Bites & Bytes with Jo Pearce

Our first Bites & Bytes evening of 2018 will be hosted by the Financial Times. Food (free of charge) will be available from 6pm, the talk will begin at 6:30pm, and we'll have time afterwards for discussion and socialising.

Jo Pearce will speak on Systems of Snowflakes: Fractal architecture, emergent behaviours and beautiful code.

What simple rules constrain each snowflake to a hexagonal symmetry that we find beautiful? Does this kind of beauty tend to emerge from systems with simple rules? If so, can we constrain the growth of software into forms that are pleasing?

Can we define beautiful code?

This is a talk about overcoming choice paralysis with software engineering practices. How we can reduce the number of choices we need to make and write complex but beautiful systems that are easier to develop and easier to maintain.

Bio: Jo is a non-binary, language agnostic developer and science-Womble. They love to learn about a wide range of sciences and see if they can make good use of the things that they find. Recently they’ve been obsessed with education, particularly how we learn, which has led to mentoring colleagues, running a local code club and diving into the world of cognitive psychology.

Accessibility: There is full step-free entrance via ramps and lifts.

If you’re new to the group: We know it can be difficult to join a new social group, so we offer a Buddy Scheme to make it easier; one of our team will meet you before the event starts, and then help introduce you to the group. See our Buddy Scheme page (https://github.com/qcldn/docs/blob/master/buddy.md) for more information.

[Photo credit: Snowflake by Brian Jobson (https://www.flickr.com/photos/brianjobson/23917309952/), a public-domain image.]