Kenneth Kousen
ÜberConf
Denver · July 17 - 20, 2018
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
Mental Bookmarks and the Fractal Nature of Success
Good discussions are supposed to diverge from their intended path. Free association is a feature, not a bug, and helps you see new connections between ideas. Without structure, however, it can be difficult to add context to new ideas and understand how they relate to more immediate problems. This talk discusses the technique of mental bookmarks – how to remember where you were when a discussion diverged. In addition to giving you a reputation for having an amazing memory, the skill also helps with personal awareness in general.
Android Development, Part 1
There are currently over two billion Android devices in the world, ranging from phones to tablets to wearables to automotive apps. Each of them supports development using the open source Android operating system. This talk will show how to create an Android project, work with Activities and Intents, and work with the underlying Gradle build system.
Android Development, Part 2
Building on Part 1, this talk will add REST capabilities, discuss how to work with SQL databases, and perform asynchronous methods in Android.
Accelerated Gradle
The Gradle build tool has been adopted by the vast majority of open source projects and is growing rapidly in industry as well. Gradle provides a powerful DSL for customizing and managing your build, with flexible configuration features and sophisticated dependency management. Gradle is also actively supported by a commercial entity, and in partnership with companies like Netflix and LinkedIn is currently being optimized for performance.
Accelerated Gradle
The Gradle build tool has been adopted by the vast majority of open source projects and is growing rapidly in industry as well. Gradle provides a powerful DSL for customizing and managing your build, with flexible configuration features and sophisticated dependency management. Gradle is also actively supported by a commercial entity, and in partnership with companies like Netflix and LinkedIn is currently being optimized for performance.
Kotlin: Safe, Pragmatic Interoperability on the JVM
Kotlin is a practical language designed for the JVM. It focuses on pragmatism and safety, with an emphasis on interoperability and tool support. Kotlin is statically typed and includes null checks in the type system itself. The language runs anywhere Java does, from microservices to Android apps. This workshop will show how to use Kotlin to simplify anything you originally planned to do in Java.
Kotlin: Safe, Pragmatic Interoperability on the JVM
Kotlin is a practical language designed for the JVM. It focuses on pragmatism and safety, with an emphasis on interoperability and tool support. Kotlin is statically typed and includes null checks in the type system itself. The language runs anywhere Java does, from microservices to Android apps. This workshop will show how to use Kotlin to simplify anything you originally planned to do in Java.
Gradle In Depth
Gradle is the build tool of choice in the open source world, and rapidly becoming the standard in industry as well. Anyone who works with Gradle on a Java project knows the basics of the Java plugin and how to write simple tasks in Groovy. Gradle can do much more, however. This talk will demonstrate how to write your own custom task classes and how to create Gradle plugins from them. Other Gradle features will be demonstrated as well, including file manipulation, incremental builds, generating the Grade wrapper, and resolving conflicts in dependencies.