Fwd: JUG meeting on Clojure

[Joe Winter <jwinter@gmail.com>]

Not sure if this is a dupe, but June's Java User's Group event is
Scott Fraser (who I think is on this list) talking about Clojure and
robots.

It's on June 3rd at 6:30pm at 630 Allendale Rd, King of Prussia PA
19406.  You have to register for the Phillly JUG and RSVP to get in
(see below).

Joe W.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dave Fecak <dfecak@jsync.com>
Date: Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:17 AM
Subject: JUG meeting
To: Dave Fecak <dfecak@jsync.com>


Esteemed JUG member – I’m pleased to announce the next meeting of the
Philly JUG for Wednesday, June 3rd.  Even if you have a paralyzing
fear of robots, come on out and see the show.  ROBOTS??  All of the
details are below on location, topics, sponsors, etc.  RSVP is
required by all attendees (no regrets necessary), just email me to
RSVP and be sure to read our policy regarding non-members and guests
(below).  And I’d like to ask you to please read the first paragraph
in bold below and respond with your opinion – your votes will decide
on a 2nd June meeting. As usual, a bit of housekeeping.
-------------------------
First, thanks to GSI Commerce for again hosting our April meeting.  If
you missed it, Brian Clapper and Mark Chadwick gave an excellent
presentation on Scala, which is now available on our website.  The
feedback I received on this presentation was phenomenal – we had
around 150 in attendance, and many said it was the best meeting in
years.  I’m glad those of you that attended were pleased with the
performance of our speakers, and thanks for a great meeting Brian and
Mark!

April’s meeting was the first where I asked members to chip in since
we did not have a sponsor.  I’ve been lucky over the 9 years to always
have a sponsor, so it was an experiment.  Well the experiment did
work, and as I promised, the extra $100 raised at the meeting will go
to the Autism Society of Berks County in the name of the Philly JUG.
Thanks to all who were generous to help fund this meeting and
subsequently help a good cause.  I don’t know how often we will be
without a sponsor, but I would think it won’t happen regularly.

Book reviews – I’d like to have some more to post on our website.  If
any of you would like to throw together a few sentences on a book you
read from O’Reilly, Addison Wesley, Manning, Murach, etc – I’d love to
post a review.  Your name will not be included on the website – all
reviews are anonymous.

Lastly – there is a potential 2nd meeting in June that I wanted to get
your opinion on.  There is a company, Zero Turnaround, that is
interested in presenting to our group and they are on a conference and
JUG roadshow right now in Europe and the US.  The presentation would
be on techniques to bypass or speed redeployment, shortcuts to
eliminate build scripts, and ways to reduce turnaround and save time.
Zero Turnaround makes a product called Java Rebel, a ‘class reloading
JVM plug-in’, which I’m certain will be mentioned in the presentation.
 I told them we didn’t want a pure product demo, and I was told that
audiences at a few recent conferences felt they learned some
techniques to become more efficient even if they weren’t interested in
the product.  So I leave it up to you – do you think this would be
something you’d like to attend?  Tentative dates would be June 23rd or
24th – so if you could not make either of those dates let me know as
well.
----------------------------
On to the meeting announcement...

RSVP POLICY - As always, RSVP is REQUIRED FOR ALL JUG EVENTS (an
e-mail response to me will suffice).  IF YOU FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO
NON-MEMBERS, PLEASE LET THEM KNOW THEY MUST REGISTER FOR JUG AND RSVP
TO ME IF THEY WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND.  I WILL ALWAYS GIVE CURRENT JUG
MEMBERS PRIORITY OVER NON-MEMBERS IN SITUATIONS WHERE SPACE MAY BE AN
ISSUE.  IF YOU DO CHOOSE TO FORWARD THIS, PLEASE ONLY FORWARD TO
TECHNICAL PROFESSIONALS/STUDENTS AND NOT THOSE WHO WISH TO USE THE JUG
TO SELL THEIR PRODUCT OR SERVICE.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 3rd with a start time of
6:30 PM at GSI Commerce in King of Prussia (it’s not at their HQ -
location details below).  Our speaker for the meeting will be Scott
Fraser, who last presented to us about 18 months ago.  I think you’ll
find Scott both entertaining and informative.  His topic is Clojure.
Our sponsor for this event will be Portico Systems
(www.porticosys.com).   Portico Systems offers the leading integrated
provider management (IPM) solution for health plans.  Portico’s
platform is used by health plans to reduce administrative, medical and
IT costs through automating all provider processes and interactions.

Agenda:
6:30 – 7:00  Grab a good seat, some pizza, soft drinks, enjoy life
7:00 – 7:15  Announcements, raffles and giveaways, stretching exercises
7:15 - ??      Scott Fraser on Clojure

Speaker Bio:
Scott Fraser – co-founder, CTO of Portico Systems

Scott has worked professionally in the information technology sector
for more than twenty one years. One of the three original founders of
Portico Systems, he continues to have hands-on involvement with the
company’s Java-based platform. Previously he worked as an independent
consultant specializing in UNIX/Windows C/C++ programming, and
networking.

Scott started working with Java in 1996, and looks forward to 10 more
years with the language that single-handedly saved him from memory
leaks, Win16/32 API’s, and General Protection Faults.

He has a BS in Environmental Biology from Eastern University in St.
David’s PA, and is an avid birder.

Abstract:
Scott has always known about the coming Robot Apocalypse. But only
recently was he convinced, by a Functional Programming evangelist,
that the deconstruction of the Imperative and Object Oriented
programming paradigms that had dominated Scott's career for over 22
years might be imminent. Always paranoid about staying relevant, sure
that the JVM was here to stay, and with many years of highly
multithreaded high performance Java applications behind him, he sought
a functional language that would work for him... and was led to
Clojure.

Clojure is an exciting lisp dialect with baked in concurrency support.
It's creator, Rich Hickey, was inspired by Haskell and ML, and hopes
the language will play as "a dynamic language like Python, Ruby and
Groovy", that is "as accessible as those languages", but also "as
performant as Java and as useful in any context as you would Java". It
sounded perfect. But could it subdue the robots?

Join Scott to learn about Clojure, and what it's creator calls it's "Four Legs":

    * functional programming
    * lisp
    * being hosted on the JVM
    * direct support for concurrency

And finally, see Real World Examples (tm) of using Clojure to control
robots, for purposes of self defense, amusement of conference
attendees, and otherwise.

Directions:
The address of GSI’s location is The Omnicare building at 630
Allendale Rd, King of Prussia PA 19406.  Use your favorite mapping
method.  When you arrive, please park in the front or side parking
lots and enter through the main entrance. Proceed to the 3rd floor.
When you arrive on the 3rd floor, you will enter through the doors in
the center of the lobby, and turn left into the Broad Street
Conference Center. There will be signs providing these directions as
well.


Dave Fecak
Director of Talent
JSync, Inc.
1410 Russell Rd., Suite 102
Paoli, PA 19301
O: 610 482 4207
M: 302 559 5654
dfecak@jsync.com
LinkedIn Profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/davefecak
JSync Referral Bonus http://www.jsync.com/referral/