Some of you have been asking for a preview of the resources I used as references for this talk. Below is a non-exhaustive list to get you started:

• Prisoner’s Dilemma
  
  The most referenced volume in the realm of Game Theory
• The Teaching Company: Games People Play
  
  12 hours of high-quality video lectures by Dr. Scott Stevens, James Madison University.
• Rock. Paper. Scissors.: Game Theory in Everyday Life
  
  A basic introduction with diagrams and only a few math demands on the reader.
• Game Theory: A Non-technical Introduction
  
  A solid primer almost absent of math. Uses tables, graphs and diagrams as the visual channel.
• The Art of Strategy
  
  Recommended by Ted Neward. A different perspective and writing style from the other volumes listed.
• Your Career Game
  
  A focus on career advancement and recognizing Game Theory patterns in office behaviors.
• SuperCooperators
  
  A societal view of Game Theory.
• Beautiful Math
  
  A focus on Nash’s contributions to Game Theory.
• A Beautiful Mind
  
  Focuses on the psychosis of John Nash.
• Gambit
  
  Open source Game Theory software.
• Matthew’s Delicious Game Theory Bookmarks
  
  Set of curated bookmarks on the topic of Game Theory.

It sounded like a good plan, and I received the generous support of GitHub, the awesome web-enabled half of Git to make the trip possible. Wanting to maximize the Git teaching time spent in Stockholm, Mattias and some of my Swedish colleagues helped organize 1, then 3, and now 5 Git training opportunities. The plan is now to spend nearly 5 to 10 hours per day teaching Git; I couldn’t be more excited!

If you are in the Stockholm region and want to learn why Git is not just another tool in your belt, but literally a refreshing new way to think about source control and code collaboration, then contact Mattias or I. Get in on one of the events from Monday through Friday of this week (February 14 through 18) and Git Going.

See you in Stockholm!

I have the privilege of announcing that the videos that Tim Berglund and I recorded in a Denver film studio just a brief while ago are now for sale at the O’Reilly online store. These 5 hours of downloadable and streamable Git training videos are similar to the in-person and online classes that I teach about this exciting distributed version control system. The price point is aggressive — a mere $49.95 USD — and they can be watched, increment by increment, at your leisure from the comfort of your couch at home or discomfort of your next plane flight.

These videos aim to give you a ground-up tutorial on the mechanics and usage of the Git distributed version control system. With the recent milestones of 1,500,000 repositories and 500,000 users at GitHub, the premier place to host Git repositories in a collaborative and dare I say, social way, Git is gaining incredible traction with software craftsmen and craftswomen everywhere.

A few fantastic comments have been made about the videos in the few days that they’ve been on the market. Here’s one from a good friend and long-time NFJS attendee, Darin Pope:

The exciting sharing of Git begins with JFokus in Stockholm, Sweden on the 14th of February, 2011. I’ll be delivering a 1 hour Git Intro talk, a 3 hour Git University Session, and a 2 day Git Workshop. It will be my first journey to Stockholm and I’m expecting to see it in its wintery white state. This trip will be made possibly in part by Scott Chacon and other generous sponsors at GitHub.com

The fun in Scandinavia continues with the ever-popular and ever-more-necessary Encryption on the JVM talk at the Scandinavian Developers Conference in Göteborg, Sweden on April 4th and 5th. It will be preceded by a Git Workshop taught by myself and Tim Berglund of the August Technology Group.

ScanDev will be quickly followed by DWorld’s 33rd Degree Java Conference in Kraków, Poland. I’ll share some insights with attendees about Hadoop and Git and have a post-conference workshop on Git.

The final Springtime stop will be at JAX which will be held in Mainz, Germany on May 2nd through 6th. I’ll be delivering a Git talk and a Git university session in the countryside west of Frankfurt.

And yes, I’m already planning my September, 2011 trip to JavaZone in Oslo, Norway. This conference has become a favorite in so many ways. I love to debut and passionately deliver new talks to this conference and the crowd is so receptive to new ideas and the latest technology. The equally great part about this show is its newly minted JourneyZone — an after-conference wilderness adventure in the Norwegian mountains. The 2010 edition was fantastic. I don’t know how any outdoor adventure could top it. But the organizers say they are trying, and I believe them!

What a year 2011 will be. So much fun and so many places to share all the topics I’m most excited about. I can hardly wait for it to get started.

I’ve recently had the privilege of being selected as the primary online and secondary in-person trainer for GitHub.com on all things Git. We held our first online training on December 14th and it was a smashing success. It was rapidly followed by a private online session for a large US game-producing powerhouse which was an equal success. The second training prompted some fun feedback such as “You are an excellent teacher and the Git course was great.” and “I thought I knew a lot about Git until I took your course and realized there was so much more to explore!”

