What's happening?

19th May 2012 at the University of Western England On the day Registration Available

UPDATE: Due to popular demand we've re-arranged larger rooms and Registration will be available on the day

All of the major IT & Developer community groups in and around Bristol are coming together for an event at the UWE. Essentially the event is one big meet up, open to the public. Each group will be doing a presentation on themselves, what they are about, and what they offer the local community. Several groups will be putting on a technical presentation in their chosen area. How-to workshops will be running alongside the main presentations. The event concludes with 5 minute lightning talks on a variety of subjects.

Attendee places are limited, so registration is required. Register early so as not to miss your space, and notify us if you can't make it so as to free up the space for someone else.

What's the current Schedule?

The Schedule is divided into 10 minute group introductions, followed by 30 minute tech talks. Each group is doing an introduction, most groups are then following with a related tech talk.

NOTE: this if the current proposed schedule, and is likely to change considerably in the run up to the event. Please follow us on twitter or check back for the latest schedule changes.

Time Room 2Q49 Room 2Q50 Room 2Q48
9:30 Morning TeasFairtrade Tea, Coffee & Biscuits
Orange Juice (8oz glass)
Apple Juice (8oz glass)
Large Danish Pastry
10:00 Introduction    
10:20 UWE CSCT Department Trinity Community Arts Bath Digital
10:30 How to get a Masters in Software Engineering
(your experience counts)		 Developing python apps for android YARRR! Plunderin' Programmin' Paradigms fer Profit!
11:00 Break
11:10 Functional Group Skill Swap Ruby User Group
11:20 What is functional programming and why should you care? Skill-sets and Application Domains for Big Data Ruby on Rails example
11:50 Perl Mongers Web Folk Java Group
12:00 Dude, where's my flying car? Futuristic Perl 6 today How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love JavaScript Getting a job in IT
12:30 LunchFinger buffet
Sandwiches with a selection of meat, fish and vegetarian fillings
Kettle Crisps
Assorted Shortbreads
Fresh Fruit Bowl
Coffee or Tea
Vegetable Satay Skewers with Dip
Chicken Satay
Crisps, Cheddars, Gerkins & Olives
Bacon Hogie
Sausage on stick
West Country Goats Cheese and Red Onion Marmalade on Crostini
Stuffed Baby Potatoes with Bacon and Cheese
13:30 Reintroduction    
13:50 Hack Night PHP South West Testing Group
14:00 Building big things in Java PHP frameworks: The State of the Art Help, my boss told me to test this and I haven't a clue where to start!
14:30 Django Users Group The .Net Developer Network SW Usability Discussion Group
14:40 Django on App Engine Mind Control your computer My experience with SourceForge and SmoothWall
15:10 BreakFairtrade Tea, Coffee & Biscuits
15:20 BCS underscore_ Girl Geek Dinners
15:30 A week in the life of a Java developer at Nokia Plone: The DNA of a Successful Open Source Community Girls in Industry
16:00 Lightning Talks    
17:00 Closing statements    
17:30 After Party

The following how-to sessions are running

Time Room 2Q46 Room 2Q47
10:30 How to make iPhone & Android apps with AppFurnace Drupal tutorial
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Perl 6 tutorial

Who's involved?

