Big Burrito Bash

This year's big bash event will be held in the Blackbox and will feature a roster of amazing speakers

  • 10th October 2016
  • The Blackbox, Hill Street

Getting this one in early before you all head off for the summer, but we're pleased to announce that the yearly Big Bash is back in the Autumn, and will feature a couple familiar faces and a completely new one.

The event will be held in the Black Box, with an open bar and (hopefully - we're waiting for confirmation) a food van serving amazing burritos. We have 3 speakers lined up: Martin Thompson, Todd L Montgomery and Lukas Eder. Martin and Lukas you'll know from previous years and Todd spoke at our React Conference a few years back.

These folks know their business, and it'll be an incredibly informative event. We will announce the actual talk titles closer to the time, but it will be in the territory of high performance messaging (Martin and Todd) and databases (Lukas). The event will start at around 5.30 and will go on until about 9pm.

Speakers

Lukas is a Java and SQL enthusiast developer. He is the creator of jOOQ (http://www.jooq.org/), a comprehensive SQL library for Java, and Data Geekery (http://www.datageekery.com/), a database consultancy based in Zurich, Switzerland. Lukas has been fascinated by the interaction between Java and SQL over almost 10 years, first during his Masters and later in the Swiss E-Banking sector. Lukas blogs regularly about Java, SQL and jOOQ.

Martin is a consultant, trainer, and coach specializing in designing high-performance and low-latency systems. In the performance space, he has changed expectations about what is possible with Java by showing that Java can compete with and even outperform native applications. His passions include concurrent programming (the Disruptor being one of his creations) and teaching people how to write algorithms that best utilize modern hardware.

Todd is an independent software developer and networking hacker who has researched, designed, and built numerous protocols, messaging-oriented middleware systems, and real-time data systems, done research for NASA, contributed to the IETF and IEEE, and co-founded two startups.

Sponsors

Bash wouldn't be possible without the help and benevolence of our sponsors. Many thanks this time to Kainos, NantHealth (formerly Navinet) and Instil for their support. Drinks and burgers are on you.

Talks

Martin's Talk: Engineering You! What are the characteristics of a good software engineer? It’s a topic many people would argue endlessly about. This is not surprising given we are effectively living in the era of software alchemy.

Some of the best programmers draw on a strong scientific and engineering background. They combine this with craft like coding skills in a virtuous feedback cycle. In this talk we look back at the history of Software Engineering then explore the individual practices and techniques that can help bring out the engineer in you.

Todd's talk: Low Latency Modern C++ C++ has been undergoing quite a lot of change in the last several years - C++11, C++14, and even C++17. These changes present opportunities for new designs and behaviours. But, how do these new opportunities actually work out when the project is non-trivial, performance sensitive, and interoperable with other languages?

Aeron is a high performance messaging transport that provides a C++ API that transparently interoperates with its Java, .NET, and Go APIs. What were the challenges faced and lessons learned with the use of C++11 in Aeron.

Lukas's talk: 10 SQL Tricks That You Didn’t Think Were Possible SQL is the winning language of Big Data. Whether you’re running a classic relational database, a column store (“NewSQL”), or a non-relational storage system (“NoSQL”), a powerful, declarative, SQL-based query language makes the difference. The SQL standard has evolved drastically in the past decades, and so have its commercial and open source implementations.

In this fast-paced talk, we’re going to look at very peculiar and interesting data problems and how we can solve them with SQL. We’ll explore common table expressions, hierarchical SQL, table-valued functions, lateral joins, row value expressions, window functions, and advanced data types, such as XML and JSON. And we’ll look at Oracle’s mysterious clauses, devices whose mystery is only exceeded by their power. Most importantly, however, we’re going to learn that everyone can write advanced SQL. Once you learn the basics, you’re going to love SQL even more.