Paul Grenyer

When : Tuesday, January 19, 2016 Where:  The King's Centre, King Street, Norwich, NR1 1PH How much: £99 Sign-up:   http://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/22650845 6/ Level: Beginner Prerequisites: Laptop This one day workshop is designed to provide a familiarity with basic RDBMS concepts and the syntax required to construct simple SQL statements used to create, manipulate and report upon database records. The workshop will be problem-centred and attendees will be invited to think about example problems in order to facilitate their appreciation of what a database is and why databases are used. Once the basic concepts have been introduced, the remainder of the day will entail hands on practice writing and testing SQL statements using a database client program (Postgres). A worksheet will be provided to help guide this process. There will also be time for breaks and joint questions. Attendees should be comfortable with running desktop applica...

Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister was the main man in British rock band Motorhead , a group he formed after being fired from Hawkwind in 1975. He sadly died yesterday, at the age of 70, after a very brief fight with cancer. Although well known and popular, Motorhead never hit the real big time, in the UK at least. Right up to the point Lemmy died they were still only playing theatres, as opposed to arenas or stadiums. In fact they were regulars at the LCR in Norwich which has a capacity of only about 2000, but as business owners I think there is a lot we can learn from his example. Motorhead followed the strict pattern of album, tour, album, tour… releasing an album every few years and following it up with a multidate national and international tour. What does this tell us? It tells us that when you have a formula that works, stick to it. You could argue that Motorhead didn’t sustain the growth they probably deserved, but they were doing enough to keep doing what they wanted...

I didn’t like Star Wars The Force Awakens . It was too Disney. There were so many repeated scenarios from A New Hope that it felt like a poorer, rehash of the same film. Kylo Ren was a great bad guy until he began questioning his beliefs and took his helmet off. Then he just fell apart and became really weak. I know it’s about 30 years since Return of the Jedi and Star Wars doesn’t really do flashbacks and that of course lots of things must have happened in the story, but I can’t see how they can go back and tell them in any detail, unless they do episode 6.5. How Han and Leia’s son turned to the darkside could probably make a fantastic file which also covers how and why Luke went into exile. Han Solo was still by far the best character, but his lines weren’t funny and not delivered with the same style as the previous films. And what’s happened to Princess Leia’s voice? Very strange. It was so disappointing to see how naively solo died. I spent quite a while waiting for the fil...

NorDevCon 2016 is bigger and better than ever before and here is why … Thursday 25th February 2016 We have some amazing pre-conference workshops for you to participate to get you in the mood for Nor(DEV):con on the 26th.   An Exploration of Symbiotic Design Practice from Michael Feathers , Taste of Chef on Azure from Chef.io and Android workshop: From Zero to Hero delivered by Paul Lammertsma. Afterwards there is even more Nor(DEV):con appetizers in the form of Letitia Fearon’s Observe, assume and experiment and Ashwini Laxminarayana Fun & Games with Git & Jenkins who will be giving us a pre-conference special each at the King's Centre which kicks off at the earlier time of 5.30pm and is followed by our pre-conference dinner which this year will be held at the Library Restaurant . To attend the pre-conference special and the dinner please RSVP via norfolkdevelopers.com . Friday 26th February 2016 We’ve Keynotes from the fantastic Michael Feathers ...

With our last event over, it’s the end of another successful and very busy year for  Norfolk Developers . In all 497 people have attended regular evening meetups, 204 have attended workshops, 124 have come for lunch and 54 came for breakfast. 41 attended Agile on the Bench, 42 the pre-conference special, 21 the pre-conference dinner and of course 263 attended NorDevCon. That’s a massive 1156 people attending Norfolk Developers events in 2015. Emily, Ryan and I would like to thank each and everyone of you for the contribution you've made to the group. We simply could not do it without you. We are, of course, all looking forward to the break now until our first workshop in January,  An Introduction to Relational Databases  at the Kings Centre on Tuesday 19th of January. Our first regular meetup is in February,  The Miracle of Generators with Bodil Stokke & Go with Elliott Stoneham  on Wednesday the 3rd. The conference, including the workshops and pre-confere...

