October 24, 2010
Part 4: Constant evaluation and improvement: Finding sources for feedback. # In recent years demand for shorter feedback cycles especially in software development has increased. Agile development, lean management and even Scrum are all for short feedback cycles: Coming from the dark ages when software projects would last for months or even years before any results could be delivered to customers we are transforming development into a process that integrates the customer in the design and evolution of his own product.
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October 21, 2010
Video: Sebastian Schelter on Recommendation w/ Apache Mahout # A few weeks ago we had the autumn edition of the Apache Hadoop Get Together in newthinking store in Berlin. I am glad to announce the first video online:
Mahout Sebastian Schelter from Isabel Drost on Vimeo.
Thanks to JTeam for sponsoring video taping, thanks to newthinking for providing the location and thanks to Martin Schmidt from newthinking for producing the video.
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October 15, 2010
Apache Mahout at Apache Con NA # The upcoming Apache Con NA to take place in Atlanta will feature several tracks relevant to users of Apache Mahout, Lucene and Hadoop: There will be a full track on Hadoop as well as one on NoSQL on Wednesday featuring talks on the framework itself, Pig and Hive as well as presentations from users on special use cases and on their way of getting the system to production.
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October 14, 2010
Salsa steps # If you always wanted to start learning Salsa and never really had the time to do so: Today a new beginners’ course starts at Salsa Con Corazon in Berlin Schöneberg. The course is still open for registration teaching the very basics in four sessions - one per week.
October 8, 2010
Slides available # Yesterday evening the Autumn Hadoop Get Together took place in Berlin. The meetup this time focussed mainly on latest developments at Apache Mahout. The meetup was kindly sponsored by JTeam, providing video taping of the presentations as well as for free drinks. Thanks a lot for that.
After the meetup the group went over to Cafe Aufsturz for drinks, food and lots of interesting discussions - I left them there as I still have to get rid of a persistent cold.
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October 7, 2010
Reminder: Apache Hadoop Get Together Berlin Today # Just a brief reminder: The Apache Hadoop Get Together Berlin is supposed to take place today in newthinking store, Tucholskystr. 48 at 5p.m.
The meeting features two talks on Apache Mahout: Committer Sebastian Schelter will explain how to scale recommender systems with Mahout. Contributor Max Heimel is going to give an introduction to the sequence labeling facilities available in Mahout.
As usual the group will move over to Cafe Aufsturz after the meetup is over.
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October 6, 2010
A Get Together Checklist # Still on the list of potentially interesting books: The Checklist Manifesto - explaining why checklists can still be valuable - especially for complex problems and tasks.
Though not very complex, I chose to come up with a checklist for running a Hadoop Get Together in Berlin as an exercise. I’m trying to stick with advise provided by the Checklist for Checklists.
Parties involved
Find two to three speakers two months in advance.
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October 4, 2010
Apache Dinner October Today in Potsdam # The Apache Dinner Berlin will take place today. As always, everybody is invited even if you didn’t participate in the poll ( http://doodle.com/8bi2456enwe6z2g6). This time around the dinner was organised by Daniel Naber. Thanks!
When: Monday, 2010-10-04, 19:30
Where: Lindencafe, Rudolf-Breitscheid-Str. 47/48, 14482 Potsdam-Babelsberg, This is directly next to the S-Bahn (S7, Babelsberg).
Looking forward to meeting you there!
September 24, 2010
Are devs contributing to OSS happier? # When talking to fellow developers or meeting with students it happens from time to time that I get the question of why on earth I spent my freetime working on an open source project? Why do I spend weekends at developers’ conferences like FOSDEM? Why do spent afternoons organising meetups? Why is it that I am reviewing and writing code after work for free?
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September 23, 2010
Apprenticeship patterns (O’Reilly) # A few days ago I finished reading the book “Apprenticeship Patterns” - Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman, by
Dave Hoover, Adewale Oshineye. The book is addressed to readers who have the goal of becoming great software devleopers.
One naive question one could ask is why there is a need for such a book at all? Students are trained in computer science at university, then enter some IT departement and simply learn from their peers.
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