A picture is worth a thousand words. And yes, you see here are the bean bags, where I sat and took notes for this blog. I begged, borrowed and sometimes stole pictures for you so that you, at the comfort of a browser, can be, that much closer, to this amazing show.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
So why is this blog called the Bean Blog?
A picture is worth a thousand words. And yes, you see here are the bean bags, where I sat and took notes for this blog. I begged, borrowed and sometimes stole pictures for you so that you, at the comfort of a browser, can be, that much closer, to this amazing show.
Ever wondered about the inside preparations
I have always been fascinated by the thought of the amount of
planning and work that goes into making a project of this enormity successful. Imagine what if would be like to be there to see where Jonathan and Rich sit. Do they have special chairs or they have the ordinary ones like us? Do they accidently sit on the other's seat? Ever? Well here are some pics from which will help you visualize.
How to approach J1 to get the maximum bang for your buck
To understand the nuts and bolts of a specific technology, you have to understand how J1 works. A specific topic of interest will have a multitude of sessions and some community specific HOLs (Hands On Labs) and also complimenting these will be one booth in the Pavilion section which will demonstrate the concepts. In order to really internalize a product or technology concept, a good route to take is to go to a couple of relevant sessions and then spend some time at the specific booth interviewing the personnel there and play with the demos available. Also an important concept to remember is that most of the goodies in terms of tees and pens are available in the Pavilion. Lets go thru' a pictorial view of a Glassfish session and booth that will help you visualize what I just said.
The GlassFish booth attracted a lot of people.There was also a
Glassfish party at 6pm on Sunday May 4th where a lot of fun party stuff was assembled for the community to enjoy!
A sample of the show
Sunday May 4th 2008 at 3pm was the Glassfish Unconverence event.For the rest of us, "An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants (generally day-by-day during the course of the event) rather than by one or more organizers in advance of the event" - wikipedia
The suggested topics for this session were:
- scaling & clustering techniques (different approaches, real-life usage)
- making money with GlassFish, how can Sun help (partner program, co-marketing, ...)
- teaching Java EE 5 with GlassFish
- packaging technologies (which one to use when)
- real-life GlassFish experiences
- dynamic languages for GlassFish v2, v3
- GlassFish v3 architecture
- Community and GAP (how to grow the community, status on GAP)
- Performance tuning
- JSF, Ajax, Web 2.0 marketplace
- Comet (Ajax Push) support
- SIP Servlets, SyncML and Communications
- production deployment experience
- JavaFX and GlassFish
- GlassFish, Java Business Integration (JBI) and OSGi
- GlassFish Management and Automation
This I felt was a brilliant concept to engage with participants and allow a free flow of concepts and ideas. I am surely planning some unconference style lunch and learn sessions with my key customers where the agenda is designed as you go and not beforehand.
What is the JavaONE experience?
After the brief introduction of Moscone, you readers want to understand what it feels like to be at the center of Java excellence right? Well, even before we get to Moscone, let me start out with parking. As we know downtown parking in any major US city might be a stiff test of both your driving skills as well as your wallet, it is surprising that the public parking garage at 5th street and Mission intersection is comparatively reasonable. It took us on an average 15 bucks for 5 hours of parking, which is not that bad. Once you have achieved this feat, you take a walk on Mission, a pleasant road splattered with coffee shops and eateries, and head towards Moscone.
Moscone North greets you on Java ONE day with hundreds of participants franticly trying to reach sessions on time. Remember undergrad days where special lectures by visiting rockstar professors used to cause so much ruckus on campus? This feeling is pretty similar. However, if you were like me and never attended lectures, then visualize the college culturals with pretty babes from the other colleges pouring in and you desperately jostling for space in the fair events. Get it? Huh! thought so.
But, alas, hubris is one of the key skills of programmers. And this is so very evident around the beanbags and rest areas of Moscone. It seems people traveled hundreds of miles (thousands too in some cases) to just be seen checking emails at Moscone? I bet these guys would all see the video streams of the keynote and general sessions and blog about them. Who cares! Well ask the business leaders who paid for their trips.
Some interesting tidbits from my notes :
- You can actually check in you coat and bag at the Moscone South check in counter. This is really handy if you are carrying a usual super heavy laptop and do not want to lug it around.
