London Scala Talks: Dave Smith and Paul Matthews

🎉 The London Scala User Group is having a creative kickoff! 🎉
Come along to our year's first London Scala Talks! This month, we'll be hearing from Dave Smith on the Indigo game engine and Paul Matthews on his experiments in sounds with Scala.js. Whether you're a complete beginner to creative coding or an experienced Scala tinkerer, there's plenty to enjoy. We look forward to seeing you!
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*Agenda*
6:15pm - 🍻 Doors open. Come along and grab a drink!
6:45pm - 🗣️ Dave Smith: Loveable Scala Rogues
7:25pm - 🍕 Intermission: Join us for some free food and drinks! Vegan, vegetarian and gluten free options are provided. Let us know if you'd like something special - we'd be happy to accommodate.
8:00pm - 🗣️ Paul Matthews: Sounds of Scala.js
8:45pm - 🍻 Join us for drinks and discuss the talks!
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🗣️ Dave Smith: Loveable Scala Rogues
Tired of shovelling strings of data from one end of the internet to the other?
Want to use Scala to delight and entertain your friends and family?
You should try game development!
...but how does a Scala functional programmer get started making games?
In this talk we will bootstrap you into your next all-consuming hobby. We'll neatly side-step the scary problems of art and game design, and guide you into the fun and challenging coding possibilities of building your first game.
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⭐ Dave Smith ⭐
Dave accidentally became a backend Scala developer in 2012, and has been trying to return to the frontend ever since. By insisting on dragging Scala and Scala.js with him, success levels in this endeavour have been dubious at best. He's best known as the maintainer of [Indigo](https://github.com/PurpleKingdomGames/indigo), a Scala.js game engine, and [Tyrian](https://github.com/PurpleKingdomGames/tyrian), and Elm-inspired Scala.js web framework.
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🗣️ Paul Matthews: Sounds of Scala.js
This talk follows on from a previous talk 'Sounds of Structure' which I delivered at ScalaDays Madrid 2023 where I discussed modelling music with Algebraic Data Types. Sounds of Scala.js will focus more on Audio in using Scala.js and the web audio api to play audio samples and synthesizers. The talk will cover the following:

• Wrapping a JavaScript music and audio library with Scala.js
• Exploring the Web Audio API
• Building a Scala.js synthesizer
• Me pushing buttons on my computer and making a plethora of sounds (from the computer)

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⭐ Paul Matthews ⭐
I’m currently a backend Scala developer at ClearScore with a focus on functional programming and with backend and frontend experience using Java, Typescript, Angular, React/React-Native, Linux, AWS Cloud, Terraform, IaC.

I completed a BSc in Computer Science at the Uni of Hertfordshire in 2020 with first class honours and prior to this have a background in the music industry as a signed recording artist, record producer and audio engineer with credits including number 1 chart positions and platinum and gold sales.
My final university dissertation project was a data mining driven hit song prediction application which, after years as a musician, I undertook to ultimately prove that music is magical and you can’t predict a hit song. The data collected however suggested differently and the final application was able to successfully classify some hit songs with a classification rate of 65% using a model trained on 80 one-hit wonders and their 80 accompanying follow-up commercial disappointments. I’m happy to discuss this at length anytime.
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If you can't make it in person, you can register for the webinar at https://thetradedesk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kbaYIVe1SFamcnQfvQtFZA.
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