Heading back home early... Be back in Redmond by EOD...

I found a spot that I can actually get wireless at Moscone... too bad they didn't actually put it in the main room... oh well, at least I don't have to go back to my hotel room to blog.

Great demos all over the place using 3D and the latest video cards.  Of course, once you offload all the work from the CPU to the GPU you no longer have any perf issues with Java.  This is a great model, i mean typically you have this super powerful video card sitting their idle... using it effectively lets you free up the CPU to do actual computation instead of just moving pixels around...

Yesterday I failed to execute on my schedule.  First, besides lunch, there are no breaks in the schedule.  By about 7pm I was super hungry and tired, so I bailed on the BOF sessions (which run until midnight!).  I don't want to rail on the convention too much, but I'd like to see them fix a few things:

1. No snacks (pop, water, chips, apples, anything).  Basically there are little shops that sell stuff, but they have huge lines.  At most conferences I go to there are at least free pop and water outside every session.
2. No wireless.  This is just ridiculous!  Supposedly Java is about the "connected" platform, and they can't even get wireless working??

Anyway, went through the expo a little last night - after popping into the Borland "The One" party.  I love these "rave" events with techies... i'm the first to admit that i'm a big geek... I have a feeling that most people at Java one also have at least some level of geekiness in them. :-)

I managed not to sleep in today (yesterday I woke up at 8:30 - just when the keynote was suppoosed to start), so today I get to get some breakfast and coffee before starting...

Wednesday General Session KEY-3745  
08:30 AM - 10:30 AM   Moscone Center - Hall D

Synth: A Skinnable Look and Feel for JavaTM Foundation Classes/Swing technology ("JFC/Swing") TS-1783  
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305

An Independent Look At the Java Community ProcessSM Program BUS-3294  
12:15 PM - 01:15 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305

What's New in JavaTM Plug-in and Java Web Start Software? TS-1486  
01:30 PM - 02:30 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305

JavaTM Technology Platform Install-On-Demand and Java Technology Platform Update TS-1480  
02:45 PM - 03:45 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305

An MVC Alternative TS-3499  
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM   Moscone Center - Hall E-134

Advanced Layout and Panel Building TS-2986  
05:15 PM - 06:15 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305

Beyond the Browser: Deploying Web Services Enabled JavaTM Technology Applications on the Desktop BOF-2238  
06:30 PM - 07:20 PM   Argent Hotel - Fran III

Advanced JavaTM Technology Platform Deployment BOF-1495  
07:30 PM - 08:20 PM   Argent Hotel - Fran III

User Interface Issues for Desktop JavaTM Technologies BOF-1500  
08:30 PM - 09:20 PM   Moscone Center - Track Room 120

Building Performance Swing Applications BOF-1826  
09:30 PM - 10:20 PM   Moscone Center - Track Room 120
 

That last post was more negative than I meant it to be... There were several interesting things of note down here; The unification (at some point in the future) of all the "flavors" of Java into a single Java System - one that incorporates devices, servers, and desktop. Also, the "Java Everywhere" slogan did seem to ring with the attendees.  The stats about 550M Java desktops, and 1.2B java devices is staggering...

Although I love grandious quotes like "If it's on the Web and you want it to do interesting things, it's running Java" from Jonathan Schwartz - I know that every company says things like this, but it's great to say Amazon doesn't do interesting things :)  (from what I hear they dod custom software on a custom OS for their backend <G>)

I must have missed the excitement in the room, because when they revealed the new Java logo there was a lack of, well, anything.  Overall the message that I heard was a rehash of much of what was said last year.  The promise of language innovations in 1.5 and the performance improvements in 1.4.

The only real "announcement" that I saw (besides a marketting campaign for the new logo) was that Sun has decided to produce the One - that is One Community, One Platform, One Architecture, One Network, and One Java.  What a change from the old Sun that used to preach "interoperability" - now they are interoperable, as long as you are running Java.

Maybe they just watched the Matrix one too many times?