UWE Computer Science & Creative Technologies Department
UWE has a strong Computer Science department. With a range of undergrad degrees and a flexible MSc, suited to people from an unconventional or business background as well as the traditional school leavers.
Bristol & Bath Perl Mongers
User groups in the Perl community are called Perl Mongers. The local group holds monthly pub based meet ups, where they talk about a number of IT and non IT related topics, and sometimes a little Perl.
PHP South West
PHP User Group, meets 2nd Wednesday of every month in Bristol, UK. We typically have one or two speakers each month. Topics cover PHP or related technologies. In the past we've had talks on Doctrine 2, Zend Framework optimisation, redis, BDD with Behat, unit testing database code with DBUnit, experiences with Amazon Web Services, etc.
Bristol Web Folk
Bristol Web Folk aims to bring together everyone from the web, tech, and IT communities in Bristol. We hold regular free events including talk nights, hack nights, and social nights, to which everyone is welcome. We have a Twitter feed (@bristolwebfolk) and a calendar where we try to include all groups and events that are going on in Bristol and the surrounding area. We're always interested to hear about and help promote new groups.
Django Bath and Bristol Users Group
The Django Bath and Bristol Users Group is a place for local developers and companies to come and talk Django, Python, and web development in general. We run events every couple of months, with a mix of socials and technical meets.
Bristol Usability Group
The Bristol Usability Group is a community of individuals who are interested in the fields of user experience, usability and human-centred design. Our members include academics, freelancers, students, and employees of SMEs and multinational corporations.
Currently, we have more than 500 members signed up on our online community, and regularly get 40-50 people attending monthly events. All events are currently run on a voluntary basis, with individual members or corporate sponsors covering costs such as venue hire or web hosting.
Bristol Functional Programming
BrisFunctional is a support group for users of functional programming languages. Comprising experts and beginners alike we meet on the last Tuesday of every month to listen to talks, participate in lab exercises and eat pizza. All welcome to come and learn about functional languages such as Haskell, Scala and Clojure or how to apply functional techniques in other inferior languages.
Bristol Girl Geek Dinners
Bristol Girl Geek Dinners is a local community of women interested in engineering and technology. We meet every month to enjoy conversation in good company with food and a talk by an inspiring female speaker.
Bath Digital
Bath Digital represents a collaboration between a range of tech-focused groups which meet regularly in Bath. These include:
- Bath SPARK - a networking group of tech entrepreneurs which meets quarterly,
- BathCamp - an annual barcamp as well as a monthly meetup where invited speakers give short talks,
- openMIC - a mobile-focused barcamp which meets quarterly
- Creative Bath - a group for creative people and industries in and around Bath
Most recently, we have also run our first Digital Festival, a series of 28 events which ran over 10 days and saw around 2,500 people coming along.
Bristol Ruby User Group
The B.R.U.G (Bristol Ruby User Group) is a free group gathering the Shouth West Ruby community around monthly events. Our events usually includes talks/presentations, beer and super friendly chaps.
Bristol Java
Linked-in Java group for local Java developers
Trinity Community Arts
Our mission is to use the Trinity Centre to engage the local community of all ages in imaginative and socially inclusive projects, using a mixture of modern technology and creative urban energy. As part of this remit we provide software development and hosting as well as training and support, and power the centre almost entirely on Free and Open Source Software.
Bristol SkillSwap
Free to attend technical talks on a wide variety of computing topics.
The .NET Developer Network
The .NET Developer Network (aka DotNetDevNet) is a free user group with monthly meetings aimed at .NET developers in the South West of England. Started in 2007 we have over 800 members with an average monthly attendance of 45 members. Each meeting includes grok talks (10 minute presentations by members) and a main presentation of 90 minutes. Speakers come from across the UK, Europe and the US. Most meetings cover a .NET related subject but many are also generic to software engineering. Recent generic meetings covered subjects such as Selenium, Node.js, SOLID, Software Performance and Continuous Integration. You can watch a short video of our group and sign up for free meetings at www.dotnetdevnet.com or follow us on Twitter at @DotNetDevNet.
Bristol Hack Night
The Bristol Web Developer/Designer Hack Night is a weekly gathering every Wednesday for Geeks to meet up. It provides an opportunity for people to work on their pet projects, bounce ideas around, look at a problem as a group and find people they can collaborate with. It's aimed at people interested in the Web, however, anyone who's involved or wants to get into software is welcome. We draw people in from startups, freelancers, agencies, large organisations through to telecoms companies so it's a great way to meet people and get an idea about what else is out there.
underscore_
underscore_ is a collective of individuals working in New Media in and around Bristol. We are a thriving online community in the form of our mailing list and we also get together occasionally to meet, discuss, learn and play.
We are not another top down initiative run by a committee with little real understanding of the medium, but rather a grass roots gathering of people with a real passion for our industry. We feel that by sharing our experience and insights we can create a community that fosters a spirit of pride and innovation, and begin to put Bristol on the New Media map.
Software Testing Club - Bristol
A relatively new but hopefully growing test community, organising social events/talks in the Bristol area, supported by the Software Testing Club. Most recently we've teamed up with the BCS for a series of talks, from speakers like Gojko Adzic, or David Evans. We haven't evolved a regular meeting schedule yet, so the best way to find out what's going on is to check the Meetup group - there are also meetups in Cardiff too!
BCS The Chartered Institute for IT
BCS is the only chartered UK professional body purely focused on IT. It has branches around the UK and across the world, and specialist groups covering areas of technology, IT practices and business sectors. BCS brings together all sectors of IT (industry, practitioners, academics and government) to share knowledge and promote new thinking. It is also an awarding body for professional certifications & qualifications that are internationally recognised, including Chartered IT Professional (CITP), Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Chartered Scientist (CSci).
Bristol Hackspace
Bristol Hackspace is a social enterprise which aims to open up technology to anybody who takes an interest in it.
We want to 'open' technology both in the sense of taking things apart to learn how they work, and how to mend or adapt them; and in the sense of sharing the knowledge we gain from doing so. We are committed to the principles of Open Source and Open Knowledge.
Drupal SWDUGs
The local Drupal groups South Wales Drupal User Group (based in Cardiff) and South West Drupal User Group (based in Bristol) both host a monthly meetup for people to talk all things Drupally. Whether you're new to Drupal and looking for an introduction, or interested in learning more about advanced topics, everyone's welcome along.
South West Usability Discussion Group
A new group formed for open discussion of usability.

