Steve On Java

What was the last conference you went to where you felt like you actually had a positive impact on the larger technical community? A lot of conferences feel like corporate marketing where companies (usually the ones that pay the big sponsorship $$$) are pushing you to buy services or product. Other conferences feel like brainwashing where the message is constrained by a “Ministry of Truth” that limits the topics and speakers to those that align to their world view. No matter how many big parties and aging rock stars they truck in to woo the masses, you leave the conference feeling like you have been sold a technical lemon.

If you were fortunate enough to be at OSCON Java this past week, you were able to experience a different type of conference first hand.  Here are some of the ways in which OSCON Java was not just another technical conference…

Hacking for a Purpose

What was the last time you got to sit down side-by-side with a conference speaker and technical guru such as Joe Darcy, Stuart Marks, Bob Lee, and Jeff Genender, and hack out some code?  We setup and experimental hacking session where we did exactly this, pairing up attendees 1-to-1 with expert hackers to convert an open source codebase to use Java 7 features.  For this project we chose Google Guice (no surprise) and by the end of the session had converted several source files to use new Java 7 features such as strings in switch, the diamond operator, and try with resources.

In addition, we also had a follow-on event after the very successful OSCON JVM Languages Symposium to work through a technical solution for JVM language interoperability. Normally this is something that could take months of technical debate to come up with a few possible solutions, but with the collective brainpower of several compiler authors and some technical herding by Ben Evans, they came up with a solution after only several hours.

No Corporate Shills

At OSCON Java you got to see leaders from across the industry standing side by side up on stage, and being transparent about how their corporate strategies affect technology and open-source. Steve Harris, SVP at Oracle, was bluntly honest about his corporation’s failings in communicating to the Java community and made the point with some funny, self-deprecating slides, such as the “Oracle Threat Level” diagram:

However, he ended his speech on a high note with enthusiastic support for the Java community and Java User Groups in particular:

“Java User Groups Rock!”

And Some Geeky Fun

A good technical conference would not be complete without good, geeky fun. For this, we converted one of the exhibition halls into a giant carnival, complete with clowns, games to test your strength, obstacle courses, and of course plenty of carnival food. It was quite a stark difference from being in a tech conference surrounded by screens and computer, and was a great break from typical networking events.

My money in the above race is definitely on Fabiane Nardon (center), Brazilian Java User Group Leader. Once she sets her mind on something, she is extremely determined!

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As you can see, OSCON Java is not your average technical conference. I owe the O’Reilly folks a huge debt of gratitude for being supportive of doing a different style of conference. They have a great culture of innovation and are far enough away from the corporate politics of Java that they can bring everyone to the table or the mutual benefit of the community.

While you may have missed out on one of the greatest Java events since the collapse of Sun, you can still catch some of the best parts on the OSCON video site:

http://www.youtube.com/user/OreillyMedia#grid/user/93FC98105B19725C

Also, all the speaker slides are now available for the presentations:

http://www.oscon.com/oscon2011/public/schedule/proceedings

See you at OSCON Java next year!!!

OSCON Java is a new conference that I am helping to kick off as co-chair this July.  While there are plenty of conferences out there that you could attend, I am confident that this is the one you won’t want to miss.

To celebrate the Java 7 release, I put together 7 reasons why you should attend OSCON Java.  Also, make sure to use the 20% discount code of “OS11COM” when you register:

1. Come Celebrate the First New Java Release in Half a Decade!

The last major release of Java was Java 6, which came out 5 years ago on December 11, 2006. After only a year of the Sun acquisition, Oracle has already made a major Java release happen with another scheduled in a year’s time.

We have broad coverage of the Java 7 release with a keynote and technical session by Joe Darcy, and technical sessions on OpenJDK and Coin by Dalibor Topic and Stuart Marks. I have been pretty impressed with Stuart’s coverage of topics from a developer’s perspective and am looking forward to his talk myself.

2. Because Google Matters

Regardless of what you think about the Android lawsuit, I think the biggest detriment has been the lack of good content on Google technologies at Java conferences. We are an independent conference, so it allows us to bring content that you would otherwise not find, such as an exclusive keynote from Joshua Bloch and several mobile Android sessions to help you leverage your Java skills on modern devices.

