This document summarizes the author's experiences at a week-long "Geek Sleep-away Camp" for programmers. Some of the key things the author learned include: - They built a basic CRUD web application using a Java/Scala framework called Play in just a few hours. - Heroku is a cloud platform that makes deploying applications easy. - NoSQL databases like Neo4j's graph databases can be useful for certain types of data and queries. - Tools like JRebel, HipChat, and Camscanner Plus were demonstrated for improving productivity. - Presentations were in an "open space" format with discussions rather than traditional lectures.

1. What I learned at
Geek Sleep-away Camp
The Java Posse Roundup 2012

2. J v Psse
aa o ?
http://javaposse.com/
Podcast about Java, the JVM, associated
languages, news

3. Rudp
o nu ?
Annual “open space” conference in Crested
Butte, CO
No presentations, all discussions
Afternoon hacking sessions, group learning
Lightning Talks in the evening
Basically a week-long geekout

4. Dy1
a
P yF m o
la ra e rk
w
h ://p y m o .o /
ttp la fra e rk rg
w
Very interesting Java/Scala web framework
We built a basic CRUD app and deployed it
to Heroku in a couple of hours
Quick development, easy; similar to Rails /
Grails but with Java or Scala
db Evolutions. Automatic upgrade/revert of
schemas – very cool

5. Hro u
ek
h ://hro u m
ttp e k .co
Cloud “Platform As A Service”
Deploy just about everything (No .Net, sorry)
Easily scale once your app is ready
Deploy with git!
Not for every app: limitations on size of
processes, architecture

6. P dctiv To
rou ity ols
Small handheld whiteboards for notes
Camscanner Plus – high-contrast pictures of
whiteboards
Lightscribe pen – records what is written with it
and audio – Runs Java
Jrebel – Deploys code changes instantly into
running app
Hipchat – team / company IRC
Bottles of Jameson Whiskey

7. Cn uu Dp y e t
otinos e lomn
I wish we were close to doing this
Vagrant – easy virtualization scripting for
developers
Keep code deployable
Instrument app with JMX
Cloud Deployment
Caching with Varnish, Terracotta
Deploy to small % of users as “canary test”
Test rollbacks, killing servers constantly
Service discovery in cloud deployments is hard

8. NoJ
e4
Graph database
Holds nodes & relationships instead of
rows/columns
Patients, staff with interaction times
Pull which staff saw Patient X easily and
quickly
No joins, queries optimized for this use
Good thing to experiment with, might be
useful

9. Cu
lod
Cloud Foundry – Vmware / SpringSource open
cloud system
Private clouds
Still in beta
“State is a bug” eliminate state in app, move it out
to caching layer rather than in app server
memory
New Relic – performance monitoring service
RabbitMQ fast inter-server messaging

10. Md l Im v m t
infu p e e
ro n
Be aware of what you're doing
Not being on auto-pilot
Use git branches to keep “clutter” out of
mind
Write down ideas immediately

11. “2Tins”
hg
Software solves people's problems
People write software
How does experience fit in?
Everything changes – people, requirements – How
do you adapt process

12. Cd Rv w
oe e ie s
“Synchronous” = Look over my shoulder at
this code
“Asynchronous” - Look at this code later,
get back to me
Use synchronous for immediate feedback
on small things
Async for everything else
Async allows for more thought, better
record of comments

13. L h in ta s
ig tn g lk
HTML 5 awesomeness
Learning lisp
Tarot of Pair Programming Rules
Superhero letter art
Paleo diet
Japanese B&B hotels
Quantum state machines
Image processing in Javascript
Slide rules
Open source in Brazil
Lytro cameras
Bowling

14. Qe n
u stios?