Can our group get involved?

If you hurry! If you are running a local IT or developer group then please contact us.

The Talks

How to get a Masters in Software Engineering (your experience counts)

group
UWE Computer Science & Create Technologies Department
speakers
Lyle Hopkins
description
Final year part-time MSc student Lyle Hopkins describes the flexible learning options of UWE's MSc Software Engineering. With anecdotes from his own experiences over the last 3 years, how he did it, what he's learned, why he's enjoyed it, and why he thinks you could too.
Having dropped out of college at 17 with plans to become an internet millionaire, he didn't have much in the way of formal training. 10 years later, when the recession hit, for the first time in his life he found himself looking for part time work. Although having plenty of self taught developer skills and knowledge, his CV had next to nothing in the guise of formal qualifications. After convincing Jin that he was capable enough to sit a module as a short course, he was able to prove himself, surprising many by finishing top of the class. This was used as a relevant qualification to get him onto the next module and so on. After passing 4 modules with excellent marks these were accepted in lieu of the formal entry requirements and he was accepted onto the main degree.
There are many self taught, late in life, or unorthodox developers that despite not having the conventional academic background, are capable of learning and achieving an MSc. UWE provides an excellent opportunity for these talented individuals to prove themselves, bolster their CV and get academic recognition for their knowledge and skills.

Dude, where's my flying car? Futuristic Perl 6 today

group
Bristol & Bath Perl Mongers
speakers
Jonathan Worthington, Carl Mäsak
description
Perl 6 has been "on the way" for over a decade now. It makes some people think of private jet packs, 3D video conferencing, and widespread quantum computing: technologies that are always a few years away, but never seem to materialize.
The reality is richer and more textured than that: Perl 6 is neither just vapourware, nor is it a finished, polished product yet. It's somewhere in-between. Some things Perl 6 does really well already. Others still need work. In many ways, in the words of William Gibson, the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed.
In this 30-minute talk, we will build a real IRC bot in Rakudo Perl 6, using existing modules. You'll see how actual, idiomatic Perl 6 looks, you'll see it run, and you'll get a taste of what the present is like and what the future will be like. If what you see pleases you, be sure to stay for the 2-hour tutorial, which will be a more in-depth look into the language features used in this talk.
Carl Mäsak and Jonathan Worthington are both working on various parts of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler. They delight in living in the future, and want to make it as widely known as possible so it'll happen sooner. They won't come flying in on jet packs, but they hope to impress you in other ways.

Mind Control Your Computer

group
The .NET Developer Network
speaker
Guy Smith-Ferrier
description
The world of neuroscience changed over the last 5 years. Neuroheadsets (headsets that read brainwaves) became affordable and accessible. Neuroscience is no longer confined the realm of huge research budgets and professors in lab coats. It is accessible to regular developers. This session illustrates a neuroheadset that reads brain waves and uses a C# API to allow developers to recognise facial expressions, emotions and cognitive thought - that is, the headset can read basic, deliberate conscious thought. Although the headset is aimed at the gaming market the potential for the physically impaired is considerable. Come and see the potential of today's Brain Computer Interfaces.

Ruby on Rails magic

group
Bristol RUG
speaker
Nicolas Alpi
description
Ruby on Rails is truly magic, it makes kickstarting your project quick and easy. Not only Nic will give you a talk on Rails magic, but he will also present you the tools that will make your code reliable and extendable.

Developing python apps for android

group
Trinity Community Arts
speaker
Ryan Northey
description
This talk will discuss building python applications for the android platform using the "python-for-android" build system, as used by the Kivy framework.
Unlocking the power of python on Android allows developers to build on a huge range of existing libraries and to develop applications and daemons, such as web servers and chatter bots.
Combined with OpenGL, developers can exploit Android's touchscreen and hardware-accelerated graphics to build games and other "Natural User Interface" style applications.

