Back in June, I posed a question on this blog: Would you like to know how computers REALLY work “under the hood?” Tampa Devs, a very active nonprofit with a mission to support the local developer community though this would be a good presentation topic. On Wednesday, I gave that presentation to this crowd:
I started by telling the attendees that while knowing about microprocessors and assembly language isn’t absolutely necessary to function in a lot of developer and tech jobs today, there’s value in that knowledge:
I talked about transistors…
…made note of the fact that it was the 52nd birthday of the commercial microprocessor…
…introduced the 6502…
…got deeper into its inner workings…
…and then we dove into 6502 assembly language programming!
Tampa Devs recorded the entire thing, and you can watch it here:
All the material from the presentation is available online:
Tampa Devs for inviting me to speak at their meetup — it’s always an honor and a pleasure to work with a group that contributes so much to the Tampa Bay tech scene!
Kforce for providing the venue, which I like to say has “the comfiest meetup chairs in Tampa Bay.”
Civo for sponsoring the pizza, sodas, and water for the attendees, and taking such an interest in supporting the Tampa Bay tech scene.
Here’s the “official unofficial” list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, November 20 through Sunday, November 26, 2023. Don’t forget that Thanksgiving is this week!
This week’s events
It’s Thanksgiving, so expect a slowdown in events, especially from Wednesday on. After that, we’re into the holidays!
Want to learn more about (or refresh your knowledge of) data structures and algorithms? Code CoOp Tampa is holding a Zoom meetup Tuesday evening where Jay Wengrow, author of A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, will introduce the fundamentals of data structures and algorithms in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. Find out more and register here.
Keep in mind that some group organizers automatically schedule their Meetups for the fourth Thursday of the month, which is Thanksgiving. Double-check with the organizers before attending any of the events listed below!
Keep in mind that some group organizers automatically schedule their Meetups for the fourth Friday of the month, which is the day after Thanksgiving. Double-check with the organizers before attending any of the events listed below!
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
Here’s the “official unofficial” list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, November 13 through Sunday, November 19, 2023.
Elevate your job search and career prospects at Computer Coach’s “LinkedIn for Job Seekers” workshop! This interactive virtual session will equip you with essential LinkedIn skills and strategies, including creating an eye-catching profile, expanding your professional network, and utilizing LinkedIn for job searches. Whether you’re new to LinkedIn or aiming to boost your online presence, this workshop covers personal branding and LinkedIn etiquette, helping you make a strong impression on potential employers. This event is ideal for job seekers, professionals looking to enhance their profiles and networking, and anyone interested in using LinkedIn for career development. Find out more and register here.
This meetup, How Enterprise Organizations are Leading in Generative AI, focuses on the transformative role of Generative AI in enterprise organizations and offers valuable insights for technology leaders and enthusiasts. The event features a deep dive into how ConnectWise, a prominent enterprise solution provider, leverages AI to enhance its products, highlighting strategies, challenges, and the value it brings to customers. Attendees will explore real-world applications, success stories, and the future potential of Generative AI in the enterprise landscape. This will be ideal for CTOs, CIOs, IT leaders, product managers, developers, and AI enthusiasts interested in understanding AI’s practical implications and networking with industry leaders while enjoying food and refreshments. Find out more and register here.
On Wednesday evening, join Joey deVilla at the Tampa Devs meetup for an enlightening exploration of computer architecture, from CPUs and RAM to hexadecimal numbers and pointers. You’ll uncover how computers perceive the world as numbers and even dip into machine language programming with live demos. Whether you’re a programmer or not, this presentation will deepen your understanding of how computers function, from high-level programming to machine language. Plus, for hands-on enthusiasts, there’s an opportunity to try machine language programming with just your laptop and a browser. Find out more and register here.
At Tampa Bay UX Group, they’ll hold an evening of reflection and ideation hosted by TEKsystems. Rob will share some highlights from the year and you will get to hear from some of the participants of our two big workshops. Then, we will switch gears and you will have the opportunity to share what you want from the group in 2024. Find out more and register here.
Join Computer Coach’s empowering online webinar, “Transforming Military Expertise into Civilian Employment,” tailored for veterans looking to transition seamlessly into civilian careers! Discover how to identify and leverage your transferable skills, craft a compelling civilian resume, excel in interviews, showcase your leadership and teamwork abilities, and tap into veteran-friendly resources. Expert speaker and US Navy Veteran Brian Davison brings over 25 years of HR and talent acquisition experience, offering actionable strategies for success in your civilian career. Whether you’re a recent veteran or considering a career change, this event is designed to help you confidently navigate your next professional chapter, and HR professionals supporting veterans will also find it valuable. Don’t miss this opportunity to unlock your path to civilian employment success! Find out more and register here.
