A Random Walk On A Strange Loop: Day 2

Full Discloseth:

All of this may or may not matter to you: "A Longer Post" is an anagram of "Strange Loop". I live in St Louis, MO. Some speakers and the organizer are friends of mine. I work for a sponsor of the recent Strange Loop conference.

This is a continuation of some thoughts on the conference. See many more resources here.

Hamlet D'Arcy: Groovy Compiler Metaprogramming...

(slides here)

Hamlet gave a splendid talk on the power of manipulating Groovy's AST. As a warm-up to Groovy, he showed a quine: absolutely perfect for this conference. Looking back, I'm surprised they weren't all over the place.

Hamlet's main example was to introduce code into the AST during one of Groovy's compilation stages. I was reminded of a comment on Java Posse where someone said that AOP had to be invented in Java to solve a particular problem, and that the problem simply didn't exist in dynamic languages. This talk exemplified this in spades.

As an aside, Hamlet was a real trooper with the microphone. It was an awkward set-up, but he handled it gracefully. (I tend to get rattled under such conditions, so big props...).

Matt Taylor: jQuery, the Javascript Library of the Future

(slides here)

This talk wins the prize for making me want to a buy a book on the subject. If you haven't seen Javascript for awhile, good news: the libraries are fantastic, with jQuery arguably leading the way.

Matt's presentation and slides (featuring a hall-of-fame Twittch comic) were right on target, but the money maker is the demo. Seriously: check it out now.

It may be simple jQuery in a browser, but it is really a clever layout and a testament to jQuery. Matt showed some snazzy selectors and hinted that you can do more if you know CSS. I maintain that if you don't know CSS, you could use something like this to explore and learn more about it. The demo is a bit like an IDE for the browser. Also, if you are using a giant template system (ahem), then jQuery might be useful to introspect pieces of the HTML fractal with which you must deal.

I'm sold. I hate CSS and a lot of web design but this library looks great.

Michael Galpin: Mobile Development 101...

(slides here)

Michael gave a classic, spot-on talk on 2 major platforms: iPhone and Android. I say 'classic' in the sense that the trade-offs were presented in a balanced and honest manner. This is one talk where I wish there was more time for questions. There were many.

After all, there is a big fork in the road for mobile development, and you can't take both paths. Choosing one is a big decision. I'd especially liked to have heard more about development as a potential side-venture, rather than within an enterprise, and the necessary resources (e.g. accountant, attorney, trademark, etc). Not very techie, but mobile is the new gold-rush.

I respected that Michael didn't proselytize which path to choose: he just laid out the options. I have the high respect for people who can present both sides of a topic without tipping their hand (even if they are passionate in one direction).

Alex Payne: Keynote on 'Minimalism in Software'

I've been somewhat scooped by Michael Galpin (above) on this one: I also give Alex high marks and found his keynote to be really thought-provoking, even if it was disagreement. I may write a critique in later a post. However, unlike Michael G, I do like artistic/musical analogies. If anything, I wonder if Alex went far enough with his analogy.

More later, after the web has a chance to see Alex's talk. The nano-gist: after an introduction to Minimalism (versus minimalism), Alex listed some methods to achieve it in technology (see the slides or this recap by Weiqi Gao).

Regrets and 2nd Chances

I saw some other talks but want to focus on regrets -- actually, second chances -- as the content will be online. I'm looking forward to the Strange Passion sessions, talks by the senseis Jeff Brown and Ken Sipe, and definitely James Williams' talk on Griffon.

The Upshot

Yes, yes, Alex Miller likes nachos. But I once read that he also likes building things, including events, and bringing people together. Strange Loop really was a dandy, and we are all better for it. Congrats! And thanks...

Full Discloseth:

I work for a sponsor of the recent Strange Loop conference. Some speakers and the organizer are friends of mine. I live in St Louis, MO. "Lagoon Strep" is an anagram of "Strange Loop". All of this may or may not matter to you.

Go Steal Porn.

A Random Walk On A Strange Loop: Day 1

Full Discloseth:

I work for a sponsor of the recent Strange Loop conference. Some speakers and the organizer are friends of mine. I live in St Louis, MO. Finally, I've run "strange loop" through an anagram generator and laughed for hours at the various and sundry output. All of this may or may not matter to you.

As always, all opinions are solely mine, and genuine.

A Random Walk

I'm not a journalist and won't try to report on the conference. Chances are, it would be a futile endeavour. I use the "random walk" title as signal that this post is an Impressionist, personal experience.

The Vibe

I do want to set the scene: the event was held at the Tivoli in University City. "The Tiv" is a 1920s era movie theater with lots of unabashedly glitzy character. It was a marvelous choice and worked out really well. About 300 people attended, cramming the lobby and the facilities: the geek vibe was strong. (There was much more room in the theatres; i.e. during the talks.)

There were also cameras! The talks will be on video, thanks to DZone. I'll post them here along with any links to slides.

