Registration is now open

Nov 06, 2014 by Madalina Botez in Announcements

Registration for I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2015 is now open. Just the first 30 participants will benefit from the Supporter Ticket.

Here are some highlights from the Schedule we have prepared for your high tech delightment:

Architecture – Microservices & Web components are the same with Tim Perry
DevOps – How Docker tricked me in DEvOps with Sebastian Korfmann
Developer’s Life – Power up: Learn how to recharge your energy bar with Andrew Hall
Executable Specifications – Living Documentation Jumpstart with Cyrille Martraire
Hardcore Programming – Clojure, Clojure Script why they’re awesome with Stefan Kanev
Web – Object-Oriented Views with Aki Salmi
Technical Leadership – How to boost development team’s speed with Patroklos Papapetrou
Kata Lounge – Receive some requirements, respect the timebox, and then somebody will review the code with you and give you ideas for improvement
Product Development – You will produce software live

Are you ready to write code, analyze architectures and technical strategy and immerse yourself into this awesome gathering of software passionates?

If Yes, Register to be part of the awesome 2015 I T.A.K.E. Unconference.

Countdown to I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016

Feb 05, 2016

Great news! The final preparations for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 program are done!

Our team of reviewers finished the draft program. 100 proposals, from speakers from 20 countries, were received to the Call for Speakers. We are looking forward to let you know which of them will make it to the final program.

As a sneak peak, we can tell you that lots of live coding and exciting talks & workshops are in row. As we are finishing up the details about the 4th edition of I T.A.K.E Unconference, we invite you to have a look at the previous editions.

Here it is a selection of our favorite highlights:

I T.A.K.E Unconference has become a unique meeting place for top notch technology craftsmen. During a 2-day program, they get involved in talks and workshops that foster peer-learning and challenge the known paths.

A great line-up of keynotes speakers enables the inspiring and dynamic learning atmosphere.

We wrote code, talked code and presented code

Both the participants, and the speakers could join a technical Open Space, where they shared ideas and learnt from each other, engaging in professional conversations, Q&A sessions and live coding.

The participants, passionated coders, competed with their peers, taking a set of challenges that put their skills to the test. Gadgets like a drone or an iPad were the rewards for the winners.

Women speakers, as well as academic speakers enriched the I T.A.K.E Unconference participants’ experience with valuable insights and stories. Additionally, the women in IT campaign brought into the audience’s attention some of the most amazing ladies who made a contribution to the development of the tech field.

Happy we’ve had the chance to work with amazing speakers, participants, volunteers, partners, and sponsors. Looking forward to the next editions, too!

We would love to see you in I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 top moments! Stay tuned for the program announcement and registration opening! If you would like to hear the news first, sign up here!

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock: Maintaining Your Code Clint Eastwood Style

Dec 01, 2016

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock is the object design pioneer who invented the set of design practices known as Responsibility-Driven Design (RDD), the first behavioral approach to object design. She is the lead author of two software design books and design columnist for IEEE Software. By accident, she started the x-Driven Design meme (TDD, DDD, BDD…). Although best known for software design, she is has a passion simply expressing complex requirements and effectively communicating software architecture.

Rebecca shared with the audience how to maintain your code in the keynote address from the first edition of I T.A.K.E Unconference. Watch below her remarks!

Code. Craft. Learn. Share. Repeat. Call for Speakers for I T.A.K.E Unconference, 5th edition, is open! Apply here.

Test-Drive your Database & the 4 Rules of Simple Design

Apr 27, 2016

Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 19-20 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field.

Alastair Smith, developer at Redgate and founder of the Cambridge Software Craftsmanship Community in the UK and a co-organiser of DDD East Anglia, will join this edition of I T.A.K.E Unconference. After attending his sessions, participants will be able to use their programming language to clearly express a program’s purpose and stop writing the programming equivalent of legalese. They will be able to write unit tests for their own SQL code and enjoy database development again.

#1. SHARE TOP 5 THINGS YOU DID THAT HELPED YOU GROW & BECOME THE PROFESSIONAL YOU ARE TODAY

The five things that put me on this path were:

Reading software development books hungrily in the first few years of my career. Texts such as Code Complete and especially The Pragmatic Programmer and Test-Driven Development by Example were hugely influential on my early career and the direction I chose to take. The Pragmatic Programmer in particular is worth re-reading: I didn’t fully understand some parts of it as a fresh graduate joining the industry, and the experience I’ve built up over the last ten years has allowed me to get more from it on each later reading.
Attending developer meetups, user groups, and conferences. Aside from the knowledge gained from the talks and workshops run at these events, they’re an invaluable opportunity to meet other developers, learn from their experiences, and about the local software industry.
Finding a good mentor. As it turned out, my mentoring was very unofficial: a former colleague of mine guided me in the ways of professional software development, and pointed me in the direction of books, blogs, and other resources to learn from. His advice was invaluable in helping me discover techniques for writing good tests (and why tests are important), the importance of refactoring, and the foundational principles of Object-Oriented Design, such as SOLID. All of this at the beginning of my career, in an environment where I wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to such topics.
Understanding people as well as tech. As technical people, we can often be quite blinded to the problems around us and focus on the tools and technologies rather than the underlying collaborations with other people.
Applying principles I’d learned elsewhere to my profession. I play a lot of music, and have been for over 20 years; as such, the idea of deliberate practice is quite a familiar one to me, and applying this principle to the techniques used in software development made a lot of sense. Participating in and organising things like Dojos and Code Retreats has helped me understand and improve my own development process enormously.

#2. WHAT CHALLENGES WILL THE PARTICIPANTS FIND SOLUTIONS TO DURING YOUR SESSIONS @ I T.A.K.E UNCONFERENCE 2016?

Test-Drive Your Database

Database changes are difficult to get right, and objects like Stored Procedures and Functions can be particularly hard to work on. We’ll take a tour of test-driven development, and how we can apply it to our database objects to reduce risk in deployment. We’ll also look at how we can set up a CI server to run our new database tests automatically, just as we would for application code.

Express Yourself!

We’ve all had to read contracts at various points, e.g. when renting a flat, or borrowing money, or the EULAs that ship with software (and who actually reads those, right?). These contracts are generally written in “legalese”, the language of lawyers that is so concerned with being fully precise, and closing loopholes created by interpretation, that documents written in this language become obscure and the meaning obfuscated.

Just as human languages are a communication tool, so are programming languages, and we have our own form of legalese: code that’s far too concerned with implementation details, such as nested for loops, if statements, etc. Refactoring helps us move away from this, but where should we head? If we’re writing new code, how can we best express ourselves in the code we write?

#3. WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE WITH PARTICIPANTS?

Creativity is an important part of my life: I play the bassoon to a high standard and recently started singing. As well as music, I enjoy cooking, and working with chocolate; photography; and losing myself in a good book. William Boyd is a favourite author, and having recently enjoyed The Hunger Games series, I’m continuing my dystopian fiction streak with the Divergent series.

Similar to the Craftsmanship metaphor for software, I like collecting “real-life” examples of software delivery ideas. Ask me about minimum viable cathedrals, or the early Sputnik launches.

I’m super-excited about Star Wars: Rogue One!

Want to join Alastair and many more software crafters from around Europe?

Join I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016!