Kenneth Kousen
Northern Virginia Software Symposium
Reston · April 25 - 27, 2014
President, Kousen IT, Inc.
Ken Kousen is a Java Champion, several time JavaOne Rock Star, and a Grails Rock Star. He is the author of the Pragmatic Library books “Mockito Made Clear” and “Help Your Boss Help You,” the O'Reilly books “Kotlin Cookbook”, “Modern Java Recipes”, and “Gradle Recipes for Android”, and the Manning book “Making Java Groovy”. He also has recorded over a dozen video courses for the O'Reilly Learning Platform, covering topics related to Android, Spring, Java, Groovy, Grails, and Gradle.
His academic background include BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from M.I.T., an MA and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton, and an MS in Computer Science from R.P.I. He is currently President of Kousen IT, Inc., based in Connecticut.
Presentations
Basic Android I
The basics of developing for the Android platform will be explored, from setting up the SDK to using the Android Studio IDE and the generated Gradle build files. No previous experience is required, other than a basic knowledge of Java.
Basic Android II
Building on the the previous talk, we'll add intents, customized layouts for alternative configurations, talk about the activity lifecycle, use logging, and more.
Advanced Android I
This session will move beyond the basics cover Android persistence mechanisms, accessing RESTful web services, and more. We'll look at shared preferences, basic file I/O, and the Sqlite database. We'll also show how to operate off of the UI thread to access data from remote servers.
Making Java Groovy
Groovy isn't designed to replace Java – it just makes Java cleaner and easier to develop. This presentation will look at various tasks Java developers need to do and demonstrate ways Groovy can help.
Groovy Tips and Tricks
Groovy has a very easy learning curve for Java developers, so many people become Groovy users without realizing all it can do. This presentation will examine features of Groovy that can make your life easier once you're past the initial adoption stage.
Spock Workshop
The Spock framework brings simple, elegant testing to Java and Groovy projects. It integrates cleanly with JUnit, so Spock tests can be integrated as part of an existing test suite. Spock also includes an embedded mocking framework that can be used right away.
Spock Workshop
The Spock framework brings simple, elegant testing to Java and Groovy projects. It integrates cleanly with JUnit, so Spock tests can be integrated as part of an existing test suite. Spock also includes an embedded mocking framework that can be used right away.
Beyond Managing Your Manager
This is a revised and updated version of the previous talk, with current thinking from practice and the literature. The talk presents why conflicts with your manager are inevitable based on differences in priorities and perspectives, and how to plan for them. The goal is to show you how to build the loyalty relationship that allows you to get what you need when you need it.
Bayes' Rule Says You'll Attend This Talk
Statistics is hot lately, due in part to the easy availability of large data sets and the successes of people like Nate Silver. These aren't your father's statistics, however. A quiet revolution has swept through the field, shifting it from traditional frequentist methods toward a more Bayesian approach. This talk will discuss Bayes' Theorem and show you how to do simple, back-of-the-envelope calculations to apply it to a wide variety of problems.