C4[2], scheduled for September 5-7 2008, is now open. Register now. Update: C4[2] sold out inside 40 hours.

Speakers

Alex Payne: Why Scala? How a serial language enthusiast settled down with a nice Swiss language

Alex Payne spent over a year researching the best language with which to approach the architectural challenges at Twitter, the popular social messaging platform on which he works. In this talk, he’ll share for the first time in public why he settled on Scala. Learn about Scala’s winning combination of object-oriented and functional programming, its robust concurrency model, and other sexy features. Get a quick tour of the Scala community, including standout apps and emerging best practices. Find out why Scala sets the standard for next generation languages. Even if you’re happy with your language toolbox, you’ll learn something from Scala you want to take back to your daily coding.

Brent Simmons: On Going Free

NewsGator dropped a bombshell on the feed reader market by making the Brent’s market-leading NetNewsWire free of charge. Brent will talk about what the transition was like and the mistakes he made with NetNewsWire Touch 1.0.

Buzz Andersen: Apple to Indie

Buzz started out as an indie developer in Colorado, only to be lured to Cupertino for a spell. He’s since returned to indiehood, and is eager to share with us about life after Apple.

Craig Hockenberry: IPHONE ITS NOT A FRICKEN MINATURE LAPTOP OK

Follow Craig on a journey from DOS to a touch-based UI, learn about current best practices for iPhone development, and start to think about where this technology will take us in the future. Effective use of the CAPS LOCK key may also be discussed.

Mike Lee: Pimp My App

After a while at Delicious Monster, Mike has gone on to co-found Tapulous, which got in early on the iPhone App Store game with three apps. Mike will take a volunteer (or two) with a preferably shipping Mac or iPhone app. He’ll give it a complete makeover, from interface and interaction to having a graphic artist create new assets for it. He’ll unveil the new design over the course of his talk.

Rich Siegel: Red Meat and Gin

Rich Siegel opened the doors of Bare Bones Software 15 years ago, and has turned the company into one of the longest-running indie Mac shops in history. He’ll share some of the lessons he learned along the way, and offer advice on how to make it big while staying small. And he promises not to yell at any of you #&@$ kids to get off of his lawn. This time.

Richard Hipp: SELECT * FROM SQLite_internals

Hidden under the hood, SQLite powers modern software’s data storage needs. It’s built into each Mac, iPhone and copies of Firefox, PHP and Skype. Richard – SQLite’s original author – will talk about the creation and evolution of SQLite, its internals, its testing system, the license controversy and common client mistakes.

Thomas Ptacek: Everything an indie Mac developer needs to know about software security but didn’t want to pay consultants to find out

Thomas has been in the security ring for over a decade, and can spot your exploitable code five miles away before you’ve even written it. He’ll provide a basic backgrounder on writing secure applications that every indie developer should know.

Troy Gaul: Lightroom Exposed

In my mind, Lightroom is Adobe’s most interesting product. A fairly new product, version 2 just shipped – Adobe’s first 64-bit application. Troy is Lightroom’s lead and will talk about its evolution and unconventional architecture (large parts are written in Lua).

Wil Shipley: Delicious Panel

Wil leads this year’s panel discussion. He’s threatening to bring booze and custom software. Enough said.

Iron Coder Live: Engineer Idol

Come show off your mad coding skillz. I’ll give you an API and theme to code against. You’ll present your wicked app live in front of all attendees. The audience will loudly judge you. This year the API is Core Location and the theme is paranoia.

And of course expect the standard C4 fare: lunch, dinner, late night poolside parties and Gino’s East Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.

Registration

Register here.

C4[2] costs $512 including meals and is held in downtown Chicago. Strive to arrive at the hotel by Fri Sep 5 at 5:30 pm. It all comes to an end Sun Sep 7 around 4 pm.

The hotel (which I ask that you stay at if at all possible) runs ~$190/night until the group block runs out. Update: The hotel block is sold out. Feel free to book your room any way you'd like. Here's a hotels.com starter link.

Scholarship

Three lucky students will receive free admission to C4. Here’s how it works:

• Students: register by sending your name, email address, website if you have one, and why you want to attend C4 (in Markdown format) to c4@redshed.net. (View last year’s essays here and the winners here.)
• C4 attendees will be given a list of potentials and three votes to spend.
• The three top-voted students receive free admission.

If you’d like to sponsor an additional scholarship slot for $512, toss me an email.

Friday, August 01, 2008
12:00 AM