Van Riper's Blog

September 2007 Archives

Silicon Valley CodeCamp on October 27-28

So, you might be wondering, what is a code camp, and what does it cost? Well, it's completely free and completely staffed by volunteers. It's a place you can share your passion for technology with others like yourself, it's a place you can give a presentation on your favorite topic to a receptive audience, as well as go to sessions by others who want to share the knowledge. Typically, there are sessions on all kinds of technologies like Java, Ruby, Python, JavaScript, Microsoft's latest stuff, and even more programming technologies. It's basically formatted like a 1 day JavaOne style event where sessions are pre-arranged and you just choose what interests you. Session submissions are closed a week before the event so you know what you'll be in for ahead of time and you can plan.

I'm signed up to make a presentation myself. I will be covering how you can create Google Maps mashups like this Java User Groups International Map. You can see all the currently submitted sessions here.

Foothill College is the local venue for this weekend event. There is still plenty of time for you to signup to give your own Java Technology presentation too. Regardless, please do register to attend this event. Free community events like this one are what you make of it. Help us make this a great event by joining us on October 27-28 and inviting your peers to join us too.

That's All Folks!

2007 Rich Web Experience: Up Close and Personal

There were about 300 people in attendance at this conference. There were about 40 people presenting during this three day event. With the communal meals and an attendee/speaker ratio on the order of 8 to 1, there was ample opportunity for attendees to have in-depth conversations with the speakers that you don't normally see at most other conferences. Plus, these speakers are all top caliber folks in the web development field.

Personally, I was able to have an extended conversation with Keith Donald from Interface21 on Friday evening during a conference social hour. This will hopefully lead to a visit by Rod Johnson to one of our Silicon Valley JUG meetings in the coming months.

I would have *loved* to attend the entire conference. Unfortunately, my work commitments did not allow me to do so. Still, the sessions I attended on Saturday were all uniformly excellent. I definitely learned a few new things to add to my bag of tricks when it comes to writing and debugging AJAX code from Venkat Subramaniam on Saturday morning. Besides being an extremely entertaining presenter, Scott Davis gave us a really deep dive into GIS for Web Developers during a 3 hour workshop on Saturday afternoon too.

I had heard great things from others that had attended previous NoFluffJustStuff conferences. My personal experience on Saturday was consistent with those earlier rave reviews. I was glad to hear of their plans for another Rich Web Experience conference in the fall of 2008 here in Silicon Valley. If you missed this one though and want something sooner than that, there is the Bay Area Software Symposium being held in Sunnyvale next month on October 19-21.

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