PHP frameworks: The State of the Art

group
PHP South West
speaker
Ade Slade
description
This talk will cover the latest and greatest in PHP frameworks. Featuring frameworks such as Symfony2, Doctrine and Zend Framework 2. Inspiration for parts of these frameworks have been drawn from other languages whilst utilising new (ish) functionality in PHP such as closures. Micro-frameworks have grown in popularity and matured, these frameworks are especially useful for rapid application development.

Coding PHP For Fun and Profit

group
PHP South West
speaker
Andy Martin
description
A talk on the real-world employment opportunities for PHP developers. Comparing those opportunities with other languages. A look at the rapidity of application development and the rags-to-riches potential of the language.

Django on App Engine

group
Potato
speaker
Ben Glynn, Adam Altom
description
Django is a Python web framework for rapid development of clean, sophisticated apps. App Engine makes it easy to deploy these to Google's infrastructure. Here they have access to supercharged APIs and can effortlessly scale to epic proportions.

Find out how Potato combine these powerful technologies to deliver incredible high quality work; and why the growing Bristol team have such a excellent reputation.

Girls in Industry

group
Girl Geek Dinners
speaker
Multiple
description
GirlGeek Dinners has been running in the Bristol region for over two years now. It is part of a worldwide network to allow women in the industry to meet up and chat about working in the industry, present talks on their areas of interest and discuss other issues such as working around family life, what inspired them to work in the industry etc...
There will then be three ten minute presentations from members of the network explaining what they do in industry, to show the diverse careers of the network.

Getting a job in IT

group
Bristol Java
speaker
Andrew Murray
description
An insight into the IT Job Market. Java focused recruiter Drew Murray will be giving a non technical overview of the IT job market, how it works and what you might expect as an IT graduate looking to find work. Some of the subjects he will be covering will come under the following areas. This will be an open discussion with plenty of chances for questions throughout.
Who should I work for?
Permanent or contract?
How much will I earn?
The recruitment process?
Getting an edge on the competition?
Social networking, can it help?
There are various subjects included within these titles such as CV advise, payment structures, how to set up as a contractor or freelancer, what IT needs does a company have and many more.

Building big things in Java

group
Nokia Bristol
speakers
Tom Coupland and Mark Pope
description
At Nokia entertainment we provide music and books to millions of customers around the world every day. Join us for a peek behind the scenes into the architecture we use and how we survive at a global scale.

A week in the life of a Java developer at Nokia

group
Nokia Bristol
speakers
Neil Prosser and Danny Smith
description
Neil is a developer. A Java developer who works at Nokia. Follow our hero for a week as he writes code, deploys it to production, and find out what he does when things go wrong.

What is functional programming and why should you care?

group
Bristol Functional
speakers
Andrew Jones and Thom Leggett
description
Andrew Jones and Thom Leggett will ask "What is functional programming and why should you care?". By looking at real-world code written in response to real-world problems they will discuss what FP brings to the table and how it will make you a better programmer.

Plone: The Preeminent Python CMS for Over a Decade

group
Bristol Plone Group
speaker
Matt Hamilton
description
Plone is one of the most mature and capable Open Source Content Management Systems, and the largest Python CMS. Since its launch over a decade ago, Plone has grown and evolved with over 300 core contributors and more active committers then ever before.
In this talk I will show Plone for python developers and how to get started with developing on top of Plone with minimal effort. I will also be showcasing some of the new developments in Plone.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love JavaScript

group
Bristol Web Folk
speaker
Mark Wales, Duncan Wilkie
description
If you'd called yourself a JavaScript programmer ten years ago people would have laughed. Now JavaScript has become the predominant programming language on the web and is a central part of Microsoft's Windows 8 strategy. In this talk we'll show you why JavaScript has taken off, why you should take it seriously, and how much fun it is to use.

My experience with SourceForge and SmoothWall

group
Perl Mongers
speaker
Richard Morrell
description

YARRR! Plunderin' Programmin' Paradigms fer Profit!

group
London Perl Mongers
speaker
Piers Cawley
description
Avast ye scurvy dogs! Strap yerselves in fer a pirate voyage around the islands of code! Feast yer eyes on the treasures of the mystic land of Haskell, the thifthing thands of lithp. Gasp at beautiful objects from Smalltalk and develop an eye for plundering programming pearls wherever you find 'em. Then bring 'em all back to the good ship 'Black Perl' use 'em for fun and profit. YARRR!
Ahem.
Multi-paradigm languages like Perl can absorb programming practices from all over the programming map and the more languages you have at least a nodding acquaintance with, the more ways you have to crack your particular nut, skin your particular cat, or carve up the turkey of a problem you've been presented.
I'll discuss some techniques and ideas I've stolen from my messing about with other languages, and show you how to cultivate your own plundering habits.
This talk will not be delivered while talking like a pirate for thirty minutes. It will, however, be delivered while bearded.

