News & Events

The ACM Student Chapter is presenting the first "Hot Jobs, Cool Technology" event of the semester next week:

Date: Thursday, Sept. 24
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: EE/CS 3-230
Food: Pizza

Computer Forensics - From the Class Room to the Cleanroom

The science of computer forensics plays an enormous role in today's digital world, particularly in the legal realm where every case involves electronic documents stored on myriad types of media. Criminals may believe they are too savvy to get caught, but computer forensic experts can often find evidence of misconduct (or innocence) that appears to be undetectable. Come join Chris Andrews, computer forensics expert for Kroll Ontrack, to hear how your classroom studies could take you to the cleanroom. Chris will lead a discussion on computer forensics best practices, walk through a real case study where computer forensic evidence helped solve the case, and finish up with Q & A time.

The next Twin Cities Lispers group meeting will be on August 18 at 6:00pm. The group has regular monthly meetings with various presentations on topics related to Lisp and Scheme. Most of the group members are working for local companies where they use Lisp or Scheme for their work. This is an excellent opportunity to network and connect with professionals. For information, sign up for the mailing list at http://sift.info/mailman/listinfo/tc-lispers_sift.info or visit the group webpage at http://tclispers.org/

A local group of Lispers is starting an informal Lisp interest group. Temporary web page at http://rpgoldman.real-time.com/tc-lisp.html.
If interested (Schemers are also welcome) , sign up for the mailing list at http://sift.info/mailman/listinfo/tc-lispers_sift.info.

First meeting: 9 June 2009, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CDT, Common Roots Cafe, Corner of 26th and Lyndale, Minneapolis, MN

John Maraist will talk about the NST unit testing framework for Common Lisp, which he has been developing at SIFT.

NST: A Unit Test Framework for Common Lisp
In this talk we will introduce the Lisp unit test framework NST. SIFT developed NST for internal use on a number of ongoing Lisp projects, and we believe that the system is now mature enough to release more broadly. In this talk we will review the notion of a unit test, and introduce the use of NST in Lisp project development. NST's implementation makes interesting use of a number of Lisp features --- macro expansion, compile-time execution, metaobject protocols --- and we will discuss its current implementation as well as the lessons we learned along the way.

Dust off your UML book and prove you've got the stuff to "Rise Above the [Code] Monkey" at the first annual ACM Software Design Competition. Teams of up to four students will have one week to create a system architecture, database diagram, and UI prototype for a real system submitted by a local company. Prizes include copies of Microsoft Visual Studio Professional Version, Office 2007 Ultimate, and XBox 360 Video games. For more information, visit http://acm.cs.umn.edu/SDC or contact officers [at] acm [dot] cs [dot] umn [dot] edu. This competition is sponsored by Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, 3M and Life Science Alley, Inc.

The University of Minnesota ACM Student Chapter would like to announce the second seminar in our Hot Jobs, Cool Technologies Seminar Series.

Agile Development and Agile Management
December 1, 2008, 6:30 PM
EE-CS Building, Room 2-230
Pizza and Pop Provided
Free T-shirts will be given away

This month's seminar will feature two talks. One speaker will be David Hussman, a local Agile developer, the title of whose talk will be "The Accidental Businessman and the Software Anthropologist" and who will tell us about the way agile methods and practices can pragmatically be used to produce cool software. The other speaker will be Elizabeth Psihos, Vice President of Technology at Thomson Reuters in Eagan, MN where she has recently been spearheading an effort to implement Agile methodologies across West Technology, a division of nearly a thousand developers. Ms Psihos will describe this effort in a talk entitled "Implementing Agile at Scale" in the course of which she will also touch on opportunities in this field at Thomson Reuters. Both speakers will also discuss their career paths and the exciting opportunities they see in Agile Development for soon-to-be college graduates.

These talks are relevant to all undergraduate students considering an emphasis in Software Engineering, Web Development, or other related fields. Pizza, soda, and T-shirts are provided by Thomson Reuters and will be given away to all attendees.

Nathaniel T. Schutta will be speaking about Ajax programming at 6:30 p.m. on November 17 in EE/CS Room No 3-230. Details about the talk and the speaker appear below.

Abstract

The only constant in software is change, the only certainty an evolving landscape. To some school marks the end of education, but to stay competitive, you'll find yourself relying on many of the skills mastered at the U. Of course the real world isn't quite like school - but that isn't always such a bad thing. In this talk, we'll look back on the path that's lead to the here and now, dissect a typical day and prognosticate on what the future might hold.

Synopsis of the Speaker

Nathaniel T. Schutta is a senior software engineer focussed on making usable applications. A proponent of polyglot programming, Nate has written two books on Ajax and speaks regularly at various No Fluff Just Stuff symposia, universities, and Java user groups. In addition to his day job, Nate is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota where he teaches students to embrace dynamic languages.

Nate maintains a web page at http://ntschutta.com/jat/.

The ACM Student Chapter and the Computer Science Department will be a host site for the 2008 ACM North Central North America region programming contest on Saturday, November 15. The University of Minnesota will have 16 three-person teams from four universities, including 7 U of M teams. These teams will be among the nearly 200 teams in the five state/two Canadian province region competing for a chance to attend the 2009 world finals in Stockholm, Sweden.

The contest will be held in the EE/CS building atrium from 12:30 to 5:30. You are welcome to stop by and see what a programming contest is like - it's more exciting than you may think! Also, we still need volunteers to help run the contest. If you would like to help, please come to the ACM room (2-204) at 10:00 AM on Saturday morning.