With a mind boggling array of tablets available we wanted to take a closer look at the range of tablets out there. Which one could be the best investment for you? We see tablets everywhere. We’re asked to do surveys on them in the street, we see people catching up on yesterday’s TV on the bus and they’re even popping up in restaurants as a new way to order our food. Just the other day our director took his children to have their feet measured in a well known high street shoe brand, the sales assistant inserted a tablet into the measuring device to take the measurements and keep the kids occupied at the same time. TechReport.com recently wrote that in the second quarter of 2015, the worldwide tablet market reduced by 7% from the same period in the previous year. From the first quarter of 2015 to the second quarter, the two top tablet makers, Apple and Samsung, saw a reduction in their gross share of the tablet market from 45% to 41%. Is this the beginning of the end for the tablet...

The ’Taste of Chef on Azure Workshop’ is a hands on coding session aimed at technical practitioners who want to learn to do more on the Azure platform with Chef. Participants will write recipes that describe system configuration policies, use Chef Provisioning to create new instances, automatically apply recipes and use Chef Provisioning to create a sample full-stack application topology that includes additional Azure services. The workshop provides an introduction to Chef with a specific focus on Azure integration, and the course is intended to answer common beginner questions about using Chef, managing Azure infrastructure within the Chef framework and guide students through basic deployment scenarios. About Alex I have over 15 years’ technical sales, technical consulting, web application development and automation experience. I am an expert in JEE, continuous integration, continuous delivery and many of the toolsets used to implement these solutions. I am currently a Solut...

In this crazy 6 hour workshop we’ll kick-start your Android development career. You need an intermediate level in Java or general Object Oriented (OO) programming to get the most out of this workshop. Don’t be afraid to join if you are lacking in this area, I’ll help you out during the workshop. We will begin with a general presentation on Android architecture and key concepts and a short technical presentation on what you will learn and do yourself in the lesson exercises, followed by 5 lessons themselves. You won’t be on your own; I’ll be constantly walking around to answer your questions or help you out when you get stuck. Finally, we will give hints and tips on useful Android tools and how you can continue to develop your Android superpowers! Android Wear Presentation The popularity of smart wearables has reached an all-time high, and Android Wear seems to have revolutionized the market. As a developer, it’s surprisingly easy to enhance your existing apps to use Wear featur...

Feature Orthogonality and Health In Large Code Bases Too often as software developers we take features as given – EE are there to give the customers whatever they want. The thing we neglect to realize is that feature choice impacts the longevity and maintainability of systems. In this keynote, Michael Feathers will explore this idea and describe now we can move toward a model where business weighs these impacts in the context of systems development. Collection Pipeline Design Techniques The resurgence of functional programming has had an odd manifestation in today’s technologies. Although we’re learning the value of immutability and starting to see that we don’t need class hierarchies to solve every problem, the type of code that we’re writing is actually stricter than what has been common in traditional functional programming languages. We’re using LINQ, Rx, Java Streams, and Ruby Enumerable to compose pipelines that transform data from stage to stage without access to any oth...

Ever since I started Agile East Anglia (one of the groups which merged to form SyncNorwich ) I’ve had the ambition of bringing great speakers to Norwich. It started with Rachel Davies, Allan Kelly and Liz Keogh. Then I was able to fulfil another ambition by having Kevlin Henney open the first tech conference I ran in Norwich. Since then we’ve had a whole host of stars from the software world come to Norwich to speak, including Russel Winder, Jon Jagger and the fantastic Jon Skeet. Getting speakers who are based in the UK to come and speak is relatively easy. Getting international speakers relies mostly on timing. There are a handful of software engineers who have changed the face of programming for the better for everyone. Robert ‘Uncle Bob’ Martin is one such software engineer. I first saw Uncle Bob speak at an ACCU conference many years ago and he was fantastically entertaining and informative. I was then lucky enough to see Bob again at Skills Matter one evening when I was bei...

Would Your Business Benefit From an Extra Pair of Hands?  Why Work Experience is the answer. I'm often asked by schools and students if I can offer work experience, everything from a few days to summer long placements. At Naked Element we’ve always found the experience enjoyable and often learned as much about ourselves as the students did about our business. Bright, ambitious and free of those bad habits we all learn along the way in the world of work, work experience students can inject energy and enthusiasm into a business. Many employers and businesses feel that they don’t have the time or resources to commit to a work experience placement, as much as they’d like to help a young person as they’re starting out,  but there are in fact lots of benefits to your business that make work experience a win-win situation for both student and business. Here’s just a few: Early access to emerging talent Lots of employers find that work experience programmes are a great wa...

