Wed May 14th: Decentralized Source Code Management

With development teams becoming more geographically remote or working independently, the centralized source code repository, typified by tools such as CVS and Subversion, is becoming less suited to the way these teams would like to work. Over the last few years, decentralized source code management systems have appeared, and have gained ground rapidly in the Open Source world. So what is different about a "decentralized" system and what makes using one so special? Paul Umbers will give an overview of DSCM systems, then demonstrate how one - Git - can be used not only in the traditional "centralized" way, but much more effectively (even by a single developer) by using it's decentralized features.

Paul Umbers has been in the IT industry for over 20 years, initially with IBM in a variety of roles, more recently as an independent consultant specializing in Internet-based application development. Over the last 10 years he has worked for clients across the aerospace, banking, communications & technology industries ranging from blue-chips to start-ups. He has a Masters Degree in Information Technology and is a member of the British Computer Society, the Institution of Analysts & Programmers, the Agile Alliance & the International Function Point Users Group, and has published technical papers through the IEEE. He is currently the Software Architect for Elluminate Inc, based in Calgary.

Details:
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest

Tagger Cat Web Application Framework., Wed April 9th

Grant Genereux has over 20 years experience in the software development field, and has been involved with Java for the last 10 years. He is also one of the original founders of the CJUG.

Grant has extensive experience in the enterprise Java software space, Java products, and consulting.

Recently Grant developed an open source web application framework based upon JSP and Hibernate. The focus of the framework is visual and rapid application development based upon extended metadata, declarative business logic and advanced JSP template techniques.

Grant will demo the highlights of the Tagger Cat framework, and will discuss the rationale and motivation behind developing yet another web framework in this already crowded field.

Time & Location

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest

JUnit 4, Wed March 12th

JUnit4 has been around for a couple of years now, but some companies are still (inherently) wary of the upgrade. Peter will be examining JUnit4, particularly where it extends from and improves upon JUnit3. He will also show how it takes advantage of the latest features of the Java language.

presented by:

Peter Spierenburg is a Systems Analyst for Pason Systems, a local Oil and Gas Services company. He has three years experience with automated testing systems including JUnit.

details:

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest

3D CAVEman, Wed Feb 13th

In May of 2007, the Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics, and Kasterstener Inc. (Red Deer, AB) introduced the CAVEman project.

We have created the world's first object-oriented Atlas of the human body. Currently, we have a model of the adult male anatomy, which consists of more than 3000 Java 3D(tm) objects.

Dr. Sensen will introduce the project and the developments around the characterization of complex genetic diseases and developmental patterns.

Dr. Sensen is the director of the Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine.

Details:

Wednesday, Feb 13th, 2008
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest

Wednesday, Oct 10th, 2007 F8 - The Facebook Development Platform

F8 - The Facebook Development Platform

Facebook.com is growing crazily. Figures released in Jun 2007 boasted a 270% growth rate over 12 months. The number of registrants is well in excess of 50 million after only three years of being live. It is rumoured that there are more photos on Facebook than on Flickr - the web's leading photography site. Significantly, over 50% of users log in on average at least once a day -
you may well be one of them.

Why? Because Facebook is a social networking site. It keeps friends up to date with friends. A core suite of applications to update your social network with news, share photos and organize events keeps you coming back.

So why is this of interest to you as a Java programmer?

The answer is F8, the Facebook Developer Platform - a new frontier for web apps. With the Facebook Java API you can create your own applications that tap into this vast user base - for fun or profit. The viral growth pattern of Facebook's social networking model could see your application being used by thousands or even millions of users in next to no time.

What does this new platform look like? How can you leverage your skills to take advantage of it? What makes a good Facebook app?

Alan Biggs will get you up and running in the space of about an hour at October's CJUG Presentation.

Now all you need is an idea...


