for both managers and developers.

By David Geary

This session introduces JSF 2.0 fundamentals, with emphasis on new features in JSF 2.0.

JSF 2.0 has been a long time coming, but now that it's here, it boasts an impressive set of improvements over JSF 1.X, including standardization of Facelets as the default display technology, a much richer event model, and built-in support for Ajax. Come to this session to see how you can use Java's standard web application framework to create industrial-strength web applications. This session will cover the following features of JSF 2.0: Resources Using Groovy System events Bookmarkable views Templating

Prerequisite: Familiarity with JSF, or other component-based frameworks

By David Geary

This session covers two of the most important features of JSF 2.0: composite components and built-in Ajax.

JSF is a component-base framework. Components are a powerful reuse mechanism, but they were rendered nearly inconsequential in JSF 1.X, because components were so difficult to implement. JSF 2.0 makes implementing cusomt components easy with a new feature that builds on Facelets and the new resource capabilities in JSF 2.0: composite components. This session shows you how to implement your own components with JSF 2. Additionally, this session covers the built-in Ajax that comes with JSF 2.0. Come to this session to see how you can easily implement custom components with integrated Ajax capabilities.

Prerequisite: Familiarity with JSF, or other component-based frameworks. Familiarity with Ajax. This session builds on the JSF 2.0 Introduction talk, so it is helpful, although not required, if you attend the intro talk before coming to this session.

By David Geary

An introduction to Flex for Java developers.

Want to develop expressive web applications? Them come to this session and see what Adobe's Flex is all about. Flex has lots of similarities to Java-based web development, so you'll find it easy to learn, and powerful to use. Come to this session if you want to take your web application user interface to the next level. This session will cover: An introduction to Flex ActionScript, HTTPService, and data binding Drag and drop Components View state Integrating with Java back ends

Prerequisite: Familiarity with Flex and at least one other web application framework

By David Geary

Learn to implement web applications with GWT.

Google Web Toolkit lets you create killer Java-based web applications using familiar Swing and AWT idioms. This session will introduce you to GWT and teach you the fundamentals of using this cutting-edge framework for creating rich user interfaces that run in a browser. For most of this session, and the session that follows--GWT fu, Part 2--I will live code a desktop-like, ajax-based, web application that illustrates the awesome power of GWT. In this session, I will cover the following topics: Widgets Remote procedure calls and database access Event handling Ajax testing

Prerequisite: Familiarity with a component-based framework, preferably a desktop application framework

By David Geary

Learn to do amazing stuff with GWT.

This session picks up where GWT fu, Part 1 left off. In this session, I will continue live-coding the Places application. In taking the Places application to its exciting conclusion, I will cover the following advanced aspects of GWT: Dialog boxes Sinking events DOM elements Working with HTML Modules Image loading and busy cursors Event previews Timers In this session, I focus primarily on implementing a viewport widget in a custom module, and using that widget in the Places application. When I'm done, we'll have a very cool web application that shows the awesome potential of Google Web Toolkit

Prerequisite: GWT fu, Part 1 is not a prerequisite for this session, but it will help if you have some familiarity with GWT.

By Stuart Halloway

The Agile Manifesto, like any good scripture, admits of many interpretations. There is no one "right path." What works for us may not work for you. At Relevance we have tried many paths, and learned many lessons. Join us to see dozens of ideas that have worked for us, plus some that haven't.

The Agile Manifesto states four key values: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a plan. That manifesto sounds great, but perhaps a little vague. It gets more concrete quickly when you start doing it! In this talk, we will share our experiences, both good and bad, with various practices and problems associated with agile: Pairing all the time (except when we don’t) Running cross-project retrospectives Code coverage standards Choosing the sharpest tools Fixed-bid projects Handling budget problems Teaching customers

By Stuart Halloway

Teams adopting agile should begin at a tactical level, but they shouldn't end there. The Agile Manifesto operates at many different levels. Learn to apply the principles of agile at a strategic level. Otherwise you can have a great agile ground game and still lose.

