2018 New England Software Symposium - Sept 28-30th in Framingham, MA

Java is a language in evolution. There are a handful of language changes in Java 9 and 10 plus several JDK changes in 9, 10, 11, and 12. Some of these changes are significant in that they allow us to do things more effectively than before. The difference can be anywhere from reducing code to avoiding errors that come from verbosity. In this presentation we will explore the language changes first. Then we will visit the additions to the JDK. Along the way we will also look at a few things that have been removed from Java as well.

You’ve probably heard of MicroProfile, but how do you go from buzz to production? In this code-heavy, interactive presentation, we’ll describe how to use OpenTracing (http://opentracing.io/) with Jaeger (https://www.jaegertracing.io/)  and annotations in MicroProfile and other Microservice architectures to reliably improve and deploy updated versions your applications to OpenShift and Kubernetes in the cloud.  Topics include best practices for performance analysis, maintaining delivery pipelines using the Linux command line, plus tips on the best free OpenTracing tools and SDKs available on GitHub.

NOTE: This meeting is NOT on our normal "second-Thursday" schedule.

The popularity of Amazon's Alexa and Google Home has been inspiring both developers and businesses to think about Voice computing. From a banking assistant on your phone to grocery shopping on your TV - it is truly exciting to see how Voice Interfaces could be used. The challenge, however, is that most Voice Apps are fairly limited in what they can do.

In this talk, Vineet shares experiences from prototyping and building over a dozen Voice Apps. He shows how practical decisions can make implementing great apps easy, reviews existing tools that have been built and talks about Violet (http://helloviolet.ai/) an Open-Source Voice App Framework designed to help developers create Voice Apps. Violet uses an approach inspired by Angular and React to simplify the complexity needed when manually building using other lower-level frameworks, while providing for more flexibility than the drag-and-drop non-technical tools on the market.

Learning a new programming language doesn’t have to be hard. Sure, there’s a lot of new stuff to wrap your head around: syntax, keywords and symbols, conventions, how to define variables and methods, arrays, and the list go on and on! But what if there were a technique and toolkit you could use to master a new language fast?

In this session, Richard Kasperowski introduces mob programming and code koans. Mobbing is about getting all the best minds working on the same computer at the same time. Code koans are a series of micro-puzzles that teach you the new language in little chunks, using test-driven development. We’ll mob together on a set of code koans to learn a new language. Even better, we’ll decide on the language together! Current choices include C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby.

Who should attend? Anyone who wants to learn about mob programming and how to learn a new language.

We would like to thank our event host Chewy.com for all the support for making this event possible in Downtown Boston. 

If you have any questions, feel free contact Mahesh Acharya (Nejug Event Coordinator) at 617 767 Three One Seven One.

We would like to thank the following volunteers:

Photography: George Yazbeck

Videography:  Francis Solis Olivares