Clinton Begin

Presentations

iBATIS and the Enterprise Database

This presentation will focus on database challenges that object oriented developers often face in an enterprise environment. Object Relational Mapping (ORM) tools are not ideal for all databases, and therefore alternatives such as iBATIS must be sought.

First and foremost, we'll show a very simple example of how iBATIS works. Just to be cool, we'll do it with AJAX (access the database from JavaScript! Oh my!)

Then we'll focus on using the iBATIS Data Mapper to achieve similar advantages as provided by an ORM tool, but without some of the complications that can arise from an object relational mapping approach. The iBATIS Data Mapping framework is a popular alternative to ORM tools, while being a complementary addition to any architecture.

"Bottom 10" Reasons Agile Teams Fail

Agile methodologies such as eXtreme Programming and SCRUM are hot topics today -- and they are also hot targets. When things go wrong on an agile project, it's far too convenient to blame the methodology.

It's often the case that the methodology is blamed, instead of the people charged with implementing it correctly. In this talk Clinton will discuss the most common reasons a team may fail when trying to execute a project using an agile methodology. He'll cover how to learn from the mistakes of others, and avoid repeating new mistakes of your own.

Learn from Ruby, Code with Java

By jumping from Java to Ruby and Ruby on Rails, are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

In this discussion, we'll discuss the benefits of Ruby and Ruby on Rails and the drawbacks of the way we currently build Java applications. Then we'll show you exactly how the situation can be corrected, and possibly even reversed. Can the Java platform achieve what Rails does? I'm going to risk saying: "Absolutely the most important parts can."

There's a lot of buzz in the air, and very little has anything to do with Java. Java's old and boring, right? So what are people talking about, .NET? No, luckily Java's #1 commercial competitor is also old and boring (already). The new topic of the day is dynamic languages, and sitting in the speakers chair is Ruby, the hot new (12 year old) scripting language, and the Rails web framework. Together they achieve huge productivity gains, clean, readable code, simple solutions, easy deployment and portability!

Wait a minute. Isn't that what Java claims too? Or did claim years ago? So what has happened to our beloved language? Here's what: We got stupid. Is Ruby better? No. Is any language better than any other? Perhaps in some cases, like pretty much every language is better than Visual Basic, including BASIC. ;-) But aside from that, many of the benefits of Ruby have nothing to do with the language, just like a lot of the overhead we experience in Java-Land have nothing to do with Java. So what's the problem? We've forgotten how to write good software. Instead, we choose to blindly follow "best practices" and "patterns" and by stuffing what used to be good code into reams of XML and annotations.

Impact of Language Choice on Software Quality

In the software development community few topics are debated as hotly as the choice of programming language. In this talk we?ll explore the potential impact of language choice on software quality ? if there is any impact at all.

Is it true that that skill level of the programmer matters more than the language used? Is making languages easier to use lowering quality because they are enabling lesser skilled developers to build software? What if we compare developers of equal skill level? How does language choice affect quality in that case? We will explore these questions and more.