Dean Wampler is a Consultant, Trainer, and Mentor with Object Mentor, Inc. He specializes in Scala, Java, and Ruby. He works with clients on application design strategies that combine object-oriented programming, functional programming, and aspect-oriented programming. He also consults on Agile methods, like Lean and XP. Dean is a frequent speaker at industry and academic conferences on these topics. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Washington.
Alex Payne currently works for Twitter, Inc., a communications service that allows users to send short one-to-many messages via a variety of media. His title at Twitter is API Lead; his daily work is growing and supporting a collection of services on which other developers can build. Alex has been working at Twitter since the beginning of 2007, several months before the service began to grow in popularity. Before working at Twitter, Alex worked in information security, helped build web applications for political campaigns and non-profits, and more. In his free time, Alex studies the history, present use, and evolution of programming languages, as well as minimalist art and design. Alex… lives and works in San Francisco, where he engages in an endless search for the perfect cocktail and cup of coffee.