5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, Beer and Networking

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: Lightning Talks

For our December meetup, we’ll be doing lightning talks!

What is a Lightning Talk?
Lightning Talks are short, powerful presentations lasting 5 to 10 minutes that focus on a single idea, insight, or topic. They’re fast-paced, engaging, and designed to leave a lasting impression. This is your chance to share your knowledge, spark conversations, and inspire the audience—without the long-form commitment of a full presentation.

7:45: Door prizes

Thanks to our sponsors!

• TEKsystems
• Talent Groups
• Agile Developer
• JetBrains
• Thrive Workplace

5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, Beer and Networking

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: Building AI Agents with Shell Scripts

When considering an AI agent in its simplest form, it can be understood as a system with one or more inputs that takes action(s) based on those inputs, produces outputs for other actions, and continues this process iteratively. For developers, there are various approaches to building such systems, including workflow engines, no-code solutions, or simply coding. However, one of the most familiar concepts for devs is shell scripting, where CLI output is piped to other CLI tools using the “|” character. A powerful feature for one-liner, but devs can always do more thanks to flow control and variables supported in most shell.

Over time, numerous shells have evolved, with new ones still being created from scratch,because devs still spend time in the terminal. For example, shells like zsh and fish have become increasingly popular, and Nushell is one of the latest additions, offering a native way to manage tabular data—ideal for handling structured inputs and outputs. This talk will explore AI agents from the perspective of a generalist developer, demonstrating how to build AI agents using Nushell and Couchbase as vector database.

About Laurent Doguin

Laurent is a nerdy metal head who lives in Paris. He mostly writes code in Java and structured text in AsciiDoc, and often talks about data, reactive programming and other buzzwordy stuff. He is also a former Developer Advocate for Clever Cloud and Nuxeo where he devoted his time and expertise to helping those communities grow bigger and stronger. He now runs Developer Relations at Couchbase.

You can find Laurent on LinkedIn.

7:45: Door prizes

Thanks to our sponsors!

• TEKsystems
• Talent Groups
• Agile Developer
• JetBrains
• Thrive Workplace

5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, Beer and Networking. Sponsored by Teksystems

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: Orchestrate the Chaos: Process Automation in Modern Architectures

A recent (2022) poll by Kong placed the average number of microservices for a single enterprise at 184! Modern architecture patterns are great at optimizing resource usage, but what happens when you need to make a critical change to one process that spans multiple shared services? Complex business processes can be difficult to manage and automate. How do you quickly implement changes while maintaining uptime? How do you introduce a new service to an existing process? In this talk, we will discuss how to use Business Process Modeling (BPM) to orchestrate and execute complex business processes in your application. Don’t let the name fool you: this is not your father’s Visio diagram. Everyone should leave this talk with a new approach to solving their orchestration complexities!

About Samantha Holstine

Samantha is a Developer Advocate at Camunda. She has a background in software development and is passionate about learning. She loves all things tech and is enthusiastic about trying new things. Outside of work, she teaches dance fitness and studio rowing, loves to hike and be outdoors with her dog and partner, travels, and dabbles in photography.

You can find Samantha on LinkedIn.

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: A Tour of JVM Languages

And then there was bytecode…

Tired of the same old Java program? Join us for a tour of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) languages, their unique features, and the advantages they offer to developers.

In a world where software development is constantly evolving, the JVM ecosystem provides a platform for experimentation and innovation. From Kotlin to Scala, Groovy to Clojure, the JVM offers a diverse range of tools and frameworks that cater to different programming styles and application requirements.

In this talk, we’ll explore the evolution of the JVM, the rise of alternative languages, and the impact they have on modern software development. Whether you’re a seasoned Java developer or a curious tech enthusiast, this session will open your eyes to the rich and vibrant world of JVM languages.

About Eric Honsey

Eric Honsey is a seasoned software professional with a diverse background spanning finance and technology. His early years as a financial analyst led to a love for technical problem-solving and his first role as a software developer. He has honed his skills in several languages, functional programming, big data technologies, infrastructure, software architecture, and Domain-Driven Design (DDD).

Eric has leveraged his unique blend of business acumen and technical expertise throughout his career to deliver innovative solutions. He frequently gets obsessed with smoothing out the kinks in software systems and pushing the team beyond the status quo. His passion for superb software is matched only by his dedication to continuous learning.

