Presentation: TweetOpening Keynote: Software Design in the 21st Century

In the last decade or so we've seen a number of new ideas added to the mix to help us effectively design our software. Patterns help us capture the solutions and rationale for using them. Refactoring allows us to alter the design of a system after the code is written. Agile methods, in particular Extreme Programming, give us a highly iterative and evolutionary approach which is particularly well suited to changing requirements and environments. Martin Fowler has been a leading voice in these techniques and will give a suite of short talks featuring various aspects about his recent thinking about how these and other developments affect our software development.

Presentation: TweetOur Responsibility to Defeat Mass Surveillance

Our talk will begin with one of the core themes of the early development of agile software - that those involved in software development should take a more collaborative role, not just building software but helping to determine how software can help its users. We believe that this engagement requires greater knowledge of a user’s goals and also responsibility for the user’s welfare and our impact on the world. While the internet has brought great benefits in communication, it’s also led to an unprecedented opportunity for mass surveillance, both by states and private corporations. We’ll discuss how defeating such surveillance requires greater security in our communication, reversing recent centralization, and attention to user experience. For the last year Erik has been leading a team to apply these principles to email. We will explain why the argument of “I have nothing to hide” is flawed and why it is our our responsibility to take up this task.