CodeJam: A Cup Full of JVM

[jonbullock]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while now. The Manchester Java Community have managed to get a few decent speakers to visit them in the past and maybe any event could be aligned with them.

There is also the Liverpool Clojure group and Manchester Scala group as well...

[carwyn]

This has come up a few times now as there are a number of Java based companies in Parc Menai. Ty Menai would be a good place to have this.

I have an idea for one talk for this, a whistle-stop tour of the non Java non mainstream languages for the JVM as a bit of a light hearted break amongst the other Java talks.

[carwyn]

@jonbullock one thing we did recently at Ty Menai was hold the first "Dev Talks" event which was more technical and subject specific than the more general "Tech Talks". We're expecting this to specialise even further as the group grows to allow language or technology specific sub-groups to form. We did a python specific Code Dojo a few years ago for example. It would be great if we could cater for these sub-groups while still keeping the community as a whole together with the more general events.

A regular Java (or Python/C++/Go Lang for that matter) meetup alongside the other events would be great. Could even run them as parallel tracks at a meetup with a common themed "keynote" that brings all the groups together.

[jonbullock]

I only recently discovered that Ty Menai was Technium CAST so definitely a great venue... been a while since I worked in that building!

The idea of different language tracks at a meetup sounds really good, I suppose any language specific event requires a critical mass of attendees and talks, which the more generic Dev Talks can develop over time.

I mentioned to Rob I'd like to do a talk on Asciidoctor for tech documentation, it's Ruby based but has a bridge to the JVM languages which could sit under a common theme across different language groups, similar to your idea for non Java non mainstream JVM languages.

[anorakgirl]

I'd def be interested in a Java event! @jonbullock I wonder if we could find out who they have had at The Manchester Java Community and see if we could get anyone over here?

[jonbullock]

The next event is their Summer lightning talks at the end of August but I'm out of the country that week with work... would have been a good chance to share ideas and see what we could work out in terms of speakers. But I'm happy to get in touch with them once I'm back.

I noticed Chester Devs have got somebody from Elastic coming over to do a talk for them later on in the year - November time I think... maybe they'd be willing to travel a bit further down the A55 and do a NWT talk as well?

I've asked a friend who works at the BBC in Manchester to see if he'd be willing to do a talk as well.

[anorakgirl]

Ooh the Elastic search one sounds good too. I guess they must pay some of these speakers.

[carwyn]

Nope, Elastic are doing it for free :) Need to get the contact details off Fran :)

[jonbullock]

I'm not entirely sure... from the Slack chat I saw it appeared the person offered to do a talk as he was in the area but I could be wrong.

[jonbullock]

Ah didn't notice @carwyn reply before me! :)

[anorakgirl]

oh cool - def worth an ask then! If not, i'd be up for another field trip...

[carwyn]

@jonbullock @anorakgirl I think we should have a developer event along these lines before the end of the year :)

[jonbullock]

Sounds good to me, happy to help with it too.

[jonbullock]

Saw this the other day... https://twitter.com/aalmiray/status/797428487657291780

Remote sessions are one option if there was enough demand for this kind of thing.

[carwyn]

Hangouts and Skype can work really well for this, I was at a conference last year in the UK where one of the speakers was remote from the US and it worked well even for the Q&A. Another idea is to try completely virtual events (although I much prefer in person).

[jonbullock]

I was thinking a remote speaker presenting to a physical audience... so you don't lose that social/community aspect but wasn't sure how it would go down though with the audience though?

[davehun]

It should be fine. The RSC et. al. do something similar theatre at the cinema

On 14 Nov 2016, at 13:17, Jonathan Bullock notifications@github.com wrote:

I was thinking a remote speaker presenting to a physical audience... so you don't lose that social/community aspect but wasn't sure how it would go down though with the audience though?

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[tamslinn]

We could look out for conferences/events which are being live streamed, and organise a NWT event to watch together?

[jonbullock]

Yeah definitely... for JVM stuff there is always the vJUG but it's usually just after 5pm UK time.

On 15 November 2016 at 17:27, tamslinn notifications@github.com wrote:

We could look out for conferences/events which are being live streamed, and organise a NWT event to watch together?

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[carwyn]

Languages of particular interest:

• Scala
• Kotlin
• JRuby
• Clojure
• Groovy

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages

[jonbullock]

If we're doing lightning talks as well I don't mind doing a quick talk on Asciidoctor(J) since it's using JRuby under the hood.