- Food around Moscone leaves much to be desired. There are only two sandwich stalls one on either side of Moscone, which provide unpalatable sandwiches and rolls. All you can trust at these stalls is the water and soda. For a person like me, who eats eight times a day, and if you are on a high protein diet, just carry your own food or look for my other posts for better alternatives.
On that note, the lunch served during the sessions to participants, is like the proverbial elixir of youth i presume. Otherwise how else will you describe a queue of seven hundred people jostling ahead of you to get there. In face Murphy's laws play good here too. Food lines are directly proportional to you hunger.
More about tidbits in future posts. Let us now dive into specific events and give you an insider view.
Moscone North greets you on Java ONE day with hundreds of participants franticly trying to reach sessions on time. Remember undergrad days where special lectures by visiting rockstar professors used to cause so much ruckus on campus? This feeling is pretty similar. However, if you were like me and never attended lectures, then visualize the college culturals with pretty babes from the other colleges pouring in and you desperately jostling for space in the fair events. Get it? Huh! thought so.
But, alas, hubris is one of the key skills of programmers. And this is so very evident around the beanbags and rest areas of Moscone. It seems people traveled hundreds of miles (thousands too in some cases) to just be seen checking emails at Moscone? I bet these guys would all see the video streams of the keynote and general sessions and blog about them. Who cares! Well ask the business leaders who paid for their trips.
Some interesting tidbits from my notes :
- You can actually check in you coat and bag at the Moscone South check in counter. This is really handy if you are carrying a usual super heavy laptop and do not want to lug it around.
- Food around Moscone leaves much to be desired. There are only two sandwich stalls one on either side of Moscone, which provide unpalatable sandwiches and rolls. All you can trust at these stalls is the water and soda. For a person like me, who eats eight times a day, and if you are on a high protein diet, just carry your own food or look for my other posts for better alternatives.
On that note, the lunch served during the sessions to participants, is like the proverbial elixir of youth i presume. Otherwise how else will you describe a queue of seven hundred people jostling ahead of you to get there. In face Murphy's laws play good here too. Food lines are directly proportional to you hunger.
More about tidbits in future posts. Let us now dive into specific events and give you an insider view.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Arriving at Moscone Centre
The Moscone Center is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. It comprises three main halls: Two underground halls underneath Yerba Buena Gardens, known as Moscone North and Moscone South, and a three-level Moscone West exhibition hall across 4th Street.The Java One General Sessions take place in one humongous hall in the Moscone South while the Pavillion which hosts all the technology booths, and exhibitors, is at the Moscone North.
As you enter Moscone North, you see an array of registration booths for different category of visitors - Sun Employees, Alumi ( this is a cool concept, I did not know about. An Alumni is someone who has attended previous Java One conferences and has an Alumni tag provided. Monetary benefits include a 10% discount in the Java goodies Retail Store).
The registration process is actually a validation of your email id which prints out a smart card based ID that is put in a jacket/dogtag and handed over to you. Now this ID has RFID tags built in so that various instrumentation and data collection events can be initiated.If you are more interested in details, pls see this video.
A sip of Java, California style!
The excitement of Java One is not just the sessions, Hands on Labs (HOLs) or the Pavillion, it is the free standing spirit of California at play.
I have always had goose pimples touching down at the San Francisco International Airport, an excitement of having arrived at the Mecca of Startups, technology, VCs and free tech spirit. This is a feeling all geeks have once you view the ocean screaming below your airplane window and you see land and the three point touch down happens.
Welcome to San Francisco ladies and gentlemen, the outside temperature is 68 degrees!
So where are we heading? Of course Moscone Center, the veritable Mecca of Java in May!
I have always had goose pimples touching down at the San Francisco International Airport, an excitement of having arrived at the Mecca of Startups, technology, VCs and free tech spirit. This is a feeling all geeks have once you view the ocean screaming below your airplane window and you see land and the three point touch down happens.
Welcome to San Francisco ladies and gentlemen, the outside temperature is 68 degrees!
So where are we heading? Of course Moscone Center, the veritable Mecca of Java in May!
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