Workshops on Java and the Database

On February 13th / 14th, 42 hosted a workshop aimed at teaching Java developers more about applications working with databases. The workshop was presented by Ron Smeets, our resident database guru. The topics ranged from RDBMS architecture, to DDL and touched on performance and scalability. Students hacked away at assignments in order to gain a deeper understanding of the subject material.

Last year, we did a number of workshops on Frontend Development, hosted by Lodewijk Schutte. On the basis of that success, a similar run is done for Backend Development. This was the first workshop out of a series of five. The focus is primarily on the database architecture and mainly the aspects that should interest Java developers. Workshop two will be about Object-Relational Mapping (ORM), on the basis of JPA. Three is about transactions and four is about performance. The last workshop will be a capstone that integrates all concepts.

At 42, we believe that our developers have the responsibility to try to understand the partners on the other side, the builders of the software that needs to be integrated with. A Java developer that knows only Java is of limited value—we cultivate developers with an interest for, experience in and knowledge of the ‘other side’, be it visually oriented, such as HTML / CSS / JavaScript or more system-integration oriented, such as databases, SAP or APIs. We are convinced that it is hard to integrate with parties we do not understand, or whoms world view we cannot relate to. In this way developers of 42 have become valuable linking pins in many development projects.