Mario Aquino: Zen Mind/Warrior Spirit

(slides are here)

One measure of a good movie is how long it stays with you afterwards. Mario's talk passes that same test. In a lyrical style with captivating slides, he combined ideas from Zen philosophy and a 'warrior code' to forge parallels to agile teams in software development.

Among my revelations:

• The struggle of meditation is to quiet the inner voice. Pure TDD is similar, as the inner voice always wants to write 'the real code' first. Testing first is meditation. Perhaps that's why it takes focus.
  
• Team culture is more than the sum of its parts. Like a warrior clan, there is a sense of something larger. Good teams have a sense of the 'common good' (aka convention) and the discipline to stay with it.
• I once read about an Allied WW2 bombing squadron that suffered terrible losses over Europe. Despite being decimated, the remaining planes returned to Britain in formation. I think of this often when I work, alone, in a team war room on a weekend.
• Mario mentioned Corey Haines, who lives a nomadic existence as a programmer. This reminded several of us about Paul Erdős, a rockstar mathematician who lived the same lifestyle.

Mark Volkmann: Tackling Concurrency with STM

(slides are here)

Mark gave an excellent overview: the pros and cons of lock-based concurrency versus using Software Transactional Memory (STM). I especially liked the open question of whether its time has come: after all, garbage collection took many years to become mainstream. The unvarnished truth is that we don't know, but things certainly seem to be brewing.

Mark examined the details of STM in Clojure, using diagrams to give a sense of the internal representation. It is hard to recreate here, but I left with a better sense of Rich Hickey's position that the time dimension is vital to concurrency (see Hickey's slides here).

Charles Nutter: Ruby Mutants

(slides are here)

I don't know Ruby, but I couldn't pass up a chance to see Charles. He's a class act in the Ruby community and obviously a major force. Not knowing Ruby, I was definitely a stranger in a strange land -- in fact some goons at the door frisked me, finding a Grails book and some Python code in an inside pocket. Not necessary, gang! (also: not true)

Charles mentioned "Java Next" and his criteria for choosing a Java successor. I loved that some popular JVM languages -- claimed by others as Java Next -- did not meet his criteria. He respected said languages but stated, matter-of-fact, that they didn't meet his aesthetic. This is a clear sign that the JVM community is healthy.

He went on to examine two Ruby mutants: Duby and Surinx. There are some compelling slides that compare and contrast these two 'unfortunately named' mutants to Ruby itself. I'm struggling here to capture the essence of this talk, but do check it out: I thought it was fantastic stuff and an object lesson as a presentation, in terms of pace, tone, and code samples.

Bob Lee: Keynote on Future of Java

(slides are here)

There is one aspect of Bob's keynote that I found especially noteworthy, and I'm dedicating this section to it. It was an excellent talk, with lots of interesting material, but this really resonated.

A friend of mine once kept a log, for years, about bugs that he found. Over time, he compiled evidence about software development in a given language. Based on this record, he developed a philosophy towards his coding conventions. (More to come in a subsequent post about evidence-based software practices: it ain't gonna be easy.)

I was impressed at the time, and impressed again by Bob, when he argued for ARM blocks. He began with some Java puzzlers, to show the difficulty of correctly using IO and try-catch-finally blocks. All well and good. But then he reported examinations of large codebases, including the JDK itself: there are plenty of instances where the code does not behave in a strictly-correct manner.

More than Java 7 features, this is the big take-away: when presenting a case to an audience (be it a keynote, or your team), do the research and present evidence. Compelling.

Strange Passions

Sadly, I didn't make it to the Strange Passions track, or the party at Blueberry Hill. However, there was a lot of buzz about the track idea (which is fantastic) and the individual talks. Sounds like it was a huge hit. I hope the passion talks are on video.

More to come, re: Day #2.

Full Discloseth:

All of this may or may not matter to you: "go steal porn" is an anagram of "strange loop". I live in St Louis, MO. Some speakers and the organizer are friends of mine. I work for a sponsor of the recent Strange Loop conference.

A Longer Post.

Ignorance is Bliss

Like many, I have loved Calvin and Hobbes for a long time. Not that this blog compares, but the spoofs on here are influenced by Calvin's weird, wonderful world where we only bounded by our imaginations.

I recently found a post that contains, my all-time favourite C&H. I probably shouldn't encourage a likely violation of copyright, but I'm weak. I've tried, in vain, to describe this one to people dozens of times. I laugh out loud (especially the visual of frame 5, "I don't want to know about it") every time since I first saw it in the early 1990s.

This comic is such biting satire toward software development that I no longer hang it up at work gigs, lest it is interpreted as some kind of protest.

The genius is that it has no ties to IT: a friend once commented that her mother, a judge, had it laminated and placed prominently on her refrigerator. Truly philosophical, it is timeless and universal.

I love Dilbert too, but if I had to choose: you can keep it. Give me Calvin and Hobbes, please. I only wish that Watterson would come out of retirement and do a few more, whenever his muse strikes.