When he is not jamming on the keyboard, Eric is likely strumming a guitar or hitting the ice for a game of hockey.

You can find Eric on LinkedIn.

7:45: Door prizes

5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, Beer and Networking

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: Design Trade offs in Modern Architectures

Over the years we have learned and applied several software design principles. Many of these principles have been very useful and have served as guiding principles and, at times, as guard rails to develop better software. However, the principles do not work in isolation. They interplay with each other and sometimes even against each other. In this presentation we will look at the trade offs in applying well known design principles within the confines of the architectures that applications may be based on.

About Venkat Subramaniam

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., an instructional professor at the University of Houston, and the creator of the dev2next conference.

He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly-invited speaker at several international conferences. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with sustainable agile practices on their software projects.

Venkat is a (co)author of multiple technical books, including the 2007 Jolt Productivity award winning book Practices of an Agile Developer. You can find a list of his books at https://www.agiledeveloper.com. You can reach him by email at venkats@agiledeveloper.com or on Twitter at @venkat_s.

7:45: Door prizes

5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, Beer and Networking

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: Cloud Cost Optimization for Java Developers

Cloud usage has been soaring over the last few years, and now developers are starting to get pressure to reduce cloud spend. In this session, we’ll discuss how to optimize your cloud utilization, and hence how much your team spends, on cloud infrastructure. We’ll discuss these topics with a specific focus on Java applications:

• Architecture of your application
• PaaS, CaaS, Cloud Functions or Kube?
• JVM ramp-up & optimization time
• Headroom for variable load
• Over provision or elastic compute?
• Database and caching techniques

About Pratik Patel

Pratik Patel is a Java Champion and lead developer advocate at Azul Systems. He wrote the first book on ‘enterprise Java’ in 1996, “Java Database Programming with JDBC” and “Developing Open Cloud Native Microservices”. An all around software and hardware enthusiast with experience in the travel, healthcare, telecom, financial services, and startup sectors. Helps to organize the Atlanta Java User Group, frequent speaker at tech events, and master builder of nachos.

You can find Pratik on Twitter @prpatel.

7:45: Door prizes

5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, Beer and Networking sponsored by Teksytems

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: Evolving your APIs, a pragmatic approach

When you publish your first HTTP API, you’re more focused on short-term issues than planning for the future. However, chances are you’ll be successful, and you’ll “hit the wall”. How do you evolve your API without breaking the contract with your existing users?

In this talk, I’ll first show you some tips and tricks to achieve that: moving your endpoints, deprecating them, monitoring who’s using them, and letting users know about the new endpoints. The talk is demo-based, and I’ll use the Apache APISIX project for it.

About Nicolas Frankel

Developer Advocate with 15+ years experience consulting for many different customers, in a wide range of contexts (such as telecoms, banking, insurances, large retail and public sector). Usually working on Java/Java EE and Spring technologies, but with focused interests like Rich Internet Applications, Testing, CI/CD and DevOps. Also double as a trainer and triples as a book author.

You can find Nicolas on Twitter @nicolas_frankel.

7:45: Door prizes sponsored by Jetbrains

5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, Beer and Networking sponsored by Teksystems

6:00-6:15: Announcements

6:15-7:45: Digital Modernization Through Accessibility

Did you know that half of the US uses their voice, daily, for web searches? Did you know that 3 out of 4 Gen Zers (people 27 years old or younger) watch videos with closed captions on all the time? These accessibility features, long associated with people with disabilities, have broken through to mainstream success and are used by nearly everybody. Are you prepared to support these features in your app or website today?

In this talk, Scott Davis (author and digital accessibility advocate) shows you how to incorporate accessibility into your software development practices by “shifting accessibility left” in the process. We’ll explore accessibility trends and demonstrate simple techniques and free tools that you can start using immediately.

About Scott Davis

Scott Davis is a Web Architect and Digital Accessibility Advocate, focusing on the multisensory aspects of web development. In a world where half of all Google searches are done by voice, and 80% of all social media videos are watched with the sound off and closed captions on, accessibility is a springboard for innovation.

You can learn more about Scott at https://thirstyhead.com.

7:45: Door prizes sponsored by JetBrains

8:00: Post-meetup networking sponsored by Okta.