I spent a day last week at JavaOne. It was my first JavaOne Conference so I don't have any frame of reference to compare it to. However, having been to other conferences before, my experience wasn't what I expected. I expected to obtain a lot of useful information from the sessions organized and had planned my whole day revolving the sessions I particularly wanted to visit. Instead, I found only a few of sessions I visited interesting. Most of the sessions were very introductory in nature or the speakers were monotonous. I had expected the speakers to talk about their own practical experiences, hence providing some unique insight. For a couple of the sessions, I ended up leaving within the first half an hour of the presentations. A few of the sessions dealing with performance tips and design patterns for EJBs were pretty useful.
I spent a lot more time at the exhibitions, which I found to be very informative. There were many companies that had some really cool demonstrations there. I spent some time at the "Bird of a Feather" meeting, which were held to bring together people and allow them to talk at specific topics. It was interesting to hear about other people's experiences and talk about my own.
I also liked the keynote speakers. The day I went James Gosling and Bill Joy were the two speakers. Bill Joy spoke about how there was only ten years left for Moore's law, which amounted to a 64 times increase in processor speed. However, people have figured out recently how to use molecules to store charge. And so he envisions that molecules will eventually be used to build switches and memory. And so this will probably extend Moore's law for 30 years. He also talked about how Java can be used for the six different types of webs: Desktop web, Near web, Far web, Voice web, Electronic business web, and pervasive computing web. Java is still predominantly used for the desktop web and there still exists enormous opportunity in the other 5 webs. Another thing he mentioned was how as software engineers we should build fault tolerance into a software system.
James Gosling talked a little about the real-time specification for Java and invited David Hardin from Ajile Systems, to demonstrate how to use a pair of robots to play "Chopsticks". They talked about some of the challenges involved in creating a Java specification for real time systems. Another cool demonstration was from Samir Mitra at FireDrop. He demonstrated how zaplets (sort of like a messaging system built into email) could be used to do real-time polling.
Finally, a roundtable conference was held consisting of Gosling, John Bosak, one of the original architects of XML, and Greg Papodopoulis, CTO of Sun. They talk about the future of XML and how Java and XML can used together. One comment I found interesting from Bosak was that he expected that the future changes in XML are expected in the area of schemas, stylesheets, and linking.
