Open Possibilities, Great Conference

With Open Possibilities as the theme of this year's Conference, I thought it'd be worthwhile to take time in this wrap-up not to go too much over the same key points as the JavaOne conference site or the JavaOne TODAY papers do.

You're big kids. You can go replay the webcasts, download the PDFs, and in all other ways geek out about the array of offerings from this year's event.

From the sea of backpacks and badges and T-shirts, from the groups of developers clustered around laptops in every restaurant and bar around Moscone Center -- and even in the park, because we had great weather for the first few days of the Conference -- I think it's pretty clear that there's a lot to talk about with regards to Java technology, a lot that is happening in an organic, community-supported kind of way.

The real open possibility I see is within the minds of the developer community that attends -- both physically and virtually -- the JavaOne conference and the surrounding events. As Geertjan Wielenga said in his blog, "Give people the room to be themselves and they'll take the opportunity to flourish."

Of course, there are a few ways to look at that. One blogger says: "I haven't seen an attendance figure for this year's JavaOne, but it must approach a gazillion. The logistics of moving this many geeks from place to place would boggle my mind, if I weren't so focused on preventing my death by trampling... JavaOne has become crushingly popular, which bodes well for the continued popularity of Java."

Thanks!

One of the things that happened with Sun's announcement of JavaFX technology that is really worth paying attention to is the repeated mention of Chris Oliver's blog, in addition to the openjfx site for more information.

Here we have official corporate communications directing people to an employee blog for solid technical information about an idea. How cool is that? We all know that employee blogs at Sun have always been encouraged. I mean, with blogs.sun.com (thanks, Dave!) and java.net, not to mention Jonathan's blog, corporate-supported blogging at Sun is old news. But I think this may be the first time ever that the entire Sun machine has acknowledged it in concert.

Bravo!

Sun took this opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to ecology and to reducing our carbon footprint. Those of us who work for Sun already know about one of Sun's biggest commitments, though, which is to OpenWork or telecommuting.

One of the things I love best about the JavaOne conference, that Robert Eckstein touched on in his Daily Prompt on Thursday, is the "meeting (and in some cases, re-meeting, and even meeting for a third time) people throughout the conference halls and in the sessions."

The editorial team that brings you java.sun.com, developers.sun.com, JavaOne Online, and the JavaOne TODAY paper is a widely distributed team that hails from locations as diverse as the Czech Republic, Canada, and three separate U.S. timezones. This is the one time of year we all get together in the same place and work together face-to-face, so for us, on top of the overall coolness of the Conference, it's also a sort of homecoming. And it was clear from the conversations we saw happening everywhere, that a lot of you Alumni feel that way as well.

Welcome to the family.

So what did you do here that inspired you, to take advantage of the possibilities that every presenter in every general session brought up? Open Possibilities, Endless Possibilities, Imagine the Possibilities -- Did you get the message?

• You attended the desktop technologies session and took up the challenge to write an applet for your phone, or you're going to.
• You're going to sink your teeth into the OpenJDK Project.
• You attended the JavaOne Camp, Java University, NetBeans Software Day, or CommunityOne. (Really, now, tell us: Does anyone ever sleep this week?)
• You're going to help the mobility team make good on its request for a bigger room.
• You turned in your session survey at the end of each session to help select the 2007 JavaOne conference rock stars.
• You let yourself create code worthy of the Flying Dukes, the MOTODEV code challenge, or SDN Share.
• And you definitely hung out at the slot cars.
• You virtually flung T-shirts. Apparently, the network is the projectile.

You have more possibilities now, with the advances in the Java platform, to translate what you think into what you do. And who knows what you'll come back knowing, and sharing with the community, next year.