JFall

Today I visited JFall, a one day java conference organized annually by the Dutch Java Users Group. The conference was a good chance to catch up on the latest technologies (with a bias towards Adobe products, as they were the main sponsor of the event this year), and also meet up with some old colleagues of mine.

In the end I attended sessions on:

• Webservices security (a necessary evil)
• Adobe AIR (bringing flashy internet sites to the desktop, for example eBay Desktop)
• New features in Java 6 & 7
• JavaFX (a new scripting language for Java user interfaces)
• Concurrency

The conference was for the most part well organized, with the exception of the bus service which was provided from the train station to the conference venue - 2 7-seaters which were hopelessly under capacity to carry everyone. Since there were no signs indicating where the buses could be found, it was a good thing that an all male group of computer programmers is hard to miss.

All in all, though, an enjoyable day which was both educational and social, and gave me a good opportunity to practice my Dutch. I'm looking forward to their next conference, held in April.... JSpring!