Speaker Bio

Alan Biggs is a software development consultant specializing in GUIs and Usability. Alan has been involved in diverse projects including the Calgary Flames web site, GIS mapping, the Graffiti 2 demo applet for Palm Inc., and enterprise applications at Hewlett-Packard. He is currently a consultant with the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) working on both thin and rich client Java apps. As an undergraduate, Alan was awarded 'Young Software Designer of the Year', and holds a BSc in Computer Science (Software Engineering). He has had articles published in user group magazines and international technical journals.

Details:

Wednesday, Oct 10th, 2007
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest

Better Builds With Maven Wed Sept 12th

Apache Maven has been an alternative build system to Ant for some time now (it is currently in version 2.0.8), and is used in a significant number of large Open Source projects - Interface 21 have recently converted the Spring Framework to a Maven build, for example. But, many people still do not understand it and consequently fear it, preferring Ant for it's "simplicity". So, what does Maven have to offer over and above Ant, and is it worth the learning curve to get that extra benefit?

By Paul Umbers
Senior Developer
Alberta Electric System Operator

Paul has been in the IT industry for over 20 years, initially with IBM in a variety of roles, more recently as an independent consultant specializing in Internet-based application development. Over the last 10 years he has worked for clients across the aerospace, banking, communications & technology industries ranging from blue-chips to start-ups. He has a Masters Degree in Information Technology and is a member of the British Computer Society, the Institution of Analysts & Programmers, the Agile Alliance & the International Function Point Users Group, and has published technical papers through the IEEE.

Details:

Wednesday, September 12, 2007
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest

Taking July and August Off

Enjoy the all too brief Calgary summer and we'll see you in September.

- Peace

Agile Web Development with Grails

Our friends from NFJS will be brining in Venkat Subramaniam to speak on Groovy's answer to Rails: Grails. BTW the Calgary NFJS will be September 28 - 30, 2007

Agile development is all about developing code and seeking feedback from your users to make sure you're developing what's relevant. When they suggest changes, those must be affordable and reliable. Grails, along with its facility to develop test driven, is a killer combination for rapidly developing web applications. In this ZePo (Zero PowerPoint) presentation, we will take a test driven approach to developing a small but fully functional web application in Grails. We will cover the fundamental features of Grails along with utilizing other capabilities like Ajax. At the end of this presentation, you not only be confident, but eager to roll your own web application using Grails.

In this session you will learn
* How to create web application using Grails
* Take a Test Driven Approach to developing the application
* Understand Grails Conventions
* Learn how to use the code generators and how to manually create domain
models, controllers, and view
* AJAX your application
* Integrate with database

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., has trained and mentored more than 3000 software developers in the US, Canada, and Europe. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects, and speaks frequently at conferences and user groups. He is author of ".NET Gotchas" (O'Reilly) and coauthor of "Practices of an Agile Developer" (Pragmatic Bookshelf).

Details
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest

- Peace

Rapid Web Development with NetBeans & EJB3 - Wed May 9th

One of the (claimed) benefits of Ruby on Rails is the rapid development time for web applications. The canonical example (see the March 2006 Meeting , for example) is a simple CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) application for rows in a database table.

In this presentation Tom will demonstrate that you don't have to give up your code-completing, error-detecting-at-compile-time IDE in order to rapidly develop web applications. Tom will use Sun's NetBeans IDE to develop a simple CRUD application and show just how easy it is, and how much more powerful and "enterprisey" than RoR. Other enabling technologies for this are the JSF Web Application Framework and the (relatively new) EJB3 specification, as well as some extra modules for NetBeans.

Our Speaker:

Tom Malaher is a software developer/architect who has worked for a variety of different clients over the years, both as an employee and as an independent consultant. Along the way Tom has used a variety of different languages from APL to Prolog, but mostly C, Perl and Java.

Tom has been using Java since the "Juggling Duke Applet" days in the mid 90's. Most of his projects have been web-based (e-commerce, content management, portals) with a few forays into thick-client GUIs.

Currently Tom is employed by TELUS's IT Outsourcing organization, involved with self-service portals integrating various applications..

Details
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Fifth Ave Place
West Tower
2nd floor conference room (Northwest corner)
237 - 4th Avenue Southwest