
European Java Conference Roundup
Nov 30, 2017 | 5 MIN READ
Nov 30, 2017 | 5 MIN READ
November has been a busy month, primarily because it seems that this is the most popular month to organise a European Java conference. I guess this makes sense as it’s just after JavaOne, so various new things to discuss and it’s not holiday season (Europe is untroubled by any form of Thanksgiving). It’s also late Autumn, which makes it an ideal time to spend all day in a dark room since it won’t be much different outside.
I thought it would be interesting to write up a summary of the conferences I’ve attended and my impressions.
This year there were about 800 developers in attendance and the venue was a new, much larger conference centre. The facilities were first class, with lots of room to move around the exhibition area. There were plenty of sponsors and the general feeling was one of experienced developers all gathering to learn about what’s happening in the world of Java. With five tracks, seventy sessions and sixty-five speakers spread over two days there was plenty of content and subject areas to choose from.
The organisers also excelled themselves by signing an unusual sponsor in the form of Jack Daniels Whiskey. This provided a great accompaniment to Java discussions at the end of the day.
Aside from the great selection of technical content was the opportunity to network with both attendees and speakers. This, as much as anything, is the best way to find out what’s really happening in the world of Java. There were plenty of positive comments on the new release cadence for the OpenJDK project and other recently announced changes.
This was the tenth time I’ve attended Devoxx (or Javapolis as it was called when it started). Definitely not my last.
Again, a huge turnout (I didn’t get details of numbers and it would be difficult to break it out into Java verses non-Java attendees). Although not focused primarily on Java I had great attendance at my sessions (the second one a little less, but I was near the end of the day and was competing against free beer being offered in the exhibition area).
Several common things strike me about these conferences:
Based on this, I do not doubt that Java will continue to be the most popular development platform on the planet for the foreseeable future.