Last night I went to my local, Chicago, Java User Group and I had a great time. I saw the Speaker Jim Weaver present the new changes within Java 8. He was an incredibly well prepared and highly knowledgeable individual on the subject. He answered my questions, and anticipated for them.
I did something incredibly unorthodox for someone sitting in a technical talk. I took lots notes with paper and pen. That helped me to come up with questions and to save them for later. It was nearly as if I was back in college, but this time I had a full concentration on the subject material without the pressure to consume the material. However, something stuck out. Very few people asked questions, Mr. Weaver clearly encouraged questions and even bribed people. However, very few seemed to be interested in asking questions. I found this to be incredibly odd. I cannot tell if it’s the “midwest attitude”: Its been observed that midwesterners will tend to be silent during the entire presentation and then ask questions later. Who knows, it could have been the audiences’ tired-ness after work. The lack of questions gives give appearance of the lack of engagement.
For a brief introduction to the new changes to Java 8, I feel like I am prepared to go through a few samples, and maybe able to make a few extensions to the Stream API.