With such positive feedback, we’ll be running the GitHub online Git classes every month now. The next ones are January 18th and February 11th. There will be an updated outline to include git-svn and a discounted January one-time sale for just $195. Don’t miss this opportunity to get bootstrapped with this cutting edge version control system. Git just reached a milestone with over 500,000 active users and 1,500,000 repositories at GitHub.com. Find out why developers are so excited about this tool and how it can make a radical difference in your workflow no matter what programming language you use.

In about 75 minutes, I’ll explain why the Git Version Control System deserves your attention as your next version control system. I’ll show you its blazing speed adding 5000 files to a repo, creating a repository at GitHub, initiating a local branch, merging with a colleague’s repository, and finding which commit broke the integration tests.

I’ve also set up a few resources for attendees to peruse after the talk, including:

• Git Instructions executed during the lecture/workshop
• Git Delicious Bookmarks
• Git 101 Video
• Matthew’s Git DZone RefCard

In short, if you have the least bit of dissatisfaction with your existing version control system, this talk should tip you squarely in favor of the new world of Distributed Version Control Systems (DVCS), and specifically, my favorite implementation, Git.

My Open Source Debugging talk that I gave at JavaZone, Oslo, Norway last September is online and can be watched in Flash format or downloaded as an M4V file. If you were not able to catch this talk at either this venue, or any of the many NoFluffJustStuff.com stops that I gave this talk at last year, give it a try and let me know what you think of it.
]]> http://ambientideas.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/javazone-2009-open-source-debugging-talk/feed/ 0 http://ambientideas.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/denver-jug-hadoop-and-encryption-presentations/ http://ambientideas.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/denver-jug-hadoop-and-encryption-presentations/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:38:55 +0000 Matthew McCullough http://ambientideas.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/denver-jug-hadoop-and-encryption-presentations/ I had the pleasure of hanging out with about 60 of my local friends at the Denver Java Users Group on Wednesday night and talking about Encryption on the JVM as well as Hadoop.

This is a tidbit of insight about my radically revised techniques for assembling complex compelling presentations this year. I’m certain it will create a widely varied set of comments and feedback.

Earlier this year, Neal Ford, Nate Schutta and I were driving from the Des Moines No Fluff Just Stuff show in the pouring rain. Pouring hard enough to stop a dashboard GPS device from working. Hard enough to stop all outbound flights from the airport. Hard enough to cause us to lightly hydroplane. In short, a normal NFJS weekend.

This fury of nature would not deter us from our technical discussions and the subject of presentations with large quantities of moving parts came up. I said that “for a certain set of presentation demos that contain around 5 or more interwoven components — not JAR dependencies mind you — keeping this operational for the course of a year of presenting was more work than building it in the first place and highly crash prone.” We debated aggressively, but Neal interjected at one point and said “You should just try it.” And thus, I did.

Neal, Nate and I have a project that we’ll be able to tell you more about soon. Related to this project, we’re attempting to give names to these presentation patterns and anti-patterns. For example, Neal dubbed the above discussion’s output the “Lipsync Pattern.“

Recording Tools

In terms of tooling, I’ve become very attached to Screenflow 2.0. I previously used iShowU HD, but its capabilities are now far exceeded by Screenflow in terms of seamlessly stitching together multiple pieces of footage in a meaningful way.

Feedback

Feedback from this technique for my Open Source Debugging talks have been overwhelmingly positive. Some examples are:

“Thanks for giving the great talk on open source debugging tools last night at BJUG. Specifically the part where you “played through” the typing/console. It sort of reminded me of prezi.com, with the way you were able to zoom into sections of slides, seemingly capture keyboard input, etc. Loved it.”

and another really captures the essence of why I feel this is a meaningful way of teaching:

“I liked that you used a recorded version vs. live coding. I felt like you were able to explain things better than other presenters I’ve seen who try and field questions while coding live. Also the spotlighting and highlighting really helped the flow.”

Applying this Technique

When using this approach, I’ve found, through the feedback of friends like Scott Davis, that it’s best to exaggerate the fact that you are not live coding. Joke about it. And lastly, make it a positive trade by discussing what’s happening in the playback in a dialogue with the audience.

Summary

I’m becoming so jaded that I (internal voice, not external) am having a hard time watching some live coding speakers now. It’s often swordplay showmanship on the level of Errol Flynn. It has nothing to do with teaching. And it usually bombs, at least in a minor way, somewhere, and we spend 2 minutes watching the speaker “clean it up.”

I hear that there’s going to be a “Presentation Patterns and Anti-Patterns” book with Neal’s name on it. Based on my positive experience, I can only say, “the sooner the better Neal.”