Many programming teams now embrace agile at the tactical level, which is the right place to begin. Applying the ideas in the Agile Manifesto, good teams embrace practices like story point estimation burndown tracking technical expertise behavior-driven development daily standups pair programming continuous integration spiking refactoring customer always available well-understood roles The Agile Manifesto can be applied at a strategic level, too. However, the tensions are different. Feedback cycles are longer, objectives and results are less clear, and roles and relationships are unknown or changing. In this talk you will learn how

By Stuart Halloway

Git is not the next step in evolution of centralized source control, following in the footsteps of cvs, svn, etc. These tools provide centralized history of deltas, where git provides distributed history of trees of content. In this talk, you will see the advantages of the git approach:

Incredible speed. Local, disconnected operation. Source control workflow customized to your team. Centralized, distributed, or layered, you can build it with git. Cheap and easy branching, tagging, and merging. Editing and refactoring your commits.

You have probably heard about git by now, perhaps something along these lines: "Git is a version control system, and it is more powerful that Subversion in every way. You don't even have to be online to commit!" This is true, but it undersells git. Git is not the next step in evolution of centralized source control, following in the footsteps of cvs, svn, etc. These tools provide centralized history of deltas, where git provides distributed history of trees of content. In this talk, you will see the advantages of the git approach: Incredible speed. Local, disconnected operation. Source control workflow customized to your team. Centralized, distributed, or layered, you can build it with gi

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

Agile teams manage change and risk by apapting. But to adapt, you must identify opportunities for change and take them. Retrospectives are a fun, cost-effective way for your team to learn and change.

In this talk, we will begin by conducting a mini-retrospective, so that you get a feel for the basic process. Next, we will review the core principles of a retrospective, and use these principles to compare and contrast a variety of retrospective activities from the book Agile Retrospectives. Next, we will explore a few retrospective activities in greater detail. These are some of the favorites that we use regularly at Relevance: team radar prioritize with dots learning matrix Finally, we will talk about how to tune retrospectives to the needs of your team at a specific moment in time. No two retrospectives are alike, and an experienced facilitator adds value by adapting a retrospective

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

Find out why Clojure is Java.next:

• Clojure provides clean, fast access to all Java libraries.
• Clojure provides all the low-ceremony goodness you know and love from dynamic languages such as Ruby and Python.
• Clojure includes Lisp's signature feature: Treating code as data through macros.
• Clojure's emphasis on immutability and support for software transactional memory make it a viable option for taking advantage of massively parallel hardware.

Clojure is a dynamic programming language for the Java Virtual Machine, with a compelling combination of features: Clojure is elegant. Clojure?s clean, careful design lets you write programs that get right to the essence of a problem, without a lot of clutter and ceremony. Clojure is Lisp reloaded. Clojure has the power inherent in Lisp, but is not constrained by the history of Lisp. Clojure is a functional language. Data structures are immutable, and most functions are side-effect free. This makes it easier to write correct programs, and to compose large programs from smaller ones. Clojure simpli?es concurrent programming. Of course, Java itself has pretty good concurrency support. Bu

By Matthew McCullough

Open Source is not just a suite of libraries you consume within your application, but now reaches into the space of tools to help you troubleshoot and improve your applications.

This session will quickly survey a wide range of tools across the Java, Networking, Filesystem, SOAP, REST, HTML, CSS and JavaScript realms. We'll look at applications such as VisualVM, which help you analyze your heap and garbage collection cycles of both local and remote applications. Performance and load testing tools such as JMeter will expose bottlenecks, threading, and scalability concerns of everything from Java modules to Web Apps (even ones that don't use any Java).

Learn how web service tools such as SOAPui and TCPMon allow you to inspect your SOAP and REST calls at the data structure level, and how Firefox Poster lets you test web services right from the browser. And when only a raw look will do, we can always fall back on the venerable TCPDump. This tool-centric presentation will expose developers to approaches to inspect, debug, tune and troubleshoot Java desktop apps, language-neutral web apps, and framework-neutral web services using Open Source Tools.

