This Image Gallery contains pictures I took at the 2006 JavaOne Developer Conference, held in May of 2006 in San Francisco, Calfornia. JavaOne is an annual event that focuses on Java, a popular free and open source programming language and execution environment that runs on any type of computer. Java has grown tremendously from its inception only eleven years ago, and is used in countless applications and countless products the world over. At this year's conference, there were almost 15,000 attendees.
Bright day and fluttering flags
We stayed at the Ramada Plaza Hotel - about a 20 minute walk from the convention center. An architecturally nice enough area, although a little bit run-down in the area of our hotel (but nice near the convention center). I guess that lower rate was for a reason! Chris ( a colleague of mine who was also attending) was a bit dubious about the area at first, but he warmed up to the area after a couple of days of not being mugged.
We arrived extra early on the first day of the conference to avoid a possible crush of registrants; I guess I underestimated the laziness of nerdy people, because there was only a thin smattering of attendees about. After registering, we picked up a very nice package of "conference materials", which included the usual schedules and such, but also a nice daypack, t-shirt, and and pad and paper.
We got a sense for the scale of the conference when we entered the vast echoing expanse of the breakfast hall - at this point almost empty, but with enough seats for several battalions! Amazing.
After our continental breakfast, we wandered around the open areas, noting the rows upon rows of id-card operated internet terminals available for use (you use your conference id card in a slot and it boots up and presents an internet-connected desktop). Since we were so early, we spent a bit of time checking e-mail, and also playing a few games in the "network games area". This conference has its demographic dialed-in!
The massive general assembly hall
The introductory keynote session was held in a hall that was probably twice the size of the dining hall (meaning it could have held several battalions times two); A fancy african-reggae-fusion multi-part band was playing off to the side, and huge, wide, super crisp projection displays were everywhere.
By Day 2 of the Conference we'd settled into a routine. We now knew our way around; we had a sense of the rhythm of the sessions and knew when we had to be in line for the next one (the lines often got really really long); Chris and I had learned that, with almost fifteen thousand people wandering around, we needed to have a pre-arranged meeting point or we'd lose track of each other for the rest of the day. From now on, if we couldn't find each other, we'd meet at the entrance to the Network Gaming area.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Java
Although the conference provided us with a "free" lunch, our first experience with it was less than appetizing, so today Chris and I decided to head out for lunch. It turns out that there are a number of quite inexpensive and very fast lunch spots immediately next to the conference center. Plus, it was nice to get out into some fresh air and walk around in scenic downtown San Francisco. Our lunches were pretty short, however -- the conference sessions were packed tightly together!
Directly across from where we had lunch was the number one station of the San Francisco Fire Department. Chris' Dad is a volunteer firefighter back in Cape Breton, and so we wandered over into the station after lunch - and Chris got a nifty t-shirt for his dad.
