JavaOne and Oracle Develop 2010 - A New Experience

I took my first trip to JavaOne this year. There were many deciding factors that made me choose to make the trip this year, but perhaps the biggest reason that I attended was due to the Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems that took place earlier this year. I wanted to see what Oracle's viewpoint was on the Java ecosystem, and what they planned to do with it over the next several years. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with the message that I received at the conference, I think Java is alive and very well.

I attended several sessions each day, and the conference made for a very hectic week. I had never visited San Francisco before and I must say that I found it very similar to Chicago. Being a Chicago area person myself, I found nothing overly different about San Francisco as compared to Chicago, but then again, I did not take any opportunities to go sight seeing as I was completely focused on the conference itself.

Having never been to a JavaOne conference before, i think that it was fairly well organized. Now, JavaOne was spread across a few different hotels and one large tent...and in the past I believe that it was centered in the Moscone convention center. I thought that the hotel system worked, but it did make for some rather busy shuffles from session to session. I did like the fact that I had the opportunity to go outside in between sessions though, and since the Mason St. tent was in the center of it all, I could swing by the tent on the way to another session and pick up a coffee or chat with some interesting folk. This really enhanced the experience for me.

The sessions were well thought out and worthwhile. Of course, being a Jython fan I went to as many sessions that were centered on dynamic languages on the JVM as possible. Jim Baker and myself had put in for a Jython-specific talk at this year's JavaOne and unfortunately it was turned down. Our talk was going to focus on the overall picture of bringing dynamic languages to the JVM...and Jython was going to be the example-case. I wasn't too surprised when our session was turned down as there are thousands of submissions, but when I attended the conference it was clear to see why it was turned down...there were several excellent sessions regarding dynamic languages on the JVM already. To be quite truthful, the dynamic language sessions at JavaOne covered several different languages...and I feel that the most used languages on the JVM today were nicely represented. It would have been very nice to have a session devoted to Jython specifically, but the fact is that there are so many dynamic languages on the JVM nowadays, that there was just not enough room for a session on each.

To that end, I attended an excellent JRuby session as my first JavaOne session...it really started my experience off in a great way. The presentation was given by Charles Nutter and Thomas Enebo...a couple of JRuby architects. This was a solid session that really made me want to go and download JRuby afterwards and try it out. Having not tried JRuby prior to the session, I was really focusing more on seeing another dynamic language on the JVM and getting some ideas of how they implemented it. After the presentation, it was clear to see that the JRuby team has a focused effort and is doing very well in porting the Ruby language to the JVM...excellent session.

My second session also focused on languages on the JVM...it was entitled "Multiple Languages, One Virtual Machine". This talk was given by Brian Goetz and John Rose. They did an excellent job of discussing invoke dynamic and what the future holds for dynamic languages on the JVM. It was clear to see that Oracle is putting resource behind offering many different languages on the JVM...not just Java. They are behind the invoke dynamic effort, and it will be included in JDK 7...which is due out sometime in 2011.

I attended many sessions on Java EE 6, EJB, JSF, and other enterprise technologies as I am currently using EJB3 and JSF on many of my projects at work. After attending so many sessions on the EJB 3.1 Lite and JSF 2.0 features, it is clear to see that I need to update my code to take advantage of many of the new features that are available today. It is too easy to get a formula that works and just continue to develop applications using that formula. I fell into that trap over the last couple of years, mainly due to a shortage of time for learning the new stuff. Between my authoring of the Jython book and Oracle PL/SQL Recipes, I haven't enough time to devote an hour a day to learning EJB 3.1, JSF 2.0 or CDI. However, I am making a goal for myself to learn how to migrate my EJB 3.0 code bases to take advantage of the new technologies as I can see from the JavaOne sessions that the newest implementations of the APIs are clearly more productive and easier to manage.

And then there was JavaFX. This technology has always been in the back of my mind as something that I want to learn and begin to use in my projects. I had purchased and read the JavaFX Script book by Jim Weaver a while back...excellent book. As everyone knows by now, it was announced at JavaOne that JavaFX Script will be going away and that the JavaFX API will be changing so that it can be used directly with Java code. This is HUGE news for me as a Java and Jython developer. I attended a great session by Jonathan Giles and Stephen Chin regarding the development of JavaFX applications using alternate languages. They covered JRuby, Closure, Scala, and Groovy in the session. It really looks like the new JavaFX API is going to be great and I am looking forward to writing a JavaFX application using Jython. As a matter of fact, I spoke with Stephen Chin in the Mason St. tent later on, and he was also interested in developing a Jython demo. I hope to see something soon, and plan to develop Jython and JavaFX applications when the new JavaFX API is available.

My parting session was an introduction to Scala. I am glad that I attended this session as well as I have been in the dark about this language until now. I had been hearing lots of good things about Scala, but hadn't found the time to take a look. Attending this session gave me a great overview of the language and really gave me the bug that I needed to put it on my priority list as a language to learn in the coming weeks. Now I need to learn both JRuby and Scala...my time is really going to be growing thin!

Other activities that I took part in included:

Oracle Publisher's Seminar - Since I am writing the PL/SQL Recipes book, I was able to attend this great seminar. It gave me a good opportunity to learn about some Oracle strategies from the team leads themselves, and also meet other Oracle authors.

Jython BoF - Oti Humbel and myself gave a Jython BoF on Wednesday of the conference in the Parc 55 hotel. The BoF was not very well attended, but the appreciation event was also that evening and I suspect that had something to do with it. Overall, Oti and I were able to muddle through the list of open bugs that need to be repaired prior to a Jython 2.5.2 final release. I had a great time meeting with Oti and look forward to working with him on Jython for future releases. We also met with Frank Wierzbicki, the Jython project lead and one of my co-authors for the Jython book. It was great to talk Jython for a while with a couple of the core devs, and to strategize about future Jython developments.

Keynotes - The JavaOne keynotes were okay...lots of hype around the future of Java and JavaFX. Glad I attended them for the experience, but nothing too earth shattering. My favorite keynote was the Oracle Develop keynote by Tom Kyte. I have been a big fan of Tom Kyte for several years as he is a lead in Oracle database technologies and PL/SQL. Excellent keynote with some great insight on Oracle 11gR2 and some of it's new features (some that I have not used yet!).

JavaPosse - Perhaps the highlight of the conference for me was the JavaPosse BoF and rooftop party at the Passion Cafe. I listen to the JavaPosse religiously, and finally having a chance to see the crew in person and have drinks with them after the BoF was a great experience. They are truly great people who do an excellent job with the podcast. Thanks JavaPosse crew, excellent show at JavaOne.

So JavaOne 2010 was a new experience for me. I think that it was a great experience and I would be happy to attend another JavaOne at some point in the future. I think that given the atmosphere and the dynamics of the conference, it was a new experience for even those who had attended in previous years. It is nice to see that Java is in good hands with Oracle, and I am looking forward to a bright future.