By Matthew McCullough

Maven has been on the Java build tools scene for quite a number of years, but the adoption rate in enterprises is now going through the roof. Maven can seem daunting, but this presentation will equip existing Maven users with more efficient techniques and tools to overcome the biggest perceived Maven hurdles and build issues with ease.

We'll examine tools to help you find artifacts in central repositories, manage your corporation's internal Maven artifacts with a proxy tool such as Nexus, view and override dependency graphs, dependency management and multi-module best practices, create OS specific profiles, and leverage the latest Maven plugins for the top Java IDEs.

Topping it off, we will review migration paths from Ant, and why Maven just makes sense with your company's use of the ever growing web of open source libraries. This presentation will take beginning and mid-level Maven users up to a higher level of efficiency and mastery.

Prerequisite: Basic Maven knowledge

By Matthew McCullough

iPhone development is all the rage both in the mobile entertainment, social networking, and productivity application spaces. As a Java developer, prepare yourself to be a participant in aspects of this new breed and platform of development. Hop on board with a quick start to iPhone application coding in Objective-C and integration with some of our favorite Java web service back-ends such as RESTful Grails.

We'll build out a graphical demo application on the iPhone that depends on and responds to data from a Java web service; then we'll deploy it live to the desktop simulator, and finally, a real iPhone. This presentation will make you conversant in iPhone development procedures and able to make smart decisions about your back end Java web services ability to serve data to iPhone native client apps.

By Ted Neward

  Even though the Java 7 JSR has yet to be formed, some interesting things are beginning to emerge from Sun about what Java7 may include when its formal release contents are finally made public.

In this presentation, we'll examine some of the forthcoming details, including some of the JSR-166 "add-ons" like the Fork/Join framework, some of the proposals for extensions to the JVM to support dynamic languages, and the so-called "closures" proposals circulating around.

By Ted Neward

Permissions, policy, SecurityExceptions, oh my! The Java platform is a rich and powerful platform, complete with a rich and powerful security mechanism, but sometimes understanding it and how it works can be daunting and intimidating, and leave developers with the basic impression that it's mysterious and dark and incomprehensible. Nothing could be further from the truth, and in this presentation, we'll take a pragmatic, code-first look at the Java security platform, including Permissions, the SecurityManager and its successor, AccessController, the Policy class and policy file syntax, JAAS, and more.

For an intermediate-level audience.

By Ted Neward

So you know the platform security model, and now you want to use it in new and interesting ways, like creating a custom Policy implementation, a custom Permission, or create a custom security context in which code will execute. Perhaps you even wish to make certain objects accessible only to those with the right permissions, or cryptographic key. Nothing could be easier, despite Java security's reputation as a dark and arcane place.

In this presentation, we'll pick up where the "Platform Security" talk leaves off, and demonstrate how to engage the security model of the JVM at a much deeper level, regardless of your favorite programming language: Java, JRuby, Groovy, Scala, ....

Prerequisite: The Busy Java Developer's Guide to Platform Security

By Ted Neward

If you've ever gotten a ClassCastException and just knew the runtime was wrong about it, or found yourself copying .jar files all over your production server just to get your code to run, then you probably find the Java ClassLoader mechanism to be deep, dark, mysterious, and incomprehensible. Take a deep breath, and relax--ClassLoaders aren't as bad as they seem at first, once you understand a few basic rules regarding their operation, and have a bit more tools in your belt to diagnose ClassLoader problems. And once you've got that, and hear about ClassLoaders' ability to run multiple versions of the same code at the same time, and to provide isolation barriers inside your application, or even compile code on the fly from source form, you might just find that you like ClassLoaders after all... maybe.

For a beginning to intermediate Java audience.

By Ted Neward

For so many Java developers, the java.util.* package consists of List, ArrayList, and maybe Map and HashMap. But the Collections classes are so much more powerful than many of us are led to believe, and all it requires is a small amount of digging and some simple exploration to begin to "get" the real power of the Collection classes.

