Western Canada Software Symposium

September 28 - 30, 2007



Event Details

Location

Delta Calgary Airport
2001 Airport Road NE
Calgary, Alberta T2E 6Z8
View Map
NOTE: You are viewing details about a past event. You may view our upcoming event schedule here ».

Session Highlights

Don't miss your chance to attend more than forty education and solutions sessions:

  • Seating is Limited
  • In-depth Discussions
  • Peer Exchange
  • Access to Speakers
  • Expert Panel Discussions
  • Hands-on Code Examples
  • Best Practices
  • Birds of a Feather Session
  • Insight on Cutting-Edge Tools
Download Session Listing

Featured Sessions

Spring 2.0: New and Noteworthy
By Ben Hale

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
By Ben Hale

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.

Acegi Security: The security framework with the fu..
By Ben Hale

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.

10 ways to use Hibernate effectively
By Brian Sam-Bodden

Learn 10 tried and true ways to improve the way you use Hibernate today. In this session you would learn about a collection of 10 tips, tricks, practices and tools that will make you more effective at designing, implementing, testing and tuning your application's Hibernate-powered object-relational layer.

Give it a REST
By Brian Sletten

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.

Applied AOP
By Brian Sletten

Most people new to Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) are fed up with separation of concerns zealots explaining how great their techniques are at dealing with... logging. Ok, you get it. Logging is a cross-cutting concern that can be appropriately modularized. What else does AOP have to offer? A lot, it turns out. This talk will give an introduction to the motivations of AOP as well as a series of concrete examples drawn from enterprise and client side Java. Come learn how AspectJ-flavored AOP can begin to benefit you immediately either in development or production environments. Learn how to enforce architectural policies, find Swing threading issues, reduce the invasiveness of the Observer design pattern or even improve the reusability of your domain models. Now that Spring 2.0 provides support for AspectJ, the time has never been better to learn about these new (but backwards compatible) ways of thinking about building software.

Data Integration : Beyond Cutesy Mashups
By Brian Sletten

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.

Ajaxian Faces
By David Geary

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.

RAD JSF with Seam, Facelets, and Ajax4jsf, Part On..
By David Geary

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.

The Google Web Toolkit, Part One
By David Geary

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.

Distributed Teams: Remote Agility
By Jared Richardson

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

Build Teams, Not Products
By Jared Richardson

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

Continuous Integration with Cruise Control
By Jared Richardson

Continuous Integration is increasingly recognized as a vital practice in an Agile software shop. Traditionally it's been difficult to set up and administer. Today, that's no longer the case.

Ajax Libraries
By Nathaniel Schutta

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.

Test Infecting the Legacy Organization
By Nathaniel Schutta

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.

Groovy and Java: The Integration Story
By Scott Davis

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.

Real World Grails
By Scott Davis

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.

Annotation Hammer
By Venkat Subramaniam

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
By Venkat Subramaniam

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.

Java 6 Features, what's in it for you?
By Venkat Subramaniam

What benefit do new Java 6 features offer you. Are there issues with using these features.
The objective of this presentation is not simply to introduce you to the features, but to
the effective use of these as well.

OSGi: A Well Kept Secret
By Venkat Subramaniam

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

Practices of an Agile Developer
By Venkat Subramaniam

You have worked on software projects with varying degree of success. What were the reasons for the success of your last project? What were the reasons for those that failed? A number of issues contribute to project success - some non-technical in nature. In this presentation the speaker will share with you practices in a number of areas including
coding, developer attitude, debugging, and feedback. The discussions are based on the book with the same title as the talk.

JRuby
By Venkat Subramaniam

Object-oriented scripting languages, or agile dynamic languages, as some like to call those, are gaining programmers' attention. Several dynamic languages are on the JVM. Groovy and JRuby are two languages that are drawing developers' interest. Sun has shown support for these two, and especially JRuby by hiring the core developers.

Spring into Groovy
By Venkat Subramaniam

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.

View All Sessions »