Abstract: Musical interaction and games have long been ignored by the mainstream of engineering, perhaps considered as unworthy of serious attention. On the contrary, these applications pose serious design challenges and present important opportunties to test core technologies, with implications to a broad range of other activities. Examples of such technologies, motivated by the needs of music and games, include video tracking systems for identifying body pose and position, low-cost accelerometers with efficient gesture recognition algorithms, low-latency network transport protocols, high-fidelity spatilized audio, and advanced video rendering. This talk illustrates the development of some of these core technologies along with their associated research challenges and implications to future applications.

Dr. Jeremy Cooperstock – Music and Games: How Fun Applications Stimulate Core Technologies from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Follow along with the slides: cusec.net/archives/2008/jeff_atwood.pdf

Jeff Atwood – Is Writing More Important Than Programming? from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Abstract: Programming, like all writing, is just another form of communication. Writing code that the compiler understands is easy. Writing code that other people understand is far more difficult. And that’s assuming you’re persuasive enough to convince other people that your code, in a world positively overflowing with free code, is worth looking at in the first place. Good luck. You’re gonna need it. History books are written by the winners and the winners in the software industry were those whose voices were heard over the din. Code speaks, but writing– for machines and the people who love them– speaks loudest of all.

A tale of suspense, intrigue, corporate greed, and the stupidity of an authorization mechanism that isn’t turing complete. With code.

Zed Shaw – The ACL is Dead from CUSEC on Vimeo.

And remember, if you’re a student you can still take advantage of the early-bird registration price.

Accompanying slides: http://cusec.net/archives/2008/jeffrey_ullman.pdf

Abstract: Some of the most profound ways in which the Web changes our lives would not have happened without a heavy dose of computer-science theory. PageRank, and how it makes Google work, is a well-known example, but there are many others. We shall explore briefly some of the interesting algorithms, such as PageRank variants, minhashing, and locality-sensitive hashing that have given us surprising capabilities.

Dr. Jeffrey Ullman – When Theory Matters from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Accompanying slides: http://cusec.net/archives/2008/peter_grogono.pdf

Dr. Peter Grogono – Living with Concurrency from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Biography: Dr. Peter Grogono is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Concordia University. Before entering the groves of academe, he developed software in a variety of application domains, including pattern recognition, operating systems, highway construction, electronic music, games, and accounting. His principal interest is in tools that help programmers to efficiently produce high-quality software, especially programming languages and development environments. He has given keynotes at four previous CUSECs.

Abstract: Many universities have introduced undergraduate software engineering degrees during the last decade. Are they doing a good job? Is industry getting what it needs? Most current degree programs are doing well for now, but the industry is changing fast, and universities must keep up with it. Herb Sutter says that the “next software revolution” will be about concurrency. Is industry ready for it? Are universities ready for it? Objects, aspects, and concurrency will make a very rich mixture – perhaps too rich. Effective use of new hardware will require drastic change: perhaps even a new programming paradigm. We will outline a modest proposal.

Jon Udell – Hacking the Noosphere from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Abstract: We learn, teach, and work in an increasingly connected world. Computer and information sciences supply the raw connectivity. But it’s people, interacting on networks, in information-rich contexts, who weave the fabric of knowledge and action. To empower them, we need to add a social dimension to our engineering practice.

Biography: Jon Udell is an author, information architect, software developer, and new media innovator. His 1999 book, Practical Internet Groupware, helped lay the foundation for what we now call social software. Udell has been a software developer at Lotus, was BYTE Magazine’s executive editor and Web maven, and has worked as an independent consultant.

A hands-on thinker, Udell’s analysis of industry trends has always been informed by his own ongoing experiments with software, information architecture, and new media.

From 2002 to 2006 he was InfoWorld’s lead analyst, author of the weekly Strategic Developer column, and blogger-in-chief. During his InfoWorld tenure he also produced a monthly series of screencasts about software, and a weekly series of audio interviews with innovators — which now continues at ITConversations.

In January 2007 he joined Microsoft as a technical evangelist. In his new role he’ll continue to explore and explain a broad portfolio of technologies, both inside and outside Microsoft. He aims to build bridges not only within the technical community but also, and crucially, across the chasm that divides elite technologists from everybody else.

Presentation Slides (pdf)

Sylvain Carle – We Didn’t Start the Fire from CUSEC on Vimeo.

Tim Bray managed the Oxford English Dictionary project at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada in 1987–1989, co-founded Open Text Corporation in 1989, launched one of the first public web search engines in 1995, co-invented XML 1.0 and co-edited “Namespaces in XML” between 1996 and 1999, founded Antarctica Systems in 1999, and served as a Tim Berners-Lee appointee on the W3C Technical Architecture Group in 2002–2004. Currently, he serves as Director of Web Technologies at Sun Microsystems, publishes a popular weblog, and co-chairs the IETF AtomPub Working Group. [From Oram & Wilson’s “Beautiful Code”, 2007]

Tim Bray – Hard Problems in Network Computing from CUSEC on Vimeo

Inc Magazine is the world’s leading entrepreneurship magazine. In this month’s cover story, they’ve profiled some of America’s top young entrepreneurs. People like Leah Culver, for example, a computer science grad from the University of Minnesota.

The New York Times called Leah’s startup, Pownce, “the hottest startup in Silicon Valley.” It even has its own Wikipedia page. Read all about it, because…

Leah Culver will be at CUSEC 2009!

Maybe you haven’t heard of Dan Ingalls yet. Perhaps you’ve only just returned from a 30-year Spirit Journey. Perhaps you’ve been living in the Canopy Layer of the Amazonian Rain Forest without access to the internet. I don’t care. Well, you have the internet now, so let’s get started!

Try Wikipedia. Oh yes, he has a Wikipedia page. Better yet, it’s not a stub. 

Have you heard of Object-Oriented Programming? He invented it with Alan Kay. How about Smalltalk? He was Smalltalk for years.

Ingalls is one of the world’s most influential software engineers, ever. Want to learn from the best? CUSEC 2009 is there for you. It will be the best conference for software engineers, ever.

Dan Ingalls will speak at CUSEC 2009. Boo-ya.