The Philly JUG continues to march forward under new leadership and I was honored to deliver the September talk(s!?) myself. As ironic as it may seem, the Philly JUG had not had a dedicated talk on Java SE 8 and it was definitely time to close that gap. Fortunately, I have just such as talk handy titled "JavaSE.Next — Java SE 8, Java SE 9 and Beyond."

The talk covers the big ticket features of Java SE 8 including lambdas, streams, the date/time API and completable futures. I also briefly cover what's coming in Java SE 9. The slides for the talk is on SlideShare (click here if you can't see the embedded slides).

We tried something back in September the Philly JUG had never tried in its long existence — we held meetings in both the Western suburbs as well as center city Philadelphia (our talks have historically been held in the Western suburbs). The suburban meeting was held on September 13 while the center city meeting was held on September 14. Combined, the two meetings had one of the highest RSVPs and attendance numbers the JUG had for a little while. The meetings were very well-received and I think the twin meeting locations is something to pursue again when possible in the future. My company CapTech was very gracious to sponsor the food for both meetings.

The Philly JUG's next meeting on Jan. 17 should be a great follow-up to my talk. Jason Young (also part of the Philly JUG leadership team) is covering Java SE 9 in detail. I highly recommend folks attend the talk and get engaged with Java SE 9 early!