We had to postpone it last month, but it’s ON!

The full details behind the idea and planned execution can be found here (HackFest – Thanks For Sharing!), but to quote one of my favorite movies of all time, “Let me sum up”: this is an unofficial, un-sponsored-by-anyone virtual gathering of friends and soon-to-be-friends just pounding away on their Java code. JavaFX? Sure! Java SE or ME Embedded? Check. Another JVM language? Bring it! Join into a planned project (Hendrik Ebbers is cooking up something special for any who’d like to contribute to it) or BYOP – Bring Your Own Project. Whether you’re diving to new depths in a familiar area or tinkering with a new idea or API, it’s all fair game.

I plan to set up a Google Hangout and keep it open for the duration. Join in for as long (or as little) as you like! Here are the details:

Begins: 1200 (noon) UTC/GMT on Saturday, November 16th
Ends: 1200 (noon) UTC/GMT on Sunday, November 17th
Where: Google Hangouts

Calendar reminder and invite will be sent to all who want to join in the fun.

Please spread the word (it’s easy, just use the Share/Save button below), and let me know if you can attend, whether for a half hour or all 24! Just email me here to “sign up” and be kept in the loop of any updates, new news, or post-HackFest (subsequent HackFest(s)?) announcements. Looking forward to hearing from you (yes, YOU!) and hanging out, learning, growing, & sharing.

Keep that (Java) code flowing!
Mark

Related Posts:

• HackFest – Postponed!
• HackFest – Thanks For Sharing!
• Join Us at JavaOne 2014!
• Quick & Dirty How-to Guide: Install GlassFish 4 on Raspberry Pi
• Getting up & running quickly with Spring Cloud Sleuth

“But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!”

From “To a Mouse” (translated), by Robert Burns

As Burns so nicely stated, it was a great plan. Still is, actually, just not for October 12th! The inaugural Thanks for Sharing Informal International HackFest will be rescheduled for a later date – sometime in November, in all likelihood – due to a last-minute assignment on a short-suspense Java EE project. When duty calls…

Anyway, please check back (or keep your eye on my Twitter feed @MkHeck) for updates. Looking forward to a good time with great friends soon, creating & seeing some fun & useful projects. Until then!

All the best,
Mark

Related Posts:

• Thanks For Sharing Informal International HackFest – A Virtual Event!
• HackFest – Thanks For Sharing!
• Join Us at JavaOne 2014!
• Quick & Dirty How-to Guide: Install GlassFish 4 on Raspberry Pi
• Getting up & running quickly with Spring Cloud Sleuth

Do you love programming in Java (or for the JVM)? Learning new things? Do you enjoy just hanging with friends and exploring new ground, sharing in discoveries small and large? If so, consider yourself invited to the first, uh, periodic Thanks For Sharing Informal International HackFest, a virtual event scheduled for October 12-13, 2013!

The Genesis

Some of us were chatting on Twitter about how fun it would be to get together and just jam at the keyboard. So I thought, why not? Yes, that’s all there is to it. Good doesn’t necessarily have to be complex.  🙂

The Idea

First of all, this isn’t a conference; it’s a hackfest, up to 24 hours of friends and soon-to-be friends around the world just hanging out and banging out code for fun. No pressure to “bring your A game”…in fact, the central theme of this particular gathering is to pick out something you’ve been planning to explore and just haven’t had the chance yet. BYOP: Bring Your Own Project! Want to know more about CSS? RESTful Web Services? Cryptography? Java SE or ME on the Raspberry Pi? Whether you want to explore JavaFX custom controls or lambdas, OpenJDK or Jetty, pick something and plan to pound away at it…all in great company.

This isn’t an official event sponsored by Oracle or anyone else; it’s just a gathering of like-minded developers. Chat a lot, say nothing at all, stay an hour or all 24. It’s up to you!

Ground “Rules”

Well first, there aren’t any. Nothing hard and fast, anyway.

But here are some suggestions, if I may:

• Sometime before October 12th, think of an idea, something fun you can work on for a few hours and gain something from the experience.
• Log into the Google Hangout whenever you can – it’s okay, we’ll be there 24 hours!
• Explore, chat, ask questions, offer helpful advice…be as social as you’d like! Or not. Quiet is fine, too. 🙂
• It would be really nice of you to post any useful code you come up with to GitHub. No pressure, don’t feel you have to do…but even code you consider very rough or “exploratory” may be helpful to someone else. And the more we all share, the more we all learn!
  

That’s it, really. Just a bunch of folks getting together to tinker with code and hang out. What are you waiting for?!?

The Details

Oh yes, the details! Here they are:

Begins: 1200 (noon) UTC/GMT on Saturday, October 12th
Ends: 1200 (noon) UTC/GMT on Sunday, October 13th
Where: Google Hangouts

Calendar reminder and invite will be sent to all who want to join in the fun.

RSVP

This is your part! If you’re interested in participating, drop me a line by clicking this link. And please share, repost, and retweet to others who might like to be a part. Come on, it’ll be fun! Join us for the first Informal, International HackFest…and Thanks For Sharing.  😀

All the best,
Mark
Mark at TheHecklers dot org
Mark dot Heckler at Gmail dot com
or click here for public keys to send a message via PGP!

See you at the HackFest!

Related Posts:

• Thanks For Sharing Informal International HackFest – A Virtual Event!
• HackFest – Postponed!
• Join Us at JavaOne 2014!
• Quick & Dirty How-to Guide: Install GlassFish 4 on Raspberry Pi
• Getting up & running quickly with Spring Cloud Sleuth