23 October 2014
Why We Need Cincy Day of Functional
Last month Gaslight developer Geoff Lane wrote about the fact that our whole dev team has been working together to learn Clojure. This functional language has a lot to offer to both developers and clients.
I’m very excited about working with Clojure even though lately I’ve fallen for another language named Elixir. So why the enthusiasm for Clojure? Both Clojure and Elixir have a lot in common, and the most important thing these languages share is that they both embrace functional programming.
Functional programing has taught me to think about the code I write in a different way and provided powerful tools for improving that code. Working in functional languages has been an empowering experience, and it reminds me of how I felt when I was first learning Ruby. This is why I decided to share my joy and excitement with others. I’m working with other like-minded Cincinnati developers to launch the first-ever Cincy Day of Functional.
A Little History
Back in September 2010, a group of people I knew from the Agile Round Table, one of our local meetups, decided to put on Day of Ruby, a one day conference dedicated to teaching people Ruby. I thought this was awesome, and I quickly agreed to help out when they asked me to volunteer. Some of the organizers had recently started a new company called Gaslight Software, which sponsored the event. Little did I know that I would join Gaslight less than a year later, in part because of this event.
Cincinnati Day of Ruby obviously had a big impact on me, but I was not alone. Around the Gaslight office, we have discussed many times who attended Day of Ruby and where they are now. It is not surprising that many of the companies in our area doing Ruby have someone on staff who was there that day. Day of Ruby continues to pay dividends to the local developer and business communities.
Is Functional the Future?
Functional programming is set to have a huge impact on developers and our industry. Just as Cincinnati Day of Ruby was focused on getting people started early and on the right track with Ruby we, want to do the same for Functional.
Cincy Day of Functional is a grassroots event organized by the Cincinnati development community with additional support being provided by Gaslight. It’s focus is on teaching functional programming and getting people involved in emerging technology in the functional space.
Day of Functional Details
We’re holding Cincy Day of Functional December 6th 9am-6pm at TopGun Sales Performance and tickets are $50. I hope to see you there!
There will be a hands-on coding workshop along with a full day of talks on Clojure, Haskell, Elixir/Erlang, Scala and more. We’re still finalizing the program, but early speakers include:
- Geoff Lane and James Smith, Gaslight
- Carin Meier and Creighton Kirkendall, Outpace Systems
- Ben Kyrlach, Raco Wireless
Diversity Scholarships
Since we hope to attract a wide range of people to Cincy Day of Functional, we’re giving away diversity scholarships that cover the entire registration fee. Who’s eligible? Women, minorities, and any other underrepresented group in the software development community.
To apply, send an email to James Smith no later than December 1 that includes your full name and briefly answers these questions:
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Why are you interested in Day of Functional?
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What’s your technology background?
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Would you be able to attend without this scholarship?
All application information will be kept confidential. We’ll award scholarships on a rolling basis and notify recipients as soon as we make a decision.
I hope in a few years we look back at Cincy Day of Functional and see that’s it had just as big an impact as Day of Ruby! See you there.
