The Object Technology User Group

OTUG is an umbrella user group spanning languages, methods, tools, and technologies for the software development community in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area.

OTUG exists to foster an environment for professional discussion and education pertaining to software development ecosystems; i.e., software development organizations and the contexts in which they operate.

Meetings are generally held on the third Tuesday of each month and are a mix of general and special interest discussion, open space, fishbowl and panel sessions, with periodic presentations by featured speakers.

Meetings are open to anyone with an interest in software development. You become a "member" simply by attending and participating. OTUG is a volunteer organization and we welcome your active involvement.

Next Meeting

Object Technology Users Group, MN

presents an evening with Distinguished Speaker

Richard P Gabriel, (Poet and Scientist)

speaking on Ultra-Largescale-Systems

February 09, 2009; 5-9pm @ the OEC auditorium_, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN_

"Black Out"
A tavern in Old Europe. Late in the evening. Participants at a
psychology conference chat.

Canadian: In fact I mostly go to computer science conferences.
American: Really, is there anything interesting to discuss?
C: Well, sometimes there is. I have high hopes for this conference
called "Onward!".
A: What is it about?
C: All kinds of things. It was started by Richard Gabriel, and he...
A: Who?
C: Gabriel.
A: You mean Richard Gabriel the poet???

Curtain.

Richard P. Gabriel received a PhD in Computer Sciencefrom Stanford University in 1981, and an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College in 1998. He has been a researcher at Stanford University, company president and Chief Technical Officer at Lucid, Inc., vice president of Development at Parc Place-Digitalk, a management consultant for several startups, a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, and Consulting Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University.
He is a Distinguished Engineer at IBM Research, looking into the architecture, design, and implementation of extraordinarily large, self-sustaining systems as well as development techniques for building them. Until recently he was President of the Hillside Group, a nonprofit that nurtures the software patterns community by holding conferences, publishing books, and awarding scholarships. He is on Hillside's Board of Directors.

He helped design and implement a variety of dialects of Lisp. He is author of four books("Performance and Evaluation of Lisp Systems," MIT Press; "Patterns of Software: Tales from the Software Community," Oxford University Press; "Writers' Workshops and the Work of Making Things," Addison-Wesley Press; and "Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy," Morgan Kaufmann), and a poetry chapbook ("Drive On," Hollyridge Press), with two books of poetry in preparation: "Leaf of my Puzzled Desire" and "Drive On." He has published more than 100 scientific, technical, and semi-popular papers, articles, and essays on computing. He has won several awards, including the AAAI/ACM Allen Newell Award.

He is the lead guitarist in a rock 'n' roll band and a poet.

Ultra-Largescale-Systems, The software challenge of the future

Richard Gabriel will enthrall us with the vision of Ultra Largescale Systems - systems that are immense in scale, scope and effect. He will argue why such systems will be necessary and will convince us that we will not be able to achieve the vision with current tools, techniques and thinking. He will paint a picture of how we will have to learn to think differently, retool and learn new techniques to build these systems of the not-too-distant future. With his storytelling and poetic skills, like many other of his successful visions in the past, Richard Gabriel is sure to deliver a riveting message to challenge your heart and brain.

Program, Place and Time:

The O'Shaughnessy Educational Center (OEC) , University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN.

Monday, February 09th, 2009 ; 5 - 9 p.m.

Cost: 20$ (cash or check); free for volunteers, students from any school with valid id and all current UST staff and faculty.

Free Event Parking:

University of St.Thomas parking is FREE from 4:30 - 10:00 p.m. in Lot H (only!) on February 9th. You do not need a UST permit to park in Lot H during this event.

Lot H is on the northeast corner of Summit Ave. and Cretin Ave.

Please RSVP president@otug.org by Monday, February 2nd, 2009 so we can better serve you.