• Tuesday General Session KEY-3743  
  08:30 AM - 10:30 AM   Moscone Center - Hall D
• Technical General Session KEY-3744  
  12:30 PM - 02:00 PM   Moscone Center - Hall D
• Desktop Client JavaTM Technology Roadmap TS-1662  
  02:15 PM - 03:15 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305
• JavaTM 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SETM) Update and Roadmap TS-1540  
  03:30 PM - 04:30 PM   Moscone Center - Gateway 102
• Using StarOfficeTM software with JavaTM technology as a platform for developing document-centric applications TS-1947
  04:45 PM - 05:45 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305
• JavaTM Technology Desktop Game Development TS-1402  
  06:00 PM - 07:00 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 303/305
• Desktop Games BOF-1404  
  07:30 PM - 08:20 PM   Argent Hotel - Fran III
• Meet the Tools and Core Libraries Engineering Team BOF-1988  
  08:30 PM - 09:20 PM   Argent Hotel - Met III 
• JavaTM Technology, Flash and XML: A Real-World Application BOF-1028  
  09:30 PM - 10:20 PM   Moscone Center - Esplanade 304 

Oh, and I need to keep up on work email...

I read (or skimmed) JBoss: Administration and Development on the flight down here. JBoss caught my eye because of the recent press about the infighting that is going on in the Java community over JBoss. Aparently (coming from my mostly ignorant point of view) the JBoss open source folks decided to pick parts of Sun's J2EE spec, implement those, create new extensions, and then release the whole thing publically with source.

I imagine this causes several problems in the community - first, JBoss apparently fails some of Sun's "compatability tests" for J2EE. Secondly, JBoss' extensions are apparently getting a lot of use and are becoming defacto standards. Lastly, giving away an apparently good-enough quality J2EE app server is frustrating some of the for-pay J2EE app server vendors (last one is purely my conjecture).

The book was reasonable, I have a basic feeling for what JBoss offers - and I really understand how they feel about Open Source. The book never misses an opportunity to say how great open source is. They also never miss an opportunity to smash on MLet "almost-XML" syntax - something to keep in mind for when anyone is creating a new format.

I'm going to have to re-read the security section, because it was the most unfamiliar to me... I have 3 other books that I want to get through while I'm down here though - Programming Jakarta Struts, Design Patterns (second read), and Test-Driven Development.

So on the JavaOne web site I was able to do my entire schedule - cool... however, what can I do with the XML they spit out?  Maybe if they exported to Outlook I could at least use it there...

Had dinner with Brad Merril (blog?) and David Weller at the "Thirsty Bear" here in SF... unfortunately the resteraunt wasn't spectacular... luckily I had the best food at the table :-)

Went to the bookstore to pickup new java topics in book form... couldn't really find anything. The hot topics from last year - Java Server Faces, SWT, etc - seemed to have nothing in print.  I ended up settling on a JBoss and a Struts book...  not exactly cutting edge, but at least JBoss gets a lot of press.

I always do my Java binge each year for JavaOne.  I'm a little disappointed this year.  Normally I feel completely deluged with new topics and acronyms to learn, this year I failed to find anything too compelling.

I managed to miss the fireside chat with James, Tim, et al, because of my flight time, but a couple of coworkers happen to catch it.  Their best quote was James saying that C# was "irresponsibly stupid" or something of the sort - this was in context of unsafe support that C# offers... apparently when an audience member (non-MSFT) asked about the comparison between unsafe in C# and Java's JNI there was some hedging going on.

Don't get me wrong - I love Java.  When I first came back to Microsoft I started working on Java projects within the first 6 months.  I loved the language, the runtime, everything - until the politics started.  Unfortunately Sun (a hardware company) decided to try and use Java as a platform and language as their lever to compete with Microsoft (a software company)... oh well, such is life.

I missed registration today also, and I haven't browsed the various sessions& guess I better get cracking!

If anyone else out there is at JavaOne, give me a holler - provided there is wireless internet at the conference I will be online in IM at chris_l_anderson@hotmail.com... feel free to IM me!