In this presentation, Java developers will see the basic breakdown of the Collection API designs, the relationship of the interfaces to the implementations, how to create a new Collection implementation, and how the new Collections introduced as part of JSR-166 (the concurrency JSR) and Java6 make their programming lives easier.

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

Ah, that new project smell, it's intoxicating! Full of hope, we trek off in pursuit of technical greatness. In this talk, we'll cover some of the important first steps of a new project including continuous integration, creating a testing culture and establishing low ceremony process.

Ah, that new project smell, it's intoxicating! Full of hope, we trek off in pursuit of technical greatness. In this talk, we'll cover some of the important steps of a new project including continuous integration, creating a testing culture and establishing low ceremony process.

By Nathaniel Schutta

Being on a high performing team is a transcendent experience - unfortunately, many of us find more dysfunction than function. In this talk, we'll take a look at some of the common issues that face teams and discuss some ways of working towards a happy crew.

Being on a high performing team is a transcendent experience - unfortunately, many of us find more dysfunction than function. In this talk, we'll take a look at some of the common issues that face teams and discuss some ways of working towards a happy crew.

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

This session is a quick look at all aspects of being a corporate software architect. Whither you are a developer looking to move into the role of architect, needing to have an understanding of what is expected or already in the role of software architect looking for new and interesting ideas, this session is for you.

This session is designed to be a jam session on all aspects of software architecture and many of the roles of software architect. The The following subject areas will be covered: - Software Development Process - Project Key Mechanisms: Languages and Frameworks - Security: Threats, Securing Code Review, Adding Security to you process - Layers, Partitions and Topologies - VM Optimizations - Usability and User Experience - Optimizing the Web - Ready for Production: Monitoring - Integration - Data Modeling

By Ken Sipe

The agile focus of software development puts heavy focus on user requirements through user stories. However we can not lose sight of the non-functional requirements as well. The software could be written to the exact specification and desire of the user, however if it takes 5 minutes for a request response, or it only supports 2 users or it isn't secure, then we still haven't done our jobs as developers.

This session will focus on the non-functional requirements of software development, namely: Performance, Scalability, Security, and Software Monitoring and Management. Each subject area discussion will include, goals, design practices, tools, and where it fits in the software development life-cycle.

By Ken Sipe

The Spring Framework has led the industry in innovation for years. Starting with dependency injection and promoting testing through removal of framework dependencies. Spring 3.0 continues that innovation in a way that takes full advantage of the Java 5 platform. There are a number of significant changes to the framework. So whither you are new to the framework or an experience Spring developer, this is a great session to come up to speed on the latest from SpringSource.

This will cover all the new features in Spring 3 complete with demos. This will include a look at the following: - Spring MVC - Spring REST - Spring EL - Spring Portlet - Spring Declarative Validation

Prerequisite: Java 5

By Ken Sipe

Security is a large concern in today's world of software development. Security is a multi-dimensional problem requiring skills at a number of different levels. This session is a security overview of a typical Java web development stack.

This session initiates a discussion in the following overlapping areas of security: - Java security - JEE security, which includes JAAS - Spring Security - Operating System security and it's roll in web security - Web Application security - Securing the wire with SSL - Key Management with keystore

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

If you have come to the NetKernel overview talk and came away compelled but unsure how to proceed, this talk will jump right in to building real resource-oriented systems with NetKernel. We will move away from the theoretical mind-melting right into the applied mind-melting. It is difficult to make the shift away from an object-oriented model, but this talk will demonstrate several examples of how and why you may want to. It will also include a preview of what is coming in NetKernel 4. This is kind of a REST + Polyglot Programming + SOA + Architecture talk all rolled up into one.

This talk will build out: Wrappers around a relational database that can act as RESTful interfaces through HTTP or service higher layers Transformational layers that convert the data into different forms Orchestration across a variety of data sources Integration with a variety of web tier technologies All along the way, we will make appropriate language choices to solve our problems. One size does not fit all and an environment that embraces this is incredibly important.

