Summary
A few weeks ago, I wondered if generics were going to be the death of Java. But today, I began to wonder if Oracle might just manage to do it in a lot more quickly.

A few weeks ago, I wondered if generics were going to be the death of Java. But today, I began to wonder if Oracle might just manage to do it in a lot more quickly.

To be fair, it seems like they shoe-horned the two conventions together at the last second, without enough time to the job as well as they would have liked. There were many signs of professionalism--like painted signs on the sidewalk telling you which way to go at the street corners.

But to be honest, if the JavaOne convention takes up both convention halls, and the Oracle convention takes up both convention halls, how good an idea can it be to try to hold both conventions simultaneously? Answer: Not a very good idea at all.

Traveling was hard, too. That didn't help. Here's a littany of the issues that beset me.

Pre-Show Blues

• I use the online "scheduler" on Tuesday to selected some sessions that look good. I couldn't browse to see everything, but I could search for things I knew I'd probably be interested in.

• I want back to look some more on Sunday. My previous selections were gone, and the default sessions I had deleted were back. Maybe there was a "save" button somewhere on the screen, and I missed it. Fortunately, I had sent myself an email with my schedule, so I wasn't hosed. But still...

• But the big problem was that I couldn't browse the sessions to see what talks I might want to attend. I could search for things I knew about, but had no good way to find out what else was going on.

• Oh well. I'll pick up a printed schedule when I get there, and browse that. Or so I thought...

Travel Woes

• I'm late. No time to take the train. (It's a low stress way to travel, but it takes an hour and a half. I can drive in half that time. Or so I thought.

• Monster traffic on the freeway. Took just as much time, and then some. (Could be a good sign. Maybe the economy is finally picking up again.)

• Then I find out that the street I was planning to take between the two convention buildings is completly blocked off. Great for pedestrians. Bad for me. That was the street I needed to take to get to my parking garage. One more traffic jam later, and I finally get to park the car.

• I go to the registration area. It's not there. It's moved. Oh, well. It's probably where past attendees of the Oracle convention are used to finding it. I do get there, eventually.

The "JavaOne" Convention, at last (sort of)

• I register and get my stuff. I Look through the big convention program booklet, with a 4-page foldout for each day's sessions. Not a word about Java in any of them.

• Fortunately, I have the name of the talk I'm going to, and the time. The lady in the information booth does a search. It's in another hotel, 6 blocks away!

• Afterward, I ask at the information booth and the registration booth at the hotel, to see if anyone has a list of Java talks. No one does!

• I ask to see if there is a press room in the hote, too. I'm sure to find what I need there. But there isn't one in the hotel!

• I walk 6 blocks back to the convention center and ask one of the helpful people there for a list of JavaOne talks.

• They dig up a JavaOne program booklet. It's the only copy they have, so I can't take it. But at least I can borrow it for long enough to find what the heck is going on.

• I walk 6 blocks back to my next session.

• Whew. I thought I walked a lot at JavaOne in years past. But that was nothing.

Ok. I've had it for the day. So I walk 4 blocks back to my car and leave. (There was one more session I might have stayed for. But between the freeway crush, city traffic jams, and long walks, I was too exhausted!)

Next: Upcoming Java Features

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About the Blogger

Eric Armstrong has been programming and writing professionally since before there were personal computers. His production experience includes artificial intelligence (AI) programs, system libraries, real-time programs, and business applications in a variety of languages. He works as a writer and software consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area. He wrote The JBuilder2 Bible and authored the Java/XML programming tutorial available at http://java.sun.com. Eric is also involved in efforts to design knowledge-based collaboration systems.