Turn your geek on!
GeeCON - the blog

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Mission Accomplished!


On behalf of the GeeCON Team, I would like to thank everyone who has been involved and participated in this year’s GeeCON anniversary edition.

GeeCON is 5 years old!

It has been a pleasure to host such great speakers and work with such nice sponsors. Without your devotion we would not be able to organize an event like this!

We hope that GeeCON participants are also satisfied and have tons of new friends and ideas after the conference. Welcome to the GeeCON family :)

Please be sure to check our website next week. You can expect presentation slides, photos and a collection of fresh blog posts.

If you have anything interesting to share with us, do not hesitate to email us. Help us improve GeeCON! We would like to ask you to complete a survey that will be sent to your email box soon.

As announced before the closing keynote, our plan is to stay in Krakow for the 2014 edition... But maybe there is more to come then just the Kraków event... With all the new energy that you have given us, we are considering to do something else super special. Stay tuned!

Hope you all had fun and enjoyed your stay in Krakow. Join us next time!

There is no GeeCON without you, guys!


Tuesday, 14 May 2013

OpenJDK Test Fest alias Adopt JDK

If it's worth writing, it's worth testing. Otherwise, why did you write it in the first place?

Now, OpenJDK is something that many rely on. So... it's even more worth testing. Thus this very event, where you, dearest reader, can test Java.


Big thank you to Steve Poole and Richard Warburton for this as well as their participation!

I'm sold, where do I register?

Polish Java User Group invites you to event site on their meetup. Technical setup required will be added there soon.

Worth knowing if you're coming!
There is a technical setup that should be done PRIOR to event. All outlined here, takes around half an hour!

API list - what will we test?

Thanks to Steve (thanks!) we have a list of API prepared for you. These are rather 'easy' targets in the sense that they are:
a) delivered
b) cross platform and
c) should be amenable to unit test style testing



List itself:
  1. JEP 105: DocTree API   
  2. JEP 172: DocLint
  3. JEP 106: Add Javadoc to javax.tools  
  4. JEP 136: Enhanced Verification Errors  
  5. JEP 130: SHA-224 Message Digests
  6. JEP 135: Base64 Encoding & Decoding
  7. JEP 150: Date & Time API  

Your pick matters!


Still, the list is not set in stone! There's a number of us coming, and it's quite fine to add something you wish to see tested.

Complete list of milestones for Java8 is a fine place to choose what you wish to see added.

How do I get my tests accepted into OpenJDK?

Easy. Just write well. Fast, robust, accurate and testing what should be tested - these are acceptance criteria. 

Also - no changing API! No additional JARs.

Finally, you'll have to sign Oracle Contributor Agreement, sharing copyrights. 

See you there!

Friday, 3 May 2013

Meetings@GeeCON

You often hear people saying that the magic at conferences happens mostly in the corridors, during the breaks. We do not think this particularly true of GeeCON (check our program to see why!), but we do understand the importance of less formal human interaction. This year we are doing our best to give you as many opportunities as possible to talk to other GeeCON attendees and exchange knowledge and opinions. Why? Well, because GeeCON is THE community conference!

So what do we have in store? In more or less chronological order:

PolishJUG meeting
The first JVM related event of this week is, of course, a Polish JUG meeting! Hosted at Oracle, with many of our speakers attending and Baruch Sadogursky presenting this evening, it's bound to be a great opening for our week of Java!

GeeCON Train

Powered by SoftwareMill, this is a unique opportunity for people traveling to Kraków from Warsaw.

Begin your GeeCON experience already on a train, by joining a bunch of other excited programmers. Meet great people, get inspired and simply have lots of fun already on your way to GeeCON. More information can be found here.




Discussion panels

On Monday there is “Freaks of the Freaks: Talking About Minorities in IT”. Come to the panel to see two presentations on the subject and talk. Should diversity be fostered? What do you think?

On Tuesday we are hosting “Using the Network to build compelling application”. We will talk applications, business models, revenues share, and deployment models. While we are at it, do not remember about the Open API Hackathon to which you can register before June 3.

Google I/O Extended

You might have noticed that the Google I/O conference takes place on the same time, May 15-17. This is unfortunate, but there is good news too. We have joined the Google I/O Extended movement. Google Developers Group Kraków (tightly connected to GeeCON via it’s lead and our co-organiser - Konrad) is inviting you to an open live-streaming from the conference at Google for Entrepreneurs Kraków (at the Main Square!).

Joel@Hive53

On Friday, our keynote speaker, Joel Spolsky will visit hive53, Kraków StartUp Community. Join us!

Open Spaces

Once again, the day after the conference you will have the change to attend the Open Spaces / Unconference event. This is a meeting that is not pre-planned. Any participant may propose a subject using a designated white board. If there are more people willing to discuss or learn the subject, they create their own session. The rules are simple and few: whoever shows up is the right group, whatever happens is the only thing that could have, when it’s over, it’s over.

OpenJDK Test Fest


Known also as “Adopt JDK” movement, test fest is about writing test cases for the newest Java API. In a nutshell, it’s about testing the language itself! Come, and you will have a chance to:
  • Get to know what’s coming
  • Understand what the JDK does and how
  • Root out any bugs before they start hurting
  • Meet great people like Steve Poole or Richard Warburton
  • Gain experience in test writing
  • Make your code a part of Java 8
  • Have fun!
  • Learn the way Java folks test things.
All on Saturday morning or Friday evening... In a place that is yet to be determined :) Details will follow!

Enterprise applications in cloud age lab session

If you are interested in building modular, robust, and durable enterprise applications fit for the cloud age. You should join Bert Ertman and Paul Bakker during their lab, hands-on session on Saturday. Take a look here for details.

GeeCON + Scala Camp #3

Any GeeCON speaker fluent in Scala is invited to also present at this event. There will be 20-30 minute presentations and a discussion. This event is open for all interested - we want to shake Kraków Scala scene! This event starts at 6pm on Saturday and continues into the night. The location will be announced soon.

PARTIES!!!

Of couse we have not forgotten about the average beer craving coder. There will be an urban game / beer path on Thursday night. We will invite you to a beer and pizza in places like Budda or CK Browar. Stay tuned!

See you very soon!