JMaghreb 2012 Trip Report
- by arungupta
JMaghreb is the
inaugural Java conference organized by Morocco JUG. It is the biggest
Java conference in Maghreb
(5 countries in North West Africa).
Oracle was the exclusive platinum sponsor with several others. The
registrations had to be closed at 1412 for the free conference and
several folks were already on the waiting list. Rabat with 531
registrations and Casablanca with 426 were the top cities. Some
statistics ...
850+ attendees over 2 days, 500+ every day
30 sessions were delivered by 18 speakers from 10 different
countries
10 sessions in French and 20 in English
6 of the speakers spoke at JavaOne 2012
8 will be at Devoxx
Attendees from 5 different countries and 57 cities in Morocco
40.9% qualified them as professional and rest as students
Topics ranged from HTML5, Java EE 7, ADF, JavaFX, MySQL, JCP,
Vaadin, Android, Community, JCP
Java EE 6 hands-on lab was sold out within 7 minutes and
JavaFX in 12 minutes
I gave the keynote along with Simon Ritter which was basically a
recap of the Strategy
and Technical
keynotes presented at JavaOne 2012.
An informal survey during the keynote showed the following numbers:
25% using NetBeans, 90% on Eclipse, 3 on JDeveloper, 1 on
IntelliJ
About 10 subscribers to free online Java
magazine. This digital magazine is a comprehensive source
of information for everything Java - subscribe
for free!!
About 10-15% using Java SE 7. Download
JDK 7 and get started today! Even JDK 8 builds
have been available for a while now.
My second talk explained the core concepts of WebSocket and how JSR 356 is
providing a standard API to build WebSocket-driven applications in
Java EE 7. TOTD
#183 explains how you can easily get started with WebSocket in
GlassFish
4. The complete slide deck is available:
Next day started with a community keynote by Sonya Barry. Some of us
live the life of JCP, JSR, EG, EC, RI, etc every day, but not every
body is. To address that, Sonya prepared an excellent introductory
presentation providing an explanation of these terms and how
java.net infrastructure supports Java development.
The registration for the lab showed there is a definite demand for
these technologies in this part of the world. I delivered the Java
EE 6 hands-on lab to a packed room of about 120 attendees. Most of
the attendees were able to progress and follow the lab instructions.
Some of the attendees did not have a laptop but were taking
extensive notes on paper notepads. Several attendees were already
using Java EE 6 in their projects and typically they are the ones
asking deep dive questions. Also gave out three copies of my
recently released Java
EE 6 Pocket Guide and new GlassFish
t-shirts. Definitely feels happy to coach ~120 more Java
developers learn standards-based enterprise Java programming.
I also participated in a JCP BoF along with Werner, Sonya, and Badr.
Adotp-a-JSR, java.net infrastructure, how to file a JSR, what is an
RI, and other similar topics were discussed in a candid manner.
You can follow @JMaghrebConf
or check out their facebook
page. java.net published a timely conversation
with Badr El Houari - the fearless leader of the Morocco JUG
team. Did you know that Morocco JUG stood for JCP EC elections (ADD
LINK) ? Even though they did not get elected but did fairly well.
Now some sample tweets from #JMaghreb
...
#JMaghreb is over. Impressive for a first edition! Thanks
@badrelhouari and all the @MoroccoJUG team !
Since you @speakjava : System.out.println("Thank you so much
dear Tech Evangelist ! The JavaFX was pretty amazing !!! ");
#JMaghreb
@YounesVendetta @arungupta @JMaghrebConf Right ! hope he
will be back to morocco again and again .. :)
@Alji_ @arungupta @JMaghrebConf That dude is a genius ;) Put
it on your wall :p
@arungupta rocking Java EE 6 at @JMaghrebConf #Java #JavaEE
#JMaghreb http://t.co/isl0Iq5p
@sonyabarry you are an awesome speaker ;-)
#JMaghreb rich more than 550 attendees in day one. Expecting
more tomorrow!
ongratulations @badrelhouari the organisation was great! The
talks were pretty interesting, and the turnout was surprising at
#JMaghreb!
#JMaghreb is truly awesome... The speakers are unbelievable
!
#JavaFX... Just amazing #JMaghreb
Charmed by the talk about #javaFX ( nodes architecture, MVC,
Lazy loading, binding... ) gotta start using it intead of SWT.
#JMaghreb
JavaFX is killing JFreeChart. It supports Charts a lot of
kind of them ... #JMaghreb
The british man is back #JMaghreb I do like him!!
#JMaghreb @arungupta rocking @JMaghrebConf.
pic.twitter.com/CNohA3PE
@arungupta Great talk about the future of Java EE (JEE 7
& JEE 8) Thank you. #JMaghreb
JEE7 more mooore power , leeess less code !! #JMaghreb
They are simplifying the existing API for Java Message
Service 2.0 #JMaghreb good to know , the more the code is
simplified the better !
The Glassdoor guy #arungupta is doing it RIGