The Java faithful will gather in San Francisco September 18 to 22 to attend the world’s largest gathering of developers who use the Java programming language. This yearly event, JavaOne, is an opportunity not just for learning and networking, but also to hear from the core Java teams about the future directions of key packages.
The JavaOne conference isn’t free (except for passes to the vendor area, which provides a useful education in itself), so to help you justify the expense and the time away from the office, here are four compelling reasons to attend:
1. More than 400 sessions taught by experts. All presentations at JavaOne are prescreened by industry committees to assure their quality, both as to originality and importance of content and the capabilities of the presenters.
Speakers are invariably experts in their particular domain, frequently Java Champions or JavaOne Rock Stars. The latter title is awarded to presenters whose sessions at previous JavaOne events were ranked by attendees as being of the highest quality. The net result is that every session speaker will know the subject matter intimately and present it well.
- Related: Create the Future with Java
2. Detailed information on Java 9. The next release of Java SE—that is, the language and the core platform—is Java 9, to be shipped early next year. It will bring major changes to the way that Java applications are built and packaged. More than a dozen sessions at JavaOne this year focus on the new features and their benefits, how they work, and what you need to know to prepare for this release.
3. Details about the future direction of Java Enterprise Edition. It’s no secret that the community of enterprise developers is eager to hear Oracle’s plans for Java EE, the collection of libraries and services that make up this Enterprise Edition.
In July, Thomas Kurian, Oracle president of product development, revealed that Java EE would be more tailored to the emerging features of enterprise computing: cloud-based, container-friendly, and microservices-oriented. Revelation of the highly anticipated details of the new services and capabilities was promised for JavaOne.
- Related: Kurian Outlines Java EE Next Steps
4. Networking. Having attended every JavaOne conference, I can say that while the lectures and panels are highly instructional, some of the best tips on handling specific situations have come from casual conversations with other attendees.
JavaOne offers many opportunities for such pick-up chatting: meals, which are generally held around large tables; birds-of-a-feather sessions (informal gatherings of developers with common interests); after-hours parties and receptions; and, of course, conversations with vendors about what they’re seeing in the marketplace.
Without exception, I’ve found every JavaOne to be an almost overwhelming learning experience. After four days, I feel flooded by the vast inflow of information and greatly motivated to try new language features and tools, and explore previously unknown open-source projects.
JavaOne provides me the kind of deep and wide nerd-stim that I frequently hope for at other events but can only dependably find here. That alone is justification enough for me to attend. If you need additional info, though, the JavaOne website has a page that provides additional justification for attending.
I hope to see you in San Francisco.
