Welcome to Polyglot Programming

Big Data is at a crossroads, where Hadoop is showing its age and new compute models are emerging. NoSQL databases are adding query engines, sometimes based on SQL and NewSQL databases are bringing some measure of NoSQL performance to relational models. This talk examines these trends, focusing mostly on Hadoop today and tomorrow. I gave it at GOTO Chicago 2013. (Last updated: April 22, 2013)

The benefits of using Scalding, presented February 12 at the Chicago Hadoop User's Group (CHUG) after Paco Nathan presented on Cascading. So, my talk assumes some prior exposure to Cascading concepts. Even if you understand Cascading concepts, I recommend reading Paco's presentation first. Note that the video of the talks will posted on the CHUG site soon. (updated for Big Data Techcon 2013: April 11, 2013)

(Same talk; two different titles) I describe the MapReduce programming model and the technical limitations of the Hadoop implementation, in particular, in part because Java is the wrong tool for developing Big Data applications and middleware. Instead, we should be using Functional Programming, since we are really doing mathematics! I claim that Hadoop is the Enterprise JavaBeans of our time. (updated for Big Data Techcon 2013: April 11, 2013)

I've been doing Hadoop-related consulting for the last few years. Data analysis and processing is a perfect application of Functional Programming, yet a Java-centric, object-oriented mindset pervades that community. So, I did a 30-minute talk at the NE Scala Symposium on Why Big Data Needs to Be Functional. You can also find the video here. (last update: April 15th, 2012)

An updated version of my Strange Loop 2011 talk that looks at 5 ideas in the history of software development that were once (or still are) popular, but now are (usually) seen as obsolete (plus a "bonus" topic). This talk will also be available on the Strange Loop 2011 site and InfoQ will eventually publish the talk video. The video from CME Group Technology Conference talk will also be published soon. (last update: November 9th, 2011)

A half-day tutorial that introduces Functional Programming, why it has become important for our time, and how you can apply its ideas in almost any language. Examples are given in Java and Ruby. (last update: July 31st, 2011)

My Agile 2011 talk on why Functional Programming improves our code and makes us more agile. This talk is adapted from my tutorial discussed above.

An introduction to Scala that I often give at conferences and user groups. The PDF includes a lot of extra material that won't fit in a 50-60 minute time slot. (last update: April 15th, 2012)

The GitHub page for this talk also has the sources used for the examples. In particular, for the Akka-based Actor example at the end of the talk, see README.md.

An overview of the Akka Framework for building robust, highly concurrent servers in Java or Scala. Note: This is a web-based presentation written using S5 (with hacks). See the instructions on the GitHub page. (last update: March 19, 2010)

An argument that modern development problems benefit from a multi-paradigm and/or multi-language solution strategy. Different strategies are discussed in the contexts of example problems (last update: April 2, 2011)

This talk for January, 2012 meeting of the Chicago Hadoop User's Group introduces Hive and explains why it's a key technology in the Hadoop ecosystem, primarily because it makes it easier to transition SQL-based data warehouses to Hadoop.

How to improve your Ruby code with functional programming techniques. I gave the original version of this talk at RubyConf 2008 (video) and the "Son of" talk at Windy City Rails 2009 (video). Note: the code samples are availabe here.