Prerequisite: Intro to NetKernel : Software for the 21st Century, Give it a REST (if unfamiliar with REST)

By Brian Sletten

The human-friendly Web is about nicely-formatted, accessible content for users to browse. There is an emerging Data Web that relies on technologies from the Semantic Web stack to link increasingly rich connections between various data sources. SPARQL and RDF are the main tools for expressing and using this connectivity. This talk will introduce you to one of the practical and accessible aspects of employing these ideas on the Web and in the Enterprise.

Getting people to come to consensus on common models and schemas is usually the hardest part of any data integration strategies. These technologies help lower the bar on both the technical and social costs of stepping up your integration strategies. We will explore: an introduction to RDF and the SPARQL query language the fantastically successful Linked Data project that connections billions of interrelated content how to include relational data in the mix how to include enriched Web pages in the mix how to build client-friendly applications on top of this information

Prerequisite: The Semantic Web: The Future, Now and Rich Web Pages : Publishing Semantic Content with GRDDL and RDFa would both be helpful but are not required

By Brian Sletten

The goal for web services was always to reduce our burden by increasing the potential for reuse of business functionality. Somehow, we got lost along the way in a morass of confusing, unfulfilling and downright broken technologies.

While we are interested in pursuing REST-based systems for managing information, we need some strategies for tying it all together sensibly. If we abandon WSDL, SOAP and UDDI, what do we replace them with? This talk will walk you through combining resource-oriented strategies with technologies from the Semantic Web to describe, find, and bind to services in dynamic, flexible and extensible ways.

We will start to blur the distinction between data, documents, services and focus on information and how it is connected to what we already know.

This talk will introduce you to strategies for building on individual REST services to produce a well-described, dynamic, discoverable fabric of services that can be used in a variety of scenarios including: finding data sources finding transformation services orchestrating these sources and services in reusable ways publishing discoverable services

Prerequisite: The Semantic Web: The Future Now, Give it a REST and SPARQL : Querying the Data Web would all be helpful talks to have attended

By Venkat Subramaniam

Java is a well established language, that has been around for more than a decade. Yet, programming on it has its challenges. There are concepts and features that are tricky. When you run into those, the compiler is not there to help you.

In this presentation we will look at various concepts that you will use in general programming with Java. We will discuss the issues with those and how you can improve your code. We will look at concepts you can do better and those you should outright avoid.

By Venkat Subramaniam

Scala is a static fully object-oriented, functional language on the JVM. While taking advantage of the functional aspects, you can continue to make full use of the powerful JVM and Java libraries.

In this presentation we will take a in depth look at what Scala is, its strengths, weaknesses, and why, when, and where you'd use it on your applications.

By Venkat Subramaniam

Projects often start out simple, but soon become complex and turn into a lose cannon. Organizations are struggling to maintain and evolve software. Poor code quality is a significant part of that problem. Improving the quality of code is critical to success of enterprise projects.

In this presentation we will discuss ways to identify code smell. We will discuss several code smells and how to clean it up. We will also discuss proactive ways to avoid that smell in the first place.

By Venkat Subramaniam

Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) are languages targeted at a particular problem and domain. They have context and are fluent. They help users of applications at various levels to easily communicate with your application. Developing DSLs, however, are not easy. You could easily get dragged into using parsers and tools with steep learning curve.

In this presentation, we will look at various options to create DSLs on the Java platform. We will focus on external DSLs–these give you the absolute flexibility to chose syntax, but involve the most work as well. We will look at various tools and techniques that can ease this development effort.

By Venkat Subramaniam

You're most likely familiar with the Gang-of-four design patterns and how to implement them in Java. However, you wouldn't want to implement those patterns in a similar way in Groovy. Furthermore, there are a number of other useful patterns that you can apply in Java and Groovy. In this presentation we'll look at two things: How to use patterns in Groovy and beyond Gang-of-four patterns in Groovy and Java.

Patterns overview Implementing common patterns in Groovy Beyond Gang-of-four patterns in Java and Groovy Lots of examples

By Venkat Subramaniam