Next Free Event – Lego XP Game: King’s College London – Monday February 6th

The Graduate Developer Community’s next free event is – ‘Lego XP Game: King’s College London’ on Monday 6th February at 6pm.

Please see link for details and to sign up – http://bit.ly/yx3sZy

ThoughtWorks will be running a hands-on game – using lego to simulate software delivery – giving you an insight to the working dynamics of an Agile development team.

The session is aimed at beginners to Agile as well as those with experience of Agile and XP. You will gain a useful understanding of the processes (XP iterations, feedback, customer involvement, stories) and some of the real world challenges frequently faced in adopting Agile.

No programming experience is required – the session is strongly recommended for anyone considering a career in software development regardless of what role you are interested in.

Thoughtworks are a leading international consultancy, well known throughout the industry for being at the cutting edge of technology and development practices. The Lego game is widely used by ThoughtWorkers to demonstrate practices to clients as well as internally for training.

You can find out more about ThoughtWorks by visiting us online and following us on twitter @TWEuropeGrads

Please see link for details and to sign up – http://bit.ly/yx3sZy

Round Up: The London Developer Sessions – Tuesday 17th January

Hi All,

This week we had our Developer Session social event – http://www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/events/38847402/.
The event ran from 6.30 till 10.00 and went really well – the free food and drinks were very welcome indeed so thanks to Atlassian for that.

Here is the event page – Some great feedback already, but if you have something else to say then please add it as a comment here – http://www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/events/38847402/

As always, it was a very successful evening with a lot of fun had by all. The Developer Sessions are a great chance for socialising and networking – developers from all over London come to discuss the latest cutting edge techs, talk about personal projects and problems they are facing.

Also thanks to all of our greeters, they really did help ensure the night went by smoothly. There is a constant opportunity to take part in these events so do please let us know if you would like to be involved next time.

A special thanks goes out to everyone that made it out the other night. We are one of the most active Java User Groups in Europe and we’re keen to stay that way, so if you have any feedback at all please let Martijn or myself know.

Finally, here at RecWorks, we are working with many of the best companies in London who are looking for Java developers. If you’re not happy in your current role then feel free to give us a call/email for an informal chat. We are far more interested in building long-term relationships than one off placements, but if you do feel you need a change then we would be happy to help. Please check out www.recworks.co.uk/jobs for the latest additions.

See you next time.

Free Tech book – in association with Packt Publishing – January 2012

Packt Publishing are a unique publishing company specializing in highly focused books on specific technologies and solutions – please visit their site to find out more about them: http://www.packtpub.com/

Each month we run a promotion with Packt in which GDC members will be selected at random to receive free books. This month we are offering 2 LJC members the chance to win;

First Prize Winner will receive 1 print copy of his/her choice
Runner Up Winner – 1 ecopy of his/her choice

Here are the books on offer this month, the winner will be picked at random and announced at the end of the month:

Irrlicht 1.7 Realtime 3D Engine Beginner’s Guide

Railo 3 Beginner’s Guide

Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion Beginner’s Guide

Ext JS 4 First Look

Moodle 2 for Teaching 4-9 Year Olds Beginner’s Guide

Moodle 2 Administration

To take part in the promotion all you have to do is send an email to me at bc@recworks.co.uk with your name, your book choice and the address you would like your book to be sent. Please mark ‘GDC Packt Publishing’ as the subject title.

Congratulations to Aaron J. Lang and Daniel Watkins who have both won a prize in December’s draw!

Please visit the Packt site at www.packtpub.com

Good luck,

Barry Cranford