Northeast Scala Symposium
2023

Justin du Coeur, AKA Mark Waks

I'm a second-generation programmer, starting out on my father's PDP-8 back in the mid-70s, and I've been a language geek ever since, working professionally in everything from LISP to Ada to assembly to C# to JavaScript to C++ to (heaven help me) COBOL, and pretty much everything in between. I picked up Scala back in 2007 (after trying to build a company in Java and winding up in a rage over its limitations); I've been working in Scala full-time since 2012. I've been doing "light FP" since picking up the style from Ruby around 2002, but am just now getting into the pure stuff. During the day, I work at Artima, doing Scala training and consulting and helping with ScalaTest. In my spare time, I'm the CEO and Architect of Querki, a wiki/database hybrid designed to make it easier for individuals and communities to manage and collaborate on their data.

How Typelevel Works

Abstract - A roundtable panel discussion of members of the Typelevel Steering Committee, talking about our priorities, how things work day-to-day, and how it has changed over the years.

Full plan is TBD, including exactly who will be on this panel and who will serve as Moderator. (Justin will moderate if nobody else wants to.) We expect to take questions from the audience in the second half.

Roundtable: Improving Diversity in the Scala Community

Abstract - Like so much of the programming world today, Scala has something of an overabundance of cishet white men. This roundtable will discuss how to expand beyond that stereotype: how we might improve recruitment and retention of under-represented communities within the community, and how we can better support the folks we already have.