A few more words on Devoxx

A few more words about the Devoxx. This year more than 3500 people came, and they took part in six parallel tracks of lectures. The lectures lasted since 9:30, the last sessions ended at 22:00. The wealth of topics was incredible, it was difficult to choose which to attend. There is just one hope that we will be able to see the rest on the internet. Some of the talks are sure to find way to the parleys.com (or at least I hope they are sure to find this way.)

I particularly like the division of Devoxx into different categories of session. First part is called University. Devoxx University are composed of 3h long lectures. That length is enough not only to skim through the topic, but to dive in to some details. Not all conferences are nice enough to have such long presentations. I remember JavaOne in Munchen a few years back - I do not remember such long sessions. Even on SpringOne the sessions were not that long. That is why I was dissapointed when at times it was more like presentation than lecture.

The Conference takes 3 days. There are more talks, but they are shorter. If the reason for the University was, that
then I think the objective of the Conference part is more about presentation than teaching. Some of the topics, like Scala, repeat. But it is OK. Different scope, and different attenders.

Devoxx 2000: Groovy II

The session about groovy was quite interesting. I could see on many examples that this technology is interesting. However, I wanted to follow the examples, and do it on my own computer. Unfortunately, it was not possible to download anything before this session, and during the session. It made me irritated a little bit. Unfortunately, I had network problems at home as well. The session was not designed to follow the examples, but even so this was what I wanted to do.

The second part of the presentation was about Grails. It was also interesting, but no so as the first part. The technology is even more intriguing... but it was definitely too shallow.

The session was a little to long, the presenter extended it for the whole break. Even so, there were many areas of Grails which were not explained thoroughly enough. I had impression the speaker could do with at least another hour. And that could be profitable for all, because the second part of the presentation was too hasty to be very valuable. Especially at the end there was the feeling of hurrying.

For me there were two small remarks, one about groovy, and one about grails. What really interested me was that there is a Drools plugin to Grails. That could be useful.

I also learned about the existence of the Griffon framework (during the first part). It is supposedly an MVC framework similar to Grails, but focused on Swing applications. Also worth exploring.

Because the session was too long, I did not go for the short session directly after it. One of the sessions was about searching in the application, and that could be interesting. The last session, about testing, was a disappointment for me. It was too short to learn anything significant.

Devoxx 2008: Groovy

The next tutorial is about Groovy an Grails. Actually, it is one of the reasons why I came here. I just hope this session will not dissapoint me.

Devoxx 2008: A few words about Scala II

Scala is an impressive language. It allows for more, so you can end up with totally intelligible code - but it also enables to write a more elegant and powerful code.

I learned a little bit about it. But only a little. I know what is difference between objects and classes in Scala. I still do not know what traits are. However, this language can easily impress with added simplicity and flexibility.
Of course, this simplicity is just superficial, because you ca build very complicated programs with it. Programs, which would be next to impossible in pure Java.

However, it is also a fact, there is not much software developed in this language. There are no entreprise grade project using scala as a tool. It is risky to choose Scala. It is still not known, if it is worth to learn that language. However, if it catches up, like it happened with Ruby, the reward could be huge.

A few years ago nobody new, how big hit Ruby would become.

Devoxx 2008: A few words about Scala

Today is the first day of the Devoxx conference. University. A set of some lectures and short presentations of the new technologies.

The first lecture I am going to attend is the lecture on Scala. This is a new language, and I wanted to learn a little bit about it. It is a hybrid language, combining the functional paradigm and objective paradigm.

This is not my first contact with the functional programming paradigm. I have learned to program in SML, and also took some lessons in the mathematical fundations of the functional programming.

This is my first contact with the language. I really did not come with the idea of learning Scala - it is impossible in just a few hours. I just wanted to get a taste of the language in a much more entertaining way than reading manuals. I hate reading manuals, and recently I do not have time for it. And I was not dissapointed.

The talk was brilliant and entertaining. Bill Venners and Ted Neward were really good speakers. They interweaved with so many jokes that it was not possible to be bored for a single minute. And their lecture was also very informative.

Scala is not the first language to combine those paradigm. The implementations of the pure functional languages contained some elements of imperative programming. There were also languages that officially mixed those paradimgs. I have to mention Nemerle, the language designed at my university (www.nemerle.org).

