I went to Java One one day a couple of weeks ago. I took the Caltrain up the peninsula and then a MUNI bus to Moscone Center on an absolutely beautiful day in San Francisco. I forgot how awesome public transportation can be and how great the city is if you’re not necessarily traveling during the rush. It makes me wish there were more buses instead of BMWs down here in the valley.
I took a few photos, attended some interesting sessions and just tried to soak up the vibe that only having thousands of java geeks, their direct reports and the associated technology industry machinery within the same general vicinity of each other can generate. My general reaction to the whole thing? _Meh_.
For my part, _Technologia technologii gratia_ doesn’t hold as much influence as it once did. The sessions that I did attend (Tapestry, Spring, Web Frameworks smackdown) were informative (as far as can be given the time frame) and it’s a nice event overall to recharge your interest in the langugage and to see where the general trends happen to be going. But I was hoping it was more of a Trek carnival where people dressed up as the little Java mascot or as an AOP cutpoint and yelled out _Ka Pla!_ or something. I guess that has more to do with my frame of mind than anything else. Still, would it have killed Sun to have an Elvis impersonator there handing out free Netbean CDs?
_Java One 2005 Lobby_
!http://www.sotto.org/archives/images/IMG_3067.jpg(Java One 2005 Lobby)!
_XBox Stations_
!http://www.sotto.org/archives/images/xbox-corner.jpg(XBox Stations)!:http://www.sotto.org/archives/images/xbox-corner_large.jpg
_Panorama of Java One 2005 at the Moscone Center_
!http://www.sotto.org/archives/images/mosconenorthandsouth_thumb.jpg(Panorama of the Moscone Center)!:http://www.sotto.org/archives/images/mosconenorthandsouth_large.jpg
