September 2024 - PHP & Golang: the odd couple & Microservices: a decade of pain

Join us for our upcoming meetup on Thursday, 12th of September, 2024, at 7pm at the Waterford Treasures Museum (X91 K10E). Dive into an evening of insightful talks, networking, food, drinks, and the chance to win spot prizes as we explore groundbreaking topics in the world of technology and innovation.

Speaker 1: Donal McCarthy from Bluefin Payment Systems

Donal McCarthy, the CTO at Bluefin, is a seasoned leader in the payments and fintech industry, driving technological innovation and strategic development. With a solid foundation in software development and over 20 years of experience, Donal holds a MSc in Computing (Communications Software) from WIT/SETU. Throughout his career, he has been instrumental in developing and implementing cutting-edge payment solutions that enhance security and efficiency. At Bluefin, Donal's focus is on leveraging his extensive expertise to guide the company’s technology strategy, ensuring the delivery of robust, scalable, and secure payment platforms.

Tech Talk: PHP & Golang: The Odd Couple

In his talk, Donal will discuss how his team is modernising one of Bluefin's platforms using RoadRunner, an innovative PHP application server, load balancer, and process manager written in Golang. This session will cover the synergy between PHP's dynamic capabilities and Golang's performance-oriented, concurrent programming model.

He will discuss the architecture of RoadRunner, its setup, its features, and how it enhances the performance of PHP applications. He will demonstrate how a single request can be processed using a combination of Golang and PHP.

The talk aims to equip web developers, system architects, and DevOps professionals with the knowledge to leverage RoadRunner in their projects, improving scalability and operational efficiency.

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Speaker 2: Richard Rodger from Voxgig

Richard Rodger, the founder and CEO of voxgig, is dedicated to merging exceptional software development with practical business solutions. A coder at heart, Richard channels his deep understanding of technology into solving complex business challenges. Under his leadership, voxgig has introduced innovative products, including a comprehensive event management system, a popular weekly newsletter for tech speakers, and specialized training courses in public speaking. Richard is also an accomplished author, with his latest book, The Tao of Microservices, published by Manning, and he shares his entrepreneurial insights through his weekly 'Startup Diary' column in the Irish Independent.

Tech Talk: Microservices: a decade of pain

Microservices are a high-risk, high-reward architecture. When you get them right, they let you move fast and not break anything. When you get them wrong, it’s much much worse than a spaghetti-code monolith. Over the last ten years, I’ve learnt the hard way how to get microservices wrong - this talk will go into the details! I think we just about know what we’re doing now that the hype has worn off, and we’re left with a practical architecture choice. You just have to know what you’re getting yourself into.