Advance your software practice at SPA2010 16-19 May in London

The SPA2010 conference is less than seven weeks away! We're writing to bring you up-to-date with news of speakers, sponsors and diversions.

We're delighted to welcome two distinguished invited speakers. On Monday, architect Maurice Mitchell will talk about Complexity and the Human Dimension. He's a leading figure in the Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources, and has worked in areas such as the Sudan, Ghana, Kosovo and Vietnam. And on Wednesday, Harvey Wheaton, Studio Director at Supermassive Games, will talk about introducing agile development to the dynamic and competitive world of console games development.

This year's programme is particularly impressive, covering a spectacular range of technology, practice, and new ideas. Come and hear

* Mike Feathers on Paradigms of Programing
* Nat Pryce and Steve Freeman on TDD at the System Scale
* Play the Kanban Game with Karl Scotland
* Rachel Davies on Retrospectives Refactored
* Marks/Mosely on the benefits of Laziness
* Keith Braithwaite on doing TDD as if you meant it

- along with sessions on Scala, Clojure, DSLs, clean code, the sword of integration, social objects in software development, and more.

On Monday and Tuesday evenings we've a full programme of diversions at the next-door Strand Palace hotel, including Liz Keogh's inspiring Haiku workshop, the amazing MC Zani teaching beatboxing, a panel on the utility of Software Craftsmanship that promises to be argumentative, and a chance to sample chocolate from around the world.

There are a few places left at the conference, so please tell your colleagues and associates about it! Forward this message or point them at http://www.spaconference.org for more info. You're also encouraged to post and follow us on twitter - #spa2010.

Looking forward to welcoming you to SPA2010,

David Harvey (SPA2010 Conference chair)
Mike Hill, Willem van den Ende (SPA2010 programme chairs)