[jonbullock]

Do we focus on a single Kata to experiment with in each JVM language? Or follow some exercises (getting started level stuff) for each language and compare experiences?

[carwyn]

Should we go for March for this?

[tamslinn]

March sounds good. With the last hands-on event, I felt I didn't have enough time for the Kata with all the talks as well. So I think we should be careful how much we try to cram in? i.e if the focus is hands-on trying non-JVM languages, a talk on that is probably enough?

On the other hand, if we just went for talks and not hands on, I could potentially do a short talk on JDBI (I was hoping to do that as part of a "my favourite library" themed set of talks !)

[tamslinn]

Crazy thought - what about a thing where we split into a team for each JVM language, each team has to complete the same challenge with their language, and we compare at the end?!

[robshep]

That sounds like a neat idea.

With The proviso that you can’t have a team member with experience for the chosen/allocated language. Every one’s a newbie.

And it should include downloading/installing the compiler etc as that’s half the battle.

We’ll need 5 minutes per team at the end to dump code on the projector.

A challenge slightly above fizz buzz.

Bagsy Clojure!

R

— Rob Shepherd BEng PhD Director / Senior Engineer - DataCymru Ltd m: 07596154845 e: rs@datacymru.net

On 17 Jan 2017, at 09:16, tamslinn notifications@github.com wrote:

Crazy thought - what about a thing where we split into a team for each JVM language, each team has to complete the same challenge with their language, and we compare at the end?!

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[carwyn]

The idea is a bit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming in teams. Joan from Chester Devs gave a talk about it last week. I think it's a very worthwhile event but maybe a different one to a first Java SIG?

What I mean is labelling the event as a Java event when the activities may not need any knowledge of Java could artificially filter the interested audience.

[robshep]

I was actually particular interested in an event that was focussed on “languages for the JVM”

Kind of like a JVM shoot-out without the fatal haemorrhaging, or a royal rumble, but without any lycra. (OK Dave, you can wear Lyrca..! )

clojure Kotlin groovy jruby ceylon java9

I’m really interested in seeing some of these in action, but have no desire to learn any on my own.

A sort of like-for-like comparison that can be done in 90mins by 3 or 4 newbies.

R

— Rob Shepherd BEng PhD Director / Senior Engineer - DataCymru Ltd m: 07596154845 e: rs@datacymru.net

On 17 Jan 2017, at 11:27, Carwyn Edwards notifications@github.com wrote:

I like this idea but it doesn't really need to be at a Java event it could be at any old CodeJam.

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[carwyn]

We can but try :) Suggested dates:

Mar 7th, 9th, 14th, 16th, 21st, 23rd, 28th, 30th Feb 7th, 9th, 21st, 23rd Jan 31st, Feb 2nd at a push.

Golang event is Feb 16th, Chester Devs are first Wed of month.

[anorakgirl]

I'm all for a Java SIG but if we haven't (yet) got a significant amount of Java related content, this sounds like a fun alternative in the mean time

[lukepfarrar]

Sounds fun :-)

[jonbullock]

I like the idea too - should also give us an idea of how many in the community are interested in the JVM at least. I wouldn't mind Kotlin or Ceylon...

Only date I may not be able to do is the 23rd - supposed to be over at the Manchester Java group that night.

[carwyn]

Ooh, this one's interesting reading https://dev.to/rosstate/java-is-unsound-the-industry-perspective

[carwyn]

I'll pencil one in for March then?

[davehun]

on the kata I have 2 data sources (dark skies + another) that would lend them selves to a kata task: 1) record and store the data (with the associated where to run the code) 2) a later kata based on the data from task 1 (would be good opportunity for some modelling)

[davehun]

how about 9/3/2017 ?

[robshep]

FAKE NEWS!

Unfortunately it’s interesting, but sensationally titled. “Unsound", what like the foundations of a building, or BT’s European financial processes?

Actually the title shouldn't read: "The industry perspective" because it’s the research of a few academics.

How many senior engineers or platform architects are going to trash their stack because of this? And in search of true soundness just fallback to two transistors and NAND gate?

It’s reflective anyway so if you want to break it, there are plenty of ways to play not so nice.