In the online meetup, “How companies can build products with Generative AI on AWS,” on November 16th. This workshop, suitable for data enthusiasts, CTOs, business owners, data scientists, data engineers, and ML engineers, offers hands-on experience with generative AI and large language models. Explore topics like how GenAI can transform your business and building applications using GenAI services such as Amazon Bedrock. Connect with professionals in the field and gain insights from guest speakers. Discover a straightforward approach to developing generative AI and LLMs for your data science projects on AWS. Find out more and register here.
Don’t miss this virtual webinar, “From Code to Culture and HRBP to Tech Whiz,” featuring guest speaker Kermick Santos, a distinguished HR Technology leader and HRIS expert. This event is tailored for professionals looking to transition or advance their careers in HR Technology, blending HR expertise with technical skills. Explore the role of HRIS in modern HR operations, integration of robotics and AI in HR processes, HRIS implementation insights, and tips for continuous growth in the HR Technology domain. Whether you’re an HR professional, HR Business Partner, IT professional, or interested in HR Technology, this webinar will empower and inspire you to unlock new opportunities in your HR career. Find out more and register here.
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
I saw this while perusing Facebook Marketplace for odd items (okay, I’ll admit it: accordions). While calling an old Casio calculator a “vintage computer” is title inflation, it’s also technically correct.
In fact, the seller could’ve gone a little farther by calling attention to its solar cell with phrases like “renewable energy-driven” or “green processing.”
In my two decades doing developer relations work, I’ve found that every metropolitan area with a decent tech scene has a tech school whose people drive a lot of local tech events. Here in Tampa Bay, it’s Computer Coach!
If there’s a tech conference, meetup, or gathering happening in Tampa or St. Pete, Computer Coach is probably part of it — organizing it, sponsoring it, or providing volunteer support. If someone in the Tampa Bay area has recently picked up some tech skills, chances are that they got them via Computer Coach. Wherever Tampa Bay tech is, so is Computer Coach, and I’m always pleased to work with them.
What more can I say about Python? It’s my overall favorite programming language, it helps generate the weekly list of Tampa Bay tech events that appears on this blog, and thanks to its prominence in the fields of data science and artificial intelligence, it’s the hot language of the moment — despite having been first released in 1991 and being eclipsed by Ruby in the 2000s.
If you want a really solid grasp of the principles of programming, Python — whether or not you already know another programming language — is worth learning…
…and how you learn it matters. Consider this screenshot from September 2022, session 4 of the 10-session class:
It shows us using a classic Python data structure — a list of dictionaries (which for all intents and purposes is a spreadsheet) — to analyze the salaries and stock grants of anonymized software developers at Google, as listed on levels.fyi, a site where you can see the compensations and benefits for different jobs and levels across tech companies. This isn’t the sort of example you’ll see in most courses or textbooks, but my goal is to try and make the exercises as meaningful as possible to the people taking the course. And you’ll learn interesting non-Python things along the way, including the existence of sites like levels.fyi and the inner workings of large tech companies!
(And you’d better believe we’ll cover harnessing ChatGPT’s and DALL-E’s power via the OpenAI APIs…)
Most importantly, I want to show aspiring Python programmers how to think in a problem-solving manner. Programming is really about finding the intersection of “I have a specific problem I’m trying to solve” and “I know how to get the computer to perform a certain set of tasks.”
Does this sound like the kind of course you’d like to take? If so, head on over to Computer Coach’s page for the Python Programming course, which describes the course in a more official way, and sign up! Don’t forget that the class starts November 27th!
Here’s the “official unofficial” list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, November 6 through Sunday, November 12, 2023.
On Tuesday at noon, CoreX Legal — Tampa’s tech-friendly law firm — is hosting an online seminar on the value of HR and why it’s the secret sauce for entrepreneurial success. Find out more and register here.
Every second Wednesday of the month from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m., Defcon813 holds Whiskey Tech Wednesdays at Mandarin Heights in Seminole Heights. Join them to talk tech and security, and enjoy some great drinks! Find out more and register here.
On Thursday evening at 6, Tampa Java User Group will hold an in-person session, Building Event-Driven Microservices in Java. It will start with an architecture-level discussion of event-driven microservices and progress to implementation. They’ll walk through the code of a sample implementation based on Hazelcast OSS and wrap up with a live demonstration. Everything shown will be available as open source. Find out more and register here.
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies