- London Titanium Meetup
- Interview with Angus Fox (London speaker)
- Interview with Ketan Majmudar (London speaker)
- Interview with Caspar Addyman (research psychologist)
- Interview with Harry Chow (web app developer)
- Interview with Anthony Decena from Appcelerator
A few weeks ago whilst in London for the night I headed over to my first Titanium meetup. I had heard good things about Titanium meetups around the world from the Appcelerator Q&A/Blog, LinkedIn & Facebook. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I’d never attended a Meetup event before.
On arrival I was greeted by a friendly American named, Liz Myers. Liz is one of the founders off the Meetup event & is based in London. She signed me in & I headed for the fully stocked bar. Only a few developers were there to start, but over the next 10-20 minutes thankfully more arrived & the top floor of the Old Crown Pub buzzed.
I was a tad nervous as I’m usually terrible in these social situations but I introduced myself to a few members, some had been to previous Titanium meetups before & for others it was their first too. The London Titanium ambassadors Angus Fox and Ketan Majmudar had arrived and started to prepare for their presentations. Both Ketan & Angus had attended the CodeStrong event in San Francisco where they met the Appcelerator team & other people/developers involved in Titanium.
The talks were very informative, enjoyable & got the audience involved which was great. In the break, I got chance to speak to Angus & Ketan in person about the meetup, what they were both involved in & how was CodeStrong. Here is what they had to say:
Angus & Ketan
About Angus Fox
Multizone is a software company providing low cost social, collaboration and mobile applications to drive engagement and new revenue streams. We also are product management and strategy consultancy specialists in social, collaboration and mobile. We have been building smartphone apps either for ourselves or other companies for around ten years and are based in Surrey in the UK.
Interview with Angus
Why did you choose Appcelerator Titanium as a platform?
We needed a platform for mobile development which could support iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS. After researching the market we settled on Appcelerator convinced that the Titanium platform had the right roadmap and although an early stage company we felt they had the right roadmap and capability to deliver.
How did you become involved the meetup group?
I run a successful developer group in London around Twitter – the Twitter developer nest. We became involved with the meetup group after it was created as a result of the first UK training and certification course which we supported. Although I don’t have the bandwidth to be involved with the organisation of the London Titanium’s I am a strong supporter.
What do you feel are the best benefits of attending the meetup group?
For me, it is about meeting other people using the technology and exchanging best practise. Theres also a pool of talent there which I hope to tap into as we expand.
I notice you’re a Titan, what does that involve?
Being a titan I must say is a big responsibility. I am not a developer so I don’t really fit into the titan programme. Instead I try to contribute product management and marketing skills where I can.
Your Surrey Police app – whats it all about please?
Our app for the police is all about engagement. People using their smartphones are very interested in what is going on in their community, but don’t necessarily understand the complexity of the Internet and the information available. We work with the police to have them create interesting real-time information updates about the local neighbourhood on their phones. Then the public can see what they are doing on their behalf using their smartphones. The app has been an enormous success with thousands of downloads and is now being rolled out across Surrey and the rest of the UK will follow. For the police it improves transparency about policing activity, priorities and events and provides authoritative information. For the public providing information about what the police do and the outcomes that are achieved. Crucially the app has been built with two-way engagement at its heart using social media.
How was the Codestrong event?
Codestrong was a very professionally run event with about 300 people all with a focus on building great apps using Titanium. I participated in the hackathon, and attended many of the sessions and even though I am not a developer these were crucial for me in planning my own product roadmap given my assessment of the product and the state of the art in terms of the kinds of applications other organisations are building. I was particularly pleased to see the roadmap for Titanium and the emphasis on the community and the Titans in particular being front and centre in the go-to-market activity plans in the company. I was less pleased to see little or no mention of BlackBerrry – a platform we need to reach our audience in the UK both in the younger demographic and in the police forces themselves. I predict that next time around Codestrong will have an order of magnitude more attendees such was the value.
About Ketan Majmudar
I’m currently a freelance mobile/ web developer living in Reading, Berkshire, UK. Having started up in the web design business, www.spiritquest.co.uk, through a Princes Youth Trust loan 11yrs ago I have strived to develop standards based accessible web sites and dynamic data driven solutions for charities, small businesses and individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds. I have recently started speaking on topics that I am passionate about such as mobile development and stereo photography.
Interview with Ketan
What made you choose Appcelerator Titanium?
I had briefly looked at Titanium a couple of years back, as the thought of mobile development with web technologies sounded fun, but it wasn’t until I was hired to develop a mobile solution for the Surrey Police at the end of 2010 that I examined the existing solutions Titanium had to offer. It’s native cross-platform builds and JavaScript APIs made it a perfect candidate for the project.
How was the learning curve learning Titanium? Any suggestions to our readers?
The initial challenge is building an app using the JavaScript api’s but there are a wealth of resources, especially the Kitchen Sink. I have given talks at London Titanium about getting started with Titanium, do check the groups web site for links to talks and presentations. Also I recommend reading material on general JavaScript development, Appcelerator have a reading list and Sitepoint have a good online course in getting started with JavaScript.
What made Liz, Betty & yourself create the Titanium London meetup?
We all met at the London TCAD training day in may 2011, during a coffee break we all got so much out of the day and the environment/ group were so varied. The idea was floated in creating apocalypse gathering of Titanium devs.
How popular has the group been?
In just 7 months weave grown the group to over 100 members, and there has been a lot of interest in attendance. We are averaging around 20 members showing up per meeting so far and hope to grow the numbers, by providing varied and interested talks. London meets in the evening always tends to clash with other tech meetups, so we are always competing.
What apps have you created in Titanium?
I have created the Surrey Police app which includes a public iOS app and an internal android app. Also I am working on festival based apps, and have deployed an android/iOS app for SCI-FI-LONDON and Alpha-ville festival. I am also working on a twitter app, that came out of the Codestrong hackathon and have a music based app.
How was the Codestrong event?
Codestrong was a superb event, and a great opportunity to meet Titanium developers from all over the world. Lots of learning, socialising and networking, roll on next year.
I also got the chance to speak to others in the group, Caspar, who has been to previous meetings & Harry who like me is his first time, here is what they said:
About Caspar Addyman
I am a research psychologist and a former software developer, based at the Birkbeck, University of London. I run a project called YourBrainonDrugs.net which aims to use smartphone games to investigate the cognitive and emotional effects of drink and drugs on casual users.
Interview with Caspar
Why did you choose Appcelerator Titanium as a platform?
I started trying to write a native Android App but the learning curve was pretty steep and doing layouts was a nightmare. I was getting nowhere fast and I dreaded having to do the same all over again on iOS. Initially, I was attracted to Titanium because it was cross platform, but I think the main benefit has been the way it has simplified the development process. Especially for someone like me who isn’t really a developer. The Titanium support community is very active and very helpful too.
How did you become involved the meetup group?
Thanks to meetup.com. I randomly typed Titanium in and was surprised to find that there even was a group.
What do you feel are the benefits of attending the meetup group?
So far the biggest benefit has been the reassurance that real professionals are using Titanium for real development.
How do you feel the group could be improved?
It would be good if the real-life group had more of an online focus. A better way to stay in touch between the meetings. I often have questions that would be better suited to a small group like this than the Titanium developers Q&A.
Your BrainOnDrugs app – what’s it all about please?
Our first app will be an alcohol tracker. To quote from our site:
‘The Boozerlyzer is a free app that aims to discover exactly how alcohol is affecting you. The app lets you track your consumption, how you feel about it and includes a set of games to test you scientifically. The games measure your coordination, your reaction times, your memory and even your emotions. This data is anonymously and securely collected on our site and used to see how different people are differently affected by alcohol. It is a research project but also aims to be useful to you.’Alpha testing has just started and public alpha/beta is a few weeks away. Based on what we learn from that we will do a similar thing for legal/illegal drug use.
About Harry Chow
I’m based in London UK. My background is in Web application development. With 6 years experience developing on a LAMP stack. Currently working on a mobile wedding application called Appilywed.
Interview with Harry
Why did you choose Appcelerator Titanium as a platform?
I chose Titanium for it’s ability to create native apps, and also the ability to reuse code for both the Android and iOS platforms.
How did you become involved the meetup group?
I attended my first meetup group hoping to see how others were using Titanium.
What do you feel are the benefits of attending the meetup group?
I feel that meeting other developers face to face brings a better sense of community, allowing better collaboration and sharing of ideas.
How do you feel the group could be improved?
My experience so far has been great. I would like to see a bit more structure to the meetups though.
Currently there are 18 Appcelerator meetups in 5 countries around the world (see map above). I heard that Jeff Bonnes from TitaniumDevelopment AU was organising a meetup in Australia & Anthony Decena from Appcelerator was attending. I got in touch with Anthony & asked him a few questions:
About Anthony Decena
My name is Anthony Decena – Rockstar web developer, javascript ninja, and all around great guy from Las Vegas, NV. I’m just you’re average everyday evil genius with aspirations of world domination. I’m convinced that this can be done using nothing but a small Perl script.
Interview with Anthony
Why did you choose Appcelerator Titanium as a platform?
I have been developing on the Titanium platform since its preview release over 2 years ago. Having been one of the first developers invited to use the platform and then later invited to join the Titans program, I was extremely excited when Appcelerator approached me and asked me if I would be interested in joining the team.
I hear you attended a Titanium meetup group in Australia, how did it go?
I actually attended 2 Titanium User Group meetings while in Australia, and both of them went very well. We had a number of people from both the Titanium group as well as other related groups in Australia.
What was mentioned at the event?
Other than talking about what projects and related groups and events everyone was working on, one of the primary reasons for the meetups was to find people willing to take leadership roles within the local Titanium communities. We wanted to let community know that we were dedicated to developers in the area and to the leaders that will help drive that developer community.
Would you recommend these Meetup group to others?
Absolutely. While these groups are still growing, our goal to build and continue to grow these local groups was clearly communicated and well received. These meetups will only get better and better as the community grows.
Have you created any apps in Titanium?
I’ve created a number of Titanium apps for companies and demonstrations, but mostly for Titanium developers to use as resources to further their own development. Many of these apps are open-sourced and readily available in the Appcelerator repository on Github.
What’s your role within Appcelerator?
I am a Community Support Engineer / Platform Evangelist here at Appcelerator. It is my job to help the Titanium community of developers from around the world with their Titanium related development. This includes anything from core Javascript fundamentals to platform specific development as it relates to the Titanium platform.There are a number of outlets I use to communicate with the community including email, the @appcelerator Twitter feed, the #titanium IRC channel, and maybe most importantly, our Community Q&A. Beyond that, I am also afforded the opportunity to create and share example applications that showcase the capabilities of the Titanium platform. These applications are open sourced and the code is shared to help educate the developer community on all things Titanium.
As you can see the Titanium community is ever expanding, the London Titanium meetup group has only been going for 7 months & already has 106 members! If you want to get involved, give a presentation/talk head over to Meetup.com & search for Appcelerator, you’re sure to find a place close to home, if not why not create your own group & get other developers/friends involved in Titanium.
I would like a big thanks to everyone who responded to me about these questions & a special thanks to Ketan who provided some of the pictures, thanks guys 