Hi All,

Tuesday night, we had a superb LJC event with some of the top speakers and trainers in Brazil. It was a packed room, had very few no shows and all the feedback I have had since has been amazing.

For those that didn’t know, Fabianne, Yara and Vinicius are heavily involved in SouJava, a 15 year old renowned Java User Group in Brazil. It was interesting to hear their thoughts and appreciation of the LJC. How they have watched us coming up as a younger JUG, and starting to make a lot of noise, the work that Martijn, Ben and our other organisers have done overseas has been incredible for our international profile and Yara said had injected energy and life into the entire JUG scene. Let’s keep going, make the Adopt a JSR program a success and get involved wherever we can.

The night kicked of with a few lightning talks from organisers and members of the London Java Community. First up we had Richard Gomes talking about Scala and Trisha Gee and Ben Evans to talk about the Adopt a JSR program. You can see both presentations here.

JavaEE Applications in Production: Tips and Tricks to achieve zero downtime. Fabiane Nardon one of Brazils most important and renowned architects did some live coding and live demos. Starting from a JavaEE application and add tools and techniques. It was a great presentation which you can watch here. Once SkillsMatter have uploaded the video.

Finally we had Yara and Vinicius Senger. They gave an animated presentation which was unlike any I have seen before. They showed how you can use Java EE and open-source hardware, like Arduino, to automatate your house. It involved a little singing and heavy breathing to turn lights on – certainly not what you’d expect from an LJC event. Again you can check it out here.

After the event we all headed to the White Lion for some Atlassian and RecWorks sponsored drinks and pizza. After much alcohol induced coercion I was able to pick up a few more people for the GDC Meet a Mentor program. We now have 42 mentors, more signing up and 3 universities involved. You can read an update on how it’s going here.

Special thanks to Yara, Vinicius and Fabianne who flew to London especially for the LJC. We know this is just part of a wider relationship with SouJava and look forward to how it develops. Big thanks also goes to our lightning talkers – there is a constant opportunity to get involved in these events – it’s a great way to escalate your profile which can lead to new opportunities and promotions, or just a way of sharing what you have learned with a group of enthusiastic developers. We can offer constructive feedback from experienced speakers so if you’re at all interested let Anji or I know.

Another big thank you to everyone that made it out last night. We are one of the most active Java User Groups in the world and we’re keen to stay that way so if you have any feedback at all please let Martijn or I know.

We at RecWorks are proud to have been able to organise another event for the LJC. RecWorks is a specialist consultancy blending social networks and recruitment services to provide first class service to our clients. We pride ourselves on building long term relationships with everyone we meet and being trusted advisors to the Java industry. For a list of our latest jobs please see our jobs page here. Follow us on Twitter.

Finally, a big thanks goes to Skills Matter for hosting the event.

Here are a few words from SkillsMatter:
Skills Matter are very pleased to be able to continue to support the London Java Community. Follow us on Twitter and use the hashtag #javasm and see below for some upcoming Java related events we think you’ll love!

Progressive Java Tutorials (May 3-4, 2012)

The Progressive Java Tutorials will take place at Skills Matter over two days on May 3rd and May 4th! Experts including Jan Machacek, Tobias Ivarsson, Jon Jagger, Howard Lewis Ship, and Anirvan Chakraborty will be sharing the latest ideas and best practices in Java and Agile Development. To find out more, follow #progjava on Twitter or go here.

Scala Days (April 17-18, 2012)

Skills Matter and Typesafe are very excited to present Scala Days 2012, coming to London this April. Scala Days is the premier event for Scala enthusiasts, researchers, and practitioners. A central part of the Scala Days event will be the Third Scala Workshop, a forum to showcase and discuss a wide range of cutting-edge Scala research projects.

In addition to the Workshop, further Scala Days sessions will be devoted to technical talks, experience talks, and tool demonstrations, offering a comprehensive insight on all that is going on in the Scala world. We have also planned social lunches and an evening Scala Days Reception, which will offer further opportunities to meet and discuss with all the people that matter in the Scala world in a relaxed social context. To find out more, go here.

Once again, many thanks to all who came to the event.

See you at the next one!

Barry