I just heard that Joshua Bloch from Google will be in downtown D.C. tonight presenting “Java Puzzlers’ Greatest Hits.” If you haven’t seen his presentation at a conference or JUG meeting, I highly recommend attending. Bloch throws Java code snippets or questions related to Java up on the wall, and audience members puzzle-out the answers. I learned things about Java that surprised me when I first heard his talk in 2004. The simple snippets of Java code in his questions often don’t do precisely what you’d think — because they won’t compile, because of primitive integer overflow, because the code stumbles into a collections corner case, or other Java language subtlety.

Since his 2004 talk, Bloch has written a book on the puzzlers, Java Puzzlers: Traps, Pitfalls, and Corner Cases (Addison-Wesley, 2005) with Neal Gafter — and also left Sun Microsystems to join Google as chief Java architect.

Here are the details of Bloch’s presentation, hosted by Google. RSVP to pittsburgh@google.com.

When: 6:00pm

Date: Today, Tuesday, March 27

Where:

The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, Senate Room

1127 Connecticut Ave. NW

Washington, DC 20036

Metrorail: Farragut North or Farragut West (head north on Connecticut)

Hotel phone: 202-347-3000