Async Programming Techniques

Track: Functional Programming
Skill Level: Beginner
Room: Ballroom C
Time Slot: Thu 3/12, 2:30 PM
Tags: java , mobile , async programming , javascript
Presentation Link
Abstract

Hey! You. It’s time to add a few skills to your toolbelt. You may be safely living in the world of server MVCs and ORMs, but sooner or later, it’s going to be time to deal with the client-side beast….

The asynchronous beast. 1, 2, 3 will become 1, 3, 2. Code inside harmless little functions will get called sometime you don’t even know about, and everything you knew about the order of programming will go out the window.

Your mind will melt. And you will drink your 4th Coke of the afternoon, only to be unable to sit still.

Don’t let this happen. Come to this presentation and learn about asynchronous programming.

You’ve probably seen a peek of asynchronous code: handing off “functions” to ajax calls that magically get called, or wiring up jQuery handlers that will call a function when a link is clicked. If you ever had to make a second, and a third, and then a fourth ajax call from either of those callbacks, you know what I’m talking about. It’s commonly referred to as “callback hell”, and it’s unfortunately easy to find your way there.

In this presentation, we’ll cover various techniques for dealing with asynchronous programming. Spanning Android, iOS and Javascript, we’ll go over patterns to solve common client problems, pitfalls of each and great libraries on each platform.

You’ll come away with a heavier toolbelt, and some tidbits lodged deep into your brain that will fire off the next time you start to head down towards the dreaded callback hell.

Blake Byrnes

Blake Byrnes is a founding partner and CTO of BlueFletch, a 25-person boutique consulting firm focused on mobile solutions. Blake has a background architecting big web systems and hands-on experience with the major mobile platforms. He has built large scale mobile solutions for big companies and brought product concepts to life for startups. Blake has started three companies in the past seven years. Prior to BlueFletch, he was founder and CEO of CrowdMind, co-founder of Less Meeting and managed teams as a consultant with Accenture. He graduated from the Duke University with a degree in Computer Science.