Following the success of last year’s  Norfolk Developers Conference  (Nor(DEV):con), which attracted an unprecedented 263 speakers, delegates and sponsors,  Nor(DEV):con 2016  promises to continue the record breaking trend. Run by Norwich-based web, mobile and enterprise software services provider  Naked Element , the Winter conference is in it’s fourth year and will bring together delegates and companies from across the whole professional spectrum. The conference is a meeting of minds for business and technology experts, who’ll come together to explore the fundamental role technology plays in the East of England’s economy. Nor(DEV):con will take place from Thursday 25th to Saturday 27th of February 2016 at the  King’s Centre  on King Street in Norwich. Back by popular demand, the conference will feature the dedicated business presentation stream to highlight how essential technology is for the wider business economy. The  2016 agenda ...

When I speak to people about NorDevCon , do you know which speaker I get asked about the most? Jon Skeet! This is why I am delighted to be able to announce that Jon Skeet is back for NorDevCon 2016 and will be doing a regular 45 minute conference session on C#. NorDevCon runs between the 25th and 27th of February 2016 at the Kings Centre in Norwich. Tickets are available here . The changing state of immutability in C# Jon Skeet ( @jonskeet ) Immutability rocks, right? When a type is immutable, it’s usually easier to reason about your code, easier to share data safely, and easier to make money ooze from every USB port. That’s the promise, at least. I heard an F# developer say it, so it must be true. Unfortunately, when a language or platform isn’t designed to encourage immutability, immutability can introduce its own pain points – and sometimes they can be subtle. Come with me on a journey to explore the different options for implementing immutability in C#, see how it’s...

I'm very pleased to share this video, made at the first East of England Apprentices event by 3aaa , with you:

The summer of 2015 saw David Cameron announce radical plans to increase the number of quality apprenticeships across England as part of the government's ambitious pledge to create a massive 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. We’ve taken a closer look at apprenticeships and how they’re changing the face of the workforce in Norfolk. What is an Apprenticeship? Apprenticeships combine on-the-job training in a real world working environment with theoretical knowledge, often taught at a college or training centre. Open to school leavers as well as mature candidates, apprenticeships are an alternative to full-time education but still work towards nationally recognised qualifications, whether a BTEC Certificate, Maths, English and ICT qualification or other recognised industry specific qualifications. Apprenticeships can take between one and four years to complete, depending on the industry, type of qualification and the requirements of the employer. One of the biggest benefits for...

How often do you find yourself thinking ‘there are just not enough hours in the day’? How many of the following apply to you… I’m always busy but feel like I’m not getting enough done My to-do list just gets longer and longer I seem to get pulled from pillar to post in the office and the phone never stops ringing There are important things I need to address but they always get bumped down the list Could you use a day away to catch up on those important but ignored tasks? If the answer is 'yes', then join like-minded Directors at our inaugural Directors Haven. Set in the picturesque countryside of Burnham Market, North Norfolk, this 16th Century coaching inn is the ideal location to catch up on those important parts of your business without the interruptions of office or home life. Tackle the tasks that can make a real difference to your business and dedicate time to reflecting on where your business is, where it’s going and how you’re going to get there. At Th...

In 2016 we want to make Norfolk Developers more focussed around the needs of the community. Up to now both the regular evening events and the workshops have been based around what we thought would be interesting to you. Next year we’d like to know which topics you would like to hear about in the evenings and what you would like to learn in the workshops. We hope that you find Norfolk Developers workshops excellent value for money and teach valuable skills. We want to increase their value to the community by providing workshops that cover the skills needed by you and/or your business. Please help us by letting us know what skills you and/or your business will need in the next twelve months. If there is someone within your organisation who is better placed to answer this question, please send this survey to them as well. If you complete this survey you’ll put into a draw for one of five free NorDevCon tickets. What topics and speakers would you like to see at the regular Norfo...

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD), which include Asperger’s Syndrome, have been at the centre of documentaries, an oscar winning movie starring Dustin Hoffman and a best selling novel that even went on to take Broadway and the West End by storm. But most research so far has focused on the male presentation, with the challenges facing females who are affected just starting to be explored. The curly hair project (CHP) is a social enterprise with worldwide appeal, dedicated to supporting females with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) and other autism spectrum disorders (ASD). NorDevCon 2016 will support The Curly Hair Project as its chosen good cause to help spread the word about this important project. Sam Ramsay, Associate Trainer at CHP reveals her hopes for what the exposure at the conference may mean for the project, “Firstly we’re delighted to have been invited to be a part of NorDevCon. We hope that we are able to use this forum to raise awareness in the technology industry of the chall...