This month we have two fantastic talks from Samathy Barratt and Kate Bolin. Plus we've got free food and drinks provided at the event thanks to our sponsors.

Everyone is welcome and there are no tickets required. Just turn up - it's free!

Walk down together

We know it can be intimidating walking into a tech event, so Carol Gilabert will be meeting any nervous or first-time attendees outside the Theatre Royal at 18:00 on Monday 12th August so you can all head down to the event together.

Data Caching: Keeping it hot

by Samathy Barratt

Slides for this talk

Every year technological advances come up with faster ways to get data flowing between storage and screen.

However, while modern storage is fast, we must always trade off between Performance, Capacity and Persistence.

To keep speed up, we use tiers of storage with increasing performance, but decreasing capacity, shifting data upwards and back down as it is used.

This is caching.

This talk discusses the need for caching with a detailed look at the algorithms used to decide what data to keep in fast cache, and what to kick out.

We specifically explore 'page caching' - a particular flavour of caching used in databases, operating systems and computer hardware itself.

You will leave the room with the knowledge you need to "Keep it Hot".

Audience participation may be required!

About Samathy

Samathy is an inquisitive code fairy who strives to understand complex computer science problems and loves to help others do the same.

A Python programmer by day, a passionate D programmer by night and always a Free Software fan, she likes good challenges, good code and good coffee.

You are not a precious snowflake: Document your work

by Kate Bolin

Slides for this talk

Yeah, yeah, you're so important to the team. You're completely irreplaceable. Your work is the greatest work ever. Your memory is razor sharp and ready for anything. You have so much knowledge and experience that the gods themselves come to you for their programming issues. You are amazing, you are wonderful, you are obviously a genius and you're going to live forever.

But you're not.

You're replaceable. You're mortal. And you're not really that great at remembering what you put live six weeks ago, let alone a year ago, are you?

Kate is going to get into all the reasons documentation is incredibly important, and how to make it easy and effective - not just for the people who'll be reading it after you get hit by a speeding Red Arrow on Parliament Street, but also for you on that early Monday morning before that first cup of coffee.

About Kate

Kate built her first website in 1995, when she was convinced everyone wanted to hear her opinions on Babylon 5. Since then she's worked as a web designer, copywriter, content editor, and now works at Eco Web Hosting as their Marketing Director. She likes pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and people who aren't afraid to document their work.

Win Stuff at Tech Nottingham!

This month at Tech Nottingham we’re giving away No Hard Feelings: Emotions at Work and How They Help Us Succeed by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy. Attend and tweet on the #TechNott hashtag to be in with a chance of winning!

We'll also be giving away a 1 year subscription to a JetBrains product of your choice, including Resharper, IntelliJ and PHPStorm. 

Join in with the Nottingham Tech Community online

The Tech Nottingham Slack group is a bustling chat community of Nottingham tech folk sharing ideas, jokes, stories and helping one another. We'd love for you to join in and be a part of it!

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