Well, it's that time again. A foggy summer in San Francisco and the annual pilgrimage of the Java faithful to the Moscone Convention Center. I've attended every JavaOne [can you believe this is "JavaEight"?] and the show, for a hoover like me, is always an exhausting slog to cram in as much as possible and still be standing at the end.

To get some feel for my take on the show, check out my recaps of the last two conferences:

• JavaOne 2001: Boom or bust?
• JavaOne 2002: Electric Boogaloo

I'm fascinated to see how well the world of Java can transition through its current adolescence into maturity. There are lots of new goodies coming into the core Java fold over the next release or two, many of which are going to be presented during this show. I am concerned that Java is heading down the same slippery slope that C went in through with C++ but I think we all can help to keep that nightmare from becoming reality.

My humble prognostication is that the single most important session of this show will be An Independent Look At the Java Community ProcessSM Program. The session was originally called "JCP Better than Open Source?" but that title offended a lot of people so the name was changed. I suspect this will be a standing room only occasion so get there early if you want a seat.

In terms of the larger Java community, I'm going to go out on a limb and posit that the most important announcement at this year's JavaOne is the creation of this java.net community. We've got the Java Today portal, a slew of blogs, and are creating a JavaPedia. Come join in the fun!