Charles Nutter, Engineyard

When: March 23rd, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Atomic Object, 941 Wealthy Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506
RSVPs: Register here

JRuby has changed a lot in the past year. With a new focus on Java integration, the entire world of Java libraries has opened up to Rubyists. The night will include a presentation by Charles Nutter followed by discussion about all things JRuby, such as:

• invokedynamic and method combinators
• JRuby on the desktop
• challenges of implementing a dynamic language on the JVM
• what JRuby can do to help enterprise IT and existing J2EE applications
• JRuby on Android
• whatever else the audience wants to hear about

About the speaker

Charles Oliver Nutter has spent the past 4 years making JRuby into an
oustanding Ruby implementation. Now he’s working to make JRuby a
first-class JVM language, with all the Java integration features users
expect. Charles blogs at blog.headius.com.

When: February 23rd, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Atomic Object, 941 Wealthy Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506

Buffer-overflow attacks persist and there have been many solutions proposed — all with weaknesses. We mark all external data as ‘tainted’ and refuse to jump to any ‘tainted’ addresses. By using hardware to support this approach we are able to prevent all buffer-overflow attacks that culminate in jumping to a user-supplied address, i.e. the nasty ones. In addition, our approach is backward compatible for user code at the machine-code level, i.e. no recompile or change in user software is needed. Furthermore, there is no way to ‘untaint’ data once it has been marked ‘tainted.’

About the speaker

Dr. Enbody received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1987 and has been in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Michigan State University since then. He has published research in a variety of areas including design automation, parallel processing, computer architecture and security. He is currently co-authoring an introductory computer science text using Python — due in February. When not teaching he enjoys wilderness camping, hockey, and squash.

When: January 26th, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Work Play Space, 941 Wealthy Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506

In his day job he is a software developer at SourceGear, a company which sells source control (aka “version control,” “SCM”) tools for small and midsize software teams.

In October 2002, SourceGear was named one of the fastest growing companies in the nation by Inc magazine.

By original training, he is a software programmer. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He founded the AbiWord project and was responsible for much of the original design and implementation. The title on his business card says “Software Craftsman.”

Prior to founding SourceGear, Eric was at Spyglass (now part of OpenTV) for around five years, where he served as Project Lead for the browser team. They built the original versions of the browser you now know as “Internet Explorer.”

When: October 27th, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Work Play Space, 941 Wealthy Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506

In this lecture, Wettersten examines communication across the languages of art, mathematics, programming, and music and the implications for the creative process. Wettersten’s topic of discussion centers on the idea that languages used during the creative and design process have themselves also been designed.

Wettersten’s multi-disciplinary background includes major concentrations in mathematics, classical music and fine art—his current occupation finds him in a Senior Application Designer role at IDEO in Chicago.

Speaker Bio

An application developer and design strategist who helps lead IDEO Chicago’s digital experience efforts, Jon Wettersten encourages project teams to push the limits of technological feasibility and supports IDEO’s more strategic projects through their later-stage development processes. Since joining the company in 2007, he’s worked on projects spanning financial services, telecommunications, health, and web and mobile application development.

Jon comes to IDEO with over 10 years of experience in the design and development of user-centered software applications and web-related server-based technologies for a wide range of clients and industries including financial services, retail, publishing, education, and not-for-profits. Immediately prior to IDEO, Jon served as a managing technology partner for a research, design, and development firm where his duties included providing appropriate technology strategies and collaborating with research and design teams on rapid prototyping, among other responsibilities. He holds a BA degree with a concentration in Fine Art from St. Olaf College with continued education in computer science at Northwestern University. A classically trained violinist and avid cyclist, Jon also enjoys sewing, playing tennis, figure painting, and volunteering in his community.

When: September 22, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Work Play Space, 941 Wealthy Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506

Agile began as a developer centered set of values and practices that aimed to uncover better ways to develop software. As the movement has grown, the Agile community has been flooded by managers and agile coaches who see the improved productivity and want to harness it for their companies. As a result, much of the discussion in Agile has moved towards managing people, managing backlogs, managing those typists who write the code. Well typists, where have those eXtreme values that first excited you so much gone?

In the last year, many people have begun talking about Software Craftsmanship. Pete McBreen first coined the term with his 2002 book of the same name. This year a summit in Chicago, a conference in London, a google group, a manifesto, and the recent Software Craftsmanship North America conference in Chicago have brought together craftsmen from all over the globe to refocus the conversation on writing good code.

In this talk, we will explore why the craft meme works in talking about software and the kinds of things being learned from historical craft work. We will look at the values in the Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship and the related ethics statement. We will also talk about what it means to be a professional and to work towards mastery of your craft.

Intentional practice is one of the ways in which many craftsmen are building their skill sets and improving the way they write code. In the second half of the evening, we will do a bit of practice ourselves with a randori. Randori is a group coding exercise where we take turns working on the same piece of code. Your disciplines of testing and writing clean code will be put to the test in a fast and high pressure couple of minutes when you take the stage in front of your peers.

Speaker Bio

Doug joined 8th Light with more than 5 years of software development experience. Doug has written everything from assembly level digital signal processing algorithms to web application with Ruby on Rails. He adds strong real-time embedded C++ experience to 8th Light’s talented and diverse group of software craftsmen. He has worked for companies serving several niche markets including pro audio and speciality printing.

With 8th Light, Doug has contributed to several projects in Ruby, C++, and Java. He was a team member on the Fidelity Life project. He helped craft the Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship and is continuing to contribute to this emerging movement. Doug is the creator of the web based (rails) app Gift of Admin.

Doug and his wife, Jen, are avid travelers, hikers, and skiers. Much of their time is also devoted to teaching and mentoring junior high and high school students in a suburban church.