We will explore how to write Grails applications using Test First methods and how to debug and inspect Java applications using Open Source tools.
Rocky Mountain Software Symposium
The Rocky Mountain Software Symposium is coming back to Denver November 20 to the 22nd. We will raffle another pass at this meeting as well.
Sponsorship and Door Prizes
We continue to enjoy Big Sky Technology's sponsorship of our meeting room and Tek-Systems's sponsorship of the pizza and sodas. Both JetBrains and ZeroTurnaround are sponsoring door prizes for this meeting.
Wolf Law Building, Room #207
2450 Kittredge Loop Road
Boulder, CO 80309
6:00-7:00: Test Driven Development with Grails
Not many of us question that TDD is the right way to write software, but not many of us really practice it either. Even fewer of us do it when writing a web app, and with good reason: web app code is usually coupled to a framework, and the framework is usually coupled to a web server on one end and a database on the other. All this coupling does not set us up for testing success.
Grails 1.1 introduces several features that make it easy and truly productive to create a web application while testing first. In this talk, you'll learn how to use Domain and Controller mocking to write unit tests that can be run quickly and easily from the IDE or from the command line. TDD with 100% coverage had always been possible in Grails, but for the first time the tools make it the kind of thing you'll want to do. Learn to use the new features of the framework to build your web app the right way the first time.
About Tim Berglund
Tim Berglund runs a software consulting firm called the August Technology Group, which provides training, coaching, and development services to customers building web applications with open-source tools, especially with the Grails framework. His technology interests span web applications, business integration, data architecture, and software architecture, but his greatest passion is to help developers improve in their craft. He is a frequent speaker at local user groups, and helps lead IASA Denver and the Denver Open Source User Group. He is currently writing the book, Deploying Grails (to be published by O'Reilly), due out in 2010. He lives in Littleton, CO with his wife and three children.
7:00-7:30: Pizza, Soda and Networking
Tek Systems is graciously sponsoring the pizza and sodas.
7:30-9:00: Java Open Source Debugging Tools
Expensive commercial utilities ruled the debugging market for years, but learn how a loose confederation of powerful Open Source debugging tools has adeptly fulfilled many of those same needs, and in many cases, taken debugging to the next level. In this bootcamp, get exposed to tcpdump, netstat, jps, jstatd, VisualVM, jhat and it’s OQL, Omniscient Debugger, TOD, Eclipse Memory Analyzer Tool, jtracert, btrace and more. Hear real-world scenarios of when to pull each out of your toolbelt, see each tool in action on a unified Java Web Application exhibiting a plethora of issues and leverage each tool to discover and solve the problem.
About Matthew McCullough
Matthew McCullough is an energetic 13 year veteran of enterprise software development, open source education, and co-founder of Ambient Ideas, LLC, a Denver consultancy. Matthew currently is a member of the JCP, reviewer for technology publishers including O'Reilly, speaker on the No Fluff Just Stuff tour, author of the DZone Maven RefCard, and President of the Denver Open Source Users Group.
His experience includes successful JEE, SOA, and Web Service implementations for real estate, finance and telecommunications firms in addition to publishing several open source libraries. Matthew jumps at opportunities to mentor and educate teams on how to leverage open source. His current topics of R&D are Cloud Computing, Maven, iPhone, Distributed Version Control (Git), and Debugging Tools.
Matthew resides in Highlands Ranch with his beautiful wife and 1 year old daughter, who are active in nearly every outdoor activity Colorado offers.