In my view. the compiler just catches the dumb refactoring and give the IDE half a chance at auto-completion, test cases stress the 90% of cases, and edge cases you might encounter to deal with regressions. then a tried and tested hotfix and deploy strategy lets you sleep at night.

There are plenty of languages that have this kind of crazy shit - it’s a bit much to call them “unsound”

On 24 Jan 2017, at 17:28, Carwyn Edwards notifications@github.com wrote:

Ooh, this one's interesting reading https://dev.to/rosstate/java-is-unsound-the-industry-perspective https://dev.to/rosstate/java-is-unsound-the-industry-perspective — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/NorthWalesTech/NorthWalesTech/issues/42#issuecomment-274875224, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABt2U18kJ44lGm9qDodOl1mlrDznyVVfks5rVjS1gaJpZM4IU9Q6.

[carwyn]

Indeed unsound is an academic term in this context and no none is going to trash their stack over this. It is a very interesting article to think about in the context of other languages running on the JVM though as when they implemented generics Sun elected to not retrofit modifications to explicitly cater for them into the runtime and bytecode unlike the .NET CLR. This has implications for other languages that sit on top as they either have to hold to the same rules or add additional runtime or compiler checks. This is interesting for example when you are looking at languages that are trying to add additional protection in their type or compilation systems.

[carwyn]

Cast your votes (or not) for Dave's suggested date above.

[carwyn]

Will try and book this in for the evening of 9/3/2017 then.

I figured out a way to make it accessible to non Java developers too, one of the "groups" could use Java 8/9 which would make for a baseline for comparison with the other languages. Languages that stand out at the moment seem to be:

• Clojure
• Kotlin
• Ceylon
• Scala (if we can get JC over).
• Java

Groovy being the omission, any takers? The other one I thought of was raw byte code :) I still have code from a compiler I wrote at Uni that targeted the JVM.

An intermission short demo of https://processing.org/ might be interesting too. I can borrow one of Ronan's past artworks for this possibly.

[jonbullock]

If somebody else really wants to use Kotlin or Ceylon I don't mind taking Groovy.

[carwyn]

Another interesting one https://www.opensourcery.co.za/2017/01/05/the-jvm-is-not-that-heavy/

[carwyn]

Waiting for confirmation but pencilled in the Meetup ready so we can mention it at the Golang one next week:

CodeJam: A Cup Full of JVM https://www.meetup.com/NorthWalesTech/events/237614408/

[carwyn]

Room booked, date and location added to Meetup, added @jonbullock as an event co-host. Who else wants in? @anorakgirl @davehun @robshep ?

Suggested stuff needed:

• Group lead for each language to become familiar with the runtimes to help others avoid setup frustrations. (i.e. know how to get at least "Hello World" working).
• Instructions on pre-event setup/install for the chosen runtimes (done by group leads).
  • May be little more than go to page X, do what it says.
  • Need to cover Generic Linux, OS X, Windows.
• A realistic exercise for the groups to do.
• Prod JetBrains to sponsor (via Chester Devs who already get an IDE licence per event).
  • Maybe Red Hat (Ceylon) and Oracle (good luck).
• Arrange Pizza!

[jonbullock]

I'll approach JetBrains about registering NWT for the same deal. Anyone seen Red Hat so something similar at other groups?

[anorakgirl]

The only language I am familiar with is groovy, although I'm more keen to have a go at one of the others. Happy to pick one and do some home work so I can do the basics! Does anyone have preferences?

[carwyn]

@anorakgirl pick one :) (not Groovy) only homework required is to know how to get Hello World working in the environment in question.

@jonbullock has done the legwork to get us a Jetbrains license to raffle at the event too. There are also two licences for organisers, I've suggested Jon take one if he wants it.

[carwyn]

Everyone happy for me to press the Meetup announce button? A few people have found the event on there already. I can help with finding an exercise for people to do.

[robshep]

I'll take a language,

Clojure?

Cheers Rob

On 17 Feb 2017, at 17:15, Carwyn Edwards notifications@github.com wrote:

Everyone happy for me to press the Meetup announce button? A few people have found the event on there already. I can help with finding an exercise for people to do.

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[carwyn]

I think @jonbullock should get Kotlin as Jetbrains make it and he got the licences for us :)

[jonbullock]

I won't argue with you :)

I get an IntelliJ license for JBake so somebody else can make use of the license. And I'm happy for it to be announced too.