I’m home alone this weekend, so I thought I’d write a post about JavaZone, an annual Java conference here in Norway. JavaZone was held a couple of weeks ago, and I attended several interesting sessions. My overall impression was very good, and I hope I get to go next year.
JavaZone is a conference on software development and Java technology. Some of the most interesting sessions were on Agile methods. Especially James O. Coplien’s Five Practical Solutions to Agile Myths, which was the only presentation I attended which questioned the agile methodology! In addition, Eclipse was integrated into several sessions. I don’t think I’ve realized how popular it has become since I used it for my thesis work a couple of years ago.
After the conference I realized I should have concentrated more on another topic, namely ESBs (Enterprise Service Bus). The whole concept of ESBs is related to SOA and has been around for a few years. The reason it has become more interesting to me is that my boss wants us to integrate an ESB into our current architecture. Mule and ServiceMix were the ESBs mentioned at JavaZone, but I’ve later found that ChainBuilder (open source) seems to be our best option. It is open source and has a GUI plugged into my favourite IDE Eclipse! Please post a comment if you’re familiar with any ESB 
All but a few sessions at JavaZone were in English, and fortunately there were several speakers from the US and other English-speaking countries. A speaker with a heavy accent isn’t optimal, but it’s ok. A speaker without the essential vocabulary to get the message through to the audience is not ok – at least not at a conference like this! At the end of the second day I promised myself I’d never suffer through another immensly uninteresting session!!
Other news:
- It’s getting cold here. We were almost below freezing a couple of days ago. I love the fall colors, though. This is a picture I took today:
- My sister moved to Berlin, Germany about a month ago. I hope I get to visit some time before Christmas.
- My hair is now bright red.
- I’ve started scrapbooking. It turns out to be a fun, but expensive activity…
- I learned something new this week by attending a wine tasting at an excellent local restaurant, To rom og kjøkken.
- I’m going to a Gwen Stefani concert next week!
- E. and I still haven’t sorted through the 1600 pictures we took at our vacation in Italy…