3. You Think JVM Languages are Cool

It has been said that the crown jewel of the Java platform is the JVM, not the language. Java 7 has further solidified this with better support for dynamic languages. Come find out what is the latest and greatest on the alternative language front with a keynote and some meaty sessions from Martin Odersky, deep technical sessions on Groovy, Clojure, Scala, and other languages, and some bytecode hacking with Charles Nutter.

4. And You Wouldn’t Mind Hanging out with JVM language Authors for a Day…

On the Sunday before OSCON we are organizing a free JVM Languages Symposium that many of the speakers will be attending.  This is a great opportunity to hang out with JVM language authors and the movers and shakers in the industry in an informal unconference atmosphere.  Events like this are what I believe sets apart community-driven conferences from large corporate events, and provide a lot more value to the attendees than simply one-way content.  If you happen to be in the Portland area, you can drop by for this free event with no obligation to stay for OSCON.

5. Your Boss Won’t Let You Fly to Belgium

I travel to speak at different conferences around the world and I would have to say that the golden standard for Java conferences is Devoxx. They have an amazing venue — it is great to see your slides on a huge movie screen, and relaxing for attendees to take it in from nice, plush seats. They attract an international audience… not only Belgium, but Italy, France, Germany, and citizens of many of the other surrounding countries consider Devoxx their home conference. Even though Devoxx is a wildly successful conference, they still have a small-conference feel, run by a very tight knit conference committee that acts more like a user group than an organization. This makes the entire conference experience much more personalized.

OSCON Java has a lot of similarities with Devoxx. It has a small, enthusiastic program committee with folks who really care about Java technologies. We are also following the Devoxx model of recording and posting talks online afterwards, so even if you miss a great talk because you are in the room next door, you can always watch it online later. Finally, since we are an independent conference, you get the full experience of Java, Android, and other technologies that you would otherwise have to go to multiple conferences to see.

6. OSCON is a Pretty Sweet Conference as Well…

The O’Reilly OSCON conference has been underrepresented in the Java community, but is a pretty huge event in its own right.  They have some amazing content around emerging languages and mobile platforms.  Plus, you can get OSCON, OSCON Java, and OSCON Data all wrapped up in one neat package with the OSCON Superpass.

7. There is Only One Inaugural Year!

This is our first year putting on OSCON Java, so we are pulling out all the stops with the best speakers, tutorials, content, and events.  You will have a unique opportunity to participate in the creation of a new Java tradition, and a decade from now can brag to your friends about being a founding attendee of the biggest open-source Java conference in the world.

It is pretty easy to get lost in the media hype around the Java events of the past year.  If you follow the headlines, you might believe that all the Java talent left Oracle in a mass exodus, Larry hates open source, or Java is turning into the next COBOL.  Regardless of the factual correctness of these headlines, the Java ecosystem is about more than a single company or set of individuals.  Java has the largest open-source community of any language in existence!

So how big is Java and open-source?  Here is an informal search poll of some of the most popular open-source project hosting providers:

The data for this chart comes from the top six open-source hosting providers using Google Search as a metric for gauging activity level for each of the platforms.  As you can see, Java is still the most active open-source platform in the world, followed closely by PHP and Python.  While not an indicator of language popularity, Bill Gates has gone on record speaking out against open source, so the poor representation from the C# community is not surprising.

This takes us to OSCON Java, which is a new conference I am helping to kick off as conference co-chair together with Laurel Ruma.  It is colocated with OSCON in Portland, Oregon, but is exclusively focused on Java and open source.  O’Reilly is the conference organizer, but they are very neutral when it comes to corporations and technologies.  This allows us to reach out to a wide variety of Java technology players including Apache, Google, Adobe, Oracle, the JCP, and many others.

We have big plans for the OSCON Java keynotes, technical content, and exhibitors.  Also, we are working on making this a model conference from the get-go based on my experience attending and speaking at premier conference venues across the world.  Expect a huge focus on community outreach, a lot of interaction between speakers and attendees, and a particular focus on the JVM languages of tomorrow.

If you are interested in participating as a speaker, it is still not too late to submit a talk.  The CFP ends on March 28th (4 days!), so you still have time to submit a last minute talk:

http://www.oscon.com/oscon2011/public/cfp/159

If you have a great idea, but can’t get your talk together in time or miss the deadline by a few days, shoot me an e-mail via the contact form on my blog.

I look forward to seeing you at OSCON Java, uniting the Java open-source community towards a brighter future!