[ajug-announce] AJUG Meeting - August 16, 2011 @ 7:00pm - Functional Thinking

[Gunnar Hillert]

Hi everyone,

It is hard to believe, but yes - the monthly AJUG meeting is just a few days
away. It has been a super-busy month. First and most importantly: *We have
to say a huge thanks and farewell to Burr Sutter*. He and his family moved
to Raleigh, NC, to be right at the headquarters of JBoss/Red Hat. As
AJUG's president for many, many years he did a tremendous service to our
community and his dedication will be missed greatly!! *Thanks Burr*!!! But
on a positive side, I am certain we will see him again as speaker at future
AJUG and DevNexus events.

Furthermore, I had the opportunity to visit OSCON Java in Portland last
month, which gave me the opportunity to connect with other JUG leaders,
gather some ideas for DevNexus 2012 and also experience a nicer public
transportation system (Portland's light rail rocks!). Java 7 has certainly
been a hot topic. A key take-away from OSCON Java has been that that to me,
it feels like, that Java and the Java platform are experiencing a
resurgence. Based on hearing people talk, Oracle's keynote etc. I feel much
more comfortable these days about the future of the JVM and we can expect
releases much more quickly moving forward. Even the cool kids are moving
back to the JVM - Twitter had a keynote and a break-out session on how they
move more and more of their business over to the JVM using Java, Scala and
also Clojure.

And with that I am glad to announce, that AJUG will cover Java 7 at the
September 20th AJUG meeting! Donald Smith from Oracle (Former Director of
Ecosystem Development for the Eclipse Foundation) will present. I will post
details to AJUG's website in the next week or so.

And mentioning Scala and Clojure - this brings me full swing back to the
area of functional programming, about which we as developers should care
deeply. We are super-excited, that for this month's presentation we have *Neil
Ford* present on '*Functional Thinking*'. Please see below for details or
visit http://www.ajug.org.

We would like to thank No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) for providing the speaker
as part of the 2011 Greater Atlanta Software Symposium:
http://www.nofluffjuststuff.com/conference/atlanta/2011/09/home

And since NFJS Atlanta is just a few weeks away (September 16-18), we are
doing a raffle for a complimentary pass next Tuesday! Let me summarize -
Free meeting, super-awesome speaker, cutting edge topic, free ticket - So
leave behind your cubicle walls next Tuesday and join us for some
educational fun :-) See you all there.

*This month's meeting details:*

*When:*  August 16, 2011 @ 7:00pm
*Where:* *Holiday Inn Select Atlanta Perimeter Dunwoody
*4386 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road
Atlanta, GA 30341

*Who:* Neil Ford
*What:* Functional Thinking

*Description:*

Learning the syntax of a new language is easy, but learning to think under a
different paradigm is hard.

This session helps you transition from a Java writing imperative programmer
to a functional programmer, using Java, Clojure and Scala for examples. This
session takes common topics from imperative languages and looks at
alternative ways of solving those problems in functional languages. As a
Java developer, you know how to achieve code-reuse via mechanisms like
inheritance and polymorphism. Code reuse is possible in
functional languages as well, using high-order functions, composition, and
multi-methods. I take a variety of common practices in OOP languages and
show the corresponding mechanisms in functional languages. Expect your mind
to be bent, but you'll leave with a much better understanding of both the
syntax and semantics of functional languages.
*
*
*Our Speaker:*

Neal Ford is Software Architect and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global
IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development
and delivery.
Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The
DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm. Neal
has a degree in Computer Science from Georgia State University specializing
in languages and compilers and a minor in mathematics specializing in
statistical analysis.

He is also the designer and developer of applications, instructional
materials, magazine articles, video presentations, and author of 6 books,
including the most recent The Productive Programmer. His language
proficiencies include Java, C#/.NET, Ruby, Groovy, functional languages,
Scheme, Object Pascal, C++, and C. His primary consulting focus is the
design and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. Neal has
taught on-site classes nationally and internationally to all phases of the
military and to many Fortune 500 companies. He is also an internationally
acclaimed speaker, having spoken at over 100 developer conferences
worldwide, delivering more than 600 talks. If you have an insatiable
curiosity about Neal, visit his web site at http://www.nealford.com. He
welcomes feedback and can be reached at nford at thoughtworks.com.

*Our Sponsors (Thank you!):*

   - Terracotta (http://www.terracotta.org/)
   - Automated Logic Corporation (http://www.automatedlogic.com/)
   - Research In Motion (http://www.rim.com/)
   - The Intersect Group (http://www.theintersectgroup.com)
   - 4t Networks (http://www.4tvirtual.com)
   - Anteo Group (http://www.anteogroup.com)
   - Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) (https://www.theice.com/careers.jhtml)
   - JBoss (http://www.jboss.com)

*Our Location:

*Holiday Inn Select Atlanta Perimeter Dunwoody
4386 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road
Atlanta, GA 30341
Phone: (770) 457-6363

Directions<http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=4386+Chamblee-Dunwoody+Road&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=4386+Chamblee+Dunwoody+Rd,+Atlanta,+DeKalb,+Georgia+30341&gl=us&ei=02FATNW9J4G88gb4jLmjDw&ved=0CBMQ8gEwAA&ll=33.920242,-84.313502&spn=0.007781,0.016512&t=h&z=17>

Cheers,

Gunnar

PS:

If you would like to present on Java/JVM related topics at our monthly AJUG
meetings and/or at the DevNexus 2012 conference, please contact us at info
at ajug dot org.
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