About HJUG

The Java User Groups Community is the meeting point for JUGs, helping promote the expansion of the worldwide Java Community. Here, you'll see fresh and timely online content targeted for Java User Groups, and share your experience with other JUGs. JUG leaders and JUG members - from expert developers to Java newbies - can share information about creating, joining and running a JUG. And because of a strong partnership between the JUGs Community and Sun Microsystems Technology Outreach Group, you'll also have direct access to Sun's best JUG resources, from speakers to information to giveaways.

HJUG is dedicated to the use of the JavaTM Technology. We are one of the many Java User Groups worldwide. HJUG thanks Rice University Computer Science Department, Professors Dan Wallach and Robert 'Corky' Cartwright for their continuous sponsorship.

HJUG also thanks the Computer Science Technology Department of Houston Community College System, especially Abbas Alamnehe.
Meetings and Announcements

April 30th, 2008 - Meeting Agenda

Topic:
"Design Patterns" in Dynamic Languages
Presenter:
Neal Ford

"Design Patterns" in Dynamic Languages
The Gang of Four book should have been entitled "Palliatives for Statically Typed Languages", because the recipes it provides are cumbersome solutions to the problems it poses. Using powerful languages makes the solutions in the GoF book look hopelessly complicated. This session shows how to solve the same problems concisely, elegantly, and with far fewer lines of code using the facilities of dynamic languages.

The Gang of Four book was actually 2 books: a nomenclature describing common software problems and a recipe book for solutions. The vocabulary they defined is still useful. The recipes are a disaster! Dynamic languages (like Groovy and Ruby) have powerful meta-programming facilities far beyond statically typed languages. It turns out that many of the structural design patterns in the Gang of Four book and beyond are much easier to solve with meta-programming. This session compares and contrasts the "traditional" approach of design patterns with a more nuanced meta-programming approach. Using language features creates cleaner abstractions with fewer lines of code and little or no additional structure. This session shows one of the many reasons that dynamic languages are such a hot topic.

Presenter: Neal Ford
Neal Ford is an Application Architect for ThoughtWorks. He is an architect, designer, and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, and video/DVD presentations. Neal is also the author of Developing with Delphi: Object-Oriented Techniques (Prentice Hall PTR, 1996), JBuilder 3 Unleashed (SAMS Publishing, 1999), and Art of Java Web Development (Manning, 2003). His language proficiencies include Java, C-/.NET, Ruby, Object Pascal, C++, and C. Neal's primary consulting focus is the design and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. He is also an internationally acclaimed speaker, having spoken at over 30 developers conferences worldwide.

Meeting Sponsor

No Fluff Just Stuff Conferences
Sponsor Website: www.nofluffjuststuff.com

Company Overview
The "No Fluff, Just Stuff" Java symposium series got its start in April of 2001 in Denver, Colorado. The symposium director, Jay Zimmerman, hit upon this idea after having many discussions with clients and also through the Boulder Java User's Group (www.boulderjug.org) which he chairs. He found that there weren't any quality Java/Agility conferences that were locally based for developers to take advantage of that were very technically focused. The next step was to research current conference offerings and how to differentiate this symposium series. After completing the research process, it was decided the format of the symposium would be held over a long weekend (Friday-Sunday) because:

A. To allow for entire software development teams to attend as a collective rather than just one person from the group.
B. To allow the independent contractor to attend without giving up billable hours during the week.
C. To get the best technical speaker resources which happen to be practicing consultants.

In addition, it was decided to cap attendance at 250 people. One of the key points of the "No Fluff, Just Stuff" Java Symposium Series is the high level of interaction between speaker and attendees at each conference. NFJS structure removes the barrier between speakers/attendees by having speakers attend other sessions and have breakfast/lunch with attendees thereby creating an informal atmosphere where people can come together and discuss issues and learn from each other. NFJS offers a consistent presence in each region the symposium is offered in by hosting a annual event in each city that becomes part of the NFJS tour. In 2007, NFJS reached two milestones: over 100 events and some 20,000 total attendees.

Door Prizes and Giveaways!

  • JetBrains has donated an IntelliJ license to be raffled off at HJUG meetings to one lucky attendee and a second to be given to the speaker

JavaOne 2008 Discount Code:JUGJ158
You should be able to get a full conference pass for $1495 with this discount code.
Register at http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/registration.jsp