Help, my boss told me to test this and I haven't a clue where to start!

group
Software Testing Club - Bristol
speaker
Anna Baik
description
You don't have a tester, or your testers are already fully occupied on other projects. Your boss turns round to you, and says "Ok, YOU test it. We need to know it's working by this afternoon." Argh! Where do you start! You try google, but you just get reams of intimidating stuff that suggests you need to start by writing a 400 page test strategy, test plan, test procedure specification...or you need to spend 6 months developing the perfect framework for automating it... and you only have a few hours.
I can't make you into a pro tester in half an hour, but come along and I'll share some insider tips on how to conduct a fast, frugal investigation of an application when you have little time, and not much information. If you sometimes need to help out with testing and have always felt a bit lost about where to get started, or if you're interested in getting some insight into testing, you might find this talk useful.

Skill-sets and Application Domains for Big Data

group
UWE CSCT
speaker
Paul Matthews
description
This session will be a short talk followed by a more interactive chat:
PT1
What tools, architectures and skills do we need to work with big data? A look at some case studies in international development / government data / business intelligence / scientific research
PT2
Who's already working with big data or would like to? What training have you had, what have you had to teach yourself and what new skills do you think you need?

Lightning Talks

Strictly limited to 5 minutes. Lightning talks can be on a variety of IT related subjects, even those which are esoteric. Lightning talks are open to anyone, contact us with your talk suggestion

Hacking your Productivity

group
Bristol & Bath Perl Mongers
speakers
Nigel Hamilton
description
Nige describes a command-line tool called 'hack' (Hypertext + Ack) for boosting your productivity, inspired by Vannevar Bush's 1945 vision for a 'Memex'.

Evolving Software Designs

group
UWE Computer Science & Creative Technologies
speakers
Chris Simons
description
Software designers often talk about "evolving" a software design. By this they mean putting forward a candidate design, and then evaluating its fitness. Based on this evaluation, a better candidate is out forward, and the process is repeated until the designer is eventually satisfied with the design. In this lightening talk, Chris will explain how research at UWE has produced such an evolutionary process in software, and explains how it is essential to keep the designer in the evolutionary loop.

Instant REST APIs

group
PHP South West
speakers
Andy Martin
description
Rapid application development from lightweight PHP frameworks to provide a REST API with little effort.

Write Better Software with TDD

group
PHP South West
speakers
Andy Martin
description
Test driven development. Write test, test fails, write code, test passes ... rinse and repeat.

HipHop: Facebook's Secret Sauce

group
PHP South West
speakers
Ade Slade
description
Transform PHP into C++ and compile with g++. Execute this rather than PHP. On average Facebook reduced the CPU usage on their web servers by fifty percent!

Mageia: a new Linux distribution

group
Bristol & Bath LUG
speakers
Sebastian
description
An introduction to Mageia, a 100% community driven fork of the Mandriva Linux distribution founded in September 2010 by former Mandriva employees and former non paid volunteer contributors. Mandriva Linux used to be known as Mandrake Linux which was founded in 1998. Mageia is a non profit organisation.

Single Page Apps with Backbone.JS

group
Bristol Webfolk
speakers
Dave Tonge
description
A overview of the client-side MVC framework that is used by LinkedIn, Walmart & Groupon to deliver fast, fluid and maintainable web applications.

Real-time Web Technologies in the Financial Sector

group
Hargreaves Lansdown
speakers
Martin Rudd
description
In this lightening talk Martin will talk about how real-time web technologies are used to deliver market data to mass audiences with very low latency, and the types of technology stack used to achieve these goals. About the speaker: Martin Rudd is a developer at Hargreaves Lansdown, a FTSE100 financial services firm in Bristol. Previously Martin has delivered the market leading spread betting platform for London-based IG Index as well spending several years in the French Alps dodging avalanches and creating rich web UIs.

Your Local Hackspace - what it is and what it could become

group
Bristol Hackspace
speakers
Dominic Morrow
description
A lightening talk about the UK Hackspace movement and Bristol Hackspace from Dominic Morrow founder of Nottingham Hackspace, podcaster and Hackspace evangelist. Why you should get involved with your local Hackspace.

After Party

Live it up like a student!

We strongly recommend taking advantage of UWEs excellent bus connections so that you can relax and drink at the after party :)