I will comment more on Scala later on. Some useful links:

Scala webpage:
http://www.scala-lang.org

Anyway, it is fun to be at a conference, where the speaker introduces himself "I am a big geek. Any questions?".

On the meaning of distance

Yesterday during iaido practice I thought a little about a distance between me, and my imaginary opponent. It occurred to me, that it is exactly the same distance it would be if we were playing go, or drinking tea. The distance appropriate for fight is also a distance appropriate for peaceful conversation. Strange, isn't? But the consequences are it is up us to decide what to do.

Happy New Year 2007

I happened again. The New Year has come. No surprise, it was bound to happen. The day isis like any other day. Anyway, there is some magical thinking attached to it, that one cannot help but think about it. I suddenly realized there were so many things I did not succeed to do last year.

I myself decided to change some things in my life, too. The last year was not the worst, I want the new one to be even more wonderful. I must work much harder to make it so.

I want to write more. There were not many comments, so I thought that this blog of mine is useless, but apparently there were at least two persons, who enjoyed it. So, I decided to continue to write it, hoping, I will find some topic to write about.

To start things in the good way, the first change was to upgrade my blog to new version. I am not sure, how it is going to look, I hope the developers of this platform did the good job.


This will help me achieve my next goal, to make this blog a little multilingual. It is difficult to write in more that one language - actually, it is not difficult, but time consuming. Do not expect every message to be multilingual;-) But I will translate some, just for fun, and to help my language skills.

Happy New Year!

Distractions

Well, it seems that blogging is not so easy;-) There are so many distractions, that you end with a blog, which the newest entry is dated 7 months back.

Besides, it is not very entertaining to write a blog nobody comments on. Blogging then changes into writing a diary... and if I wanted a diary, I would do away with all this computer stuff, which I hate anyway;-)

Meanwhile, I still learn Japanese, 日本語べんきょうします。I try to make better photographs, but to see them I invite to my other blog, uphjournal.blogspot.com. I am trying to write a book. I'd like to go to the cinema... Well, frankly, I did not have time for the cinema recently.

Deeds, Not Words

John Paul II is passing away. There are no words to describe how sad I am. Though I never spoke to him 1-1, I always had this feeling he was there. The life afterwards going to be a little different.

But not much different. I see no reason for giving up that what he taught, either by his word, or his very example. I was very fortunate to live in the times, when I could enjoy the fact, he was there.

I kept crying yesterday, and still have tears in my eyes, though I know that my faith requires me to believe it is not the end, just a passage to the real beginning. But this journey is a long one, and never again in this world will I hear his voice. That makes me very sad, and my heart is bleeding.

I just see in my mind's eyes Cracow during his previous pilgrimages to Poland, and the people who gathered there then. Never before, and never later did I experienced such level of closeness, empathy and commonwealth with other people, total strangers to me, as then. I was happy to see him then.

I am sorry I did not want to take more active part in his previous pilgrimages to Poland. But that is also a lesson. We should be more active, and do not miss an opportunity by just sitting at home, thinking it is too big an enterprise for us. Any amount of time we have here is like a dust, insignificant compared to the infinity. I am beginning to think that one of the most horrible sins is wasting our time, doing things that perhaps are not pain for anybody, but they do not lead us, nor any other, to grow...

While we cannnot do everything, we must choose those things to do, that will lead us to grow. He certainly knew this, and he tought it not with words, but with his active life.

That is what I feel now. We should not to give up hope and dreams because they are too big. We must pursue them, even against ourselves. That is the lesson.

Many people listened to Him, but not so many followed. That is our fault, not his, nor his teachings. It is very difficult to follow. It is very difficult to make our life productive, meaningful and happy. He just showed us a way, but then went on to showing way for the others - if we did not follow, he could do no more.

John Paul II, Giovanni Paulo II, Jan Paweł II, Karol Wojtyła... I will miss him greatly.

Now and Here (2)

I have not written for a while. Still, I did not abandon this project, only I had no time... well, bad excuse. I am going not to be so lazy in the future.

One may ask a tricky question, if writing this blog is so important to me that I can die doing it...
and that would be a good question. And a difficult one, too.

Comparing to other activities, it is maybe not so important, but while writing I feel I am on the right way. It may produce good results or it may not. But this is with all the actions - we never really know beforehand.