This is not Erlang, but we're giving some love to our "functional" (eh, Lispy) Clojure brethren - in case you're interested in learning more about this excellent language! This looks terrific, so if you can make, make it!

Here's an extended description:

Join us for the next GOTO Night with Jay Fields on February 11, 2014 at ThoughtWorks. Jay will be presenting "Lessons Learned from Adopting Clojure". We will have pizza and drinks at 5:15 PM and the talk will begin at 6:00 PM. Look forward to seeing you there.

This GOTO Night is the second of a series of community events to take place from now until GOTO Chicago 2014.  The 2nd annual GOTO Chicago Conference and Trainings will take place May 20 -23. 2014. Check out the conference here: http://gotocon.com/chicago-2014/.

Lessons Learned from Adopting Clojure by Jay Fields

Presentation Abstract:

Five years ago DRW Trading was primarily a Java shop, and I was
primarily developing in Ruby. Needless to say, it wasn't a match made
in heaven. Fast forward five years, Clojure is the second most used
language in the firm, and the primary language for several teams
(including mine). Clojure wasn't the first language that I've
introduced to an organization; however, it's unquestionably the most
successful adoption I've ever been a part of. The use of Clojure has
had many impacts on the firm: culturally, politically, and
technically. My talk will discuss general ideas around language
selection and maintenance trade-offs, and specific examples of what
aspects of Clojure made it the correct choice for us.

A few highlights

- Where to first introduce a new language and your role as the
language care-taker.
- REPL driven development, putting TDD's 'rapid feedback' to shame.
- Operations impact of adding a language - i.e. get ready for some DevOps.
- Functional programming, the Lisp Advantage, and their impact on
maintainability.

Of course, no good experience report is all roses. The adoption has
seen several hurdles along the way, and I'll happily to describe those
as well.

About Jay Fields

Jay is a co-author of "Refactoring: Ruby Edition" and works as a software developer for DRW Trading. Jay has a passion for discovering and maturing innovative solutions and is a frequent conference presenter.

Jay’s website is available at www.jayfields.com and you can find him on twitter: @thejayfields