Hello Friends,

I am excited to announce that Stuart Halloway, author of the book "Programming Clojure", popular speaker on the NFJS circuit and CEO of ThinkRelevance Inc.will be talking to us about Clojure. Stuart is a very popular speaker, so we should be thankful to David Hussman to make this event possible ( twisting Stuart's arm).

Please mark your calendars : Evening, July 21st, Tuesday, 2009. This will be a paid event. Usual discounts to students, otug speakers, faculty and those currently un-employed will be offered. My goal is to break-even and yet keep the entrance fee as low as possible without compromising quality. The planning committee is working out the details and will announce to this group as progress is made. Our website http://otug.org will be updated as progress is made. The location most probably will be in the premises of our gracious host: University of Stthomas/Graduate Programs in Software. We are trying to locate and reserve a room/hall as I write this note.

http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/3ginv9lc5pfas86ogd4ub525a8%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics is the OTUG Google calendar which you can subscribe to.

To make this event successful, I will need some help from each one of you: a little goes a long way. In other words if you are reading this email, then please think about helping in whatever way you can. And, as you will see, it does not take much.

• Plan on attending. This talk is a result of the group's desire to get exposed to the functional way of thinking. Clojure is a very good candidate for introducing that method. Almost every developer/architect in the software world should attend.
• Bring a friend. If you are birds of the same feather, then flock together.
  
• Spread the word. Do your friends and colleagues a favor by informing them about this talk.
  
• Sponsor or find a Sponsor.  Sponsorships will help offset the costs which in turn will help us do a better job as well as lower the fees for attending. 
• Get involved in the organization of this event. Its amazing how many cool people you will meet ( not including myself ) when helping out. For e.g. you may want to pick the speaker up. Imagine having a captive speaker giving you undivided attention. FREE! Same if you want to drop him. Or you can treat him for lunch or dinner and really figure out Clojure secrets. And...you get the idea. So, contact me if you want to help. Hurry... only limited slots available!  Early birds get the juiciest choices!...
  

Abstract - In recent years, the Java community has embraced a variety of new languages that target the JVM, but also offer productivity advantages over traditional Java coding.

One of the most interesting of these languages is Clojure, a "Lisp unconstrained by backward compatibility." In this talk, you will see why Clojure deserves serious consideration as the next big JVM language:

• Clojure provides all the you know and love from dynamic languages such as Ruby and Python.
• Clojure's sequence library turns the tables on OO, providing a powerful set of verbs that can work with a small, standard set of nouns.
• Clojure includes Lisp's signature feature: Treating code as data through macros.
• Clojure's emphasis on immutability and support for software transactional memory make it a viable option for taking advantage of massively parallel hardware.

Speaker Bio - Stuart Dabbs Halloway is a co-founder of Relevance, Inc. Stuart is the author of Programming Clojure, Component Development for the Java Platform and Rails for Java Developers. Stuart regularly speaks at industry events including the No Fluff, Just Stuff Java Symposiums, the Pragmatic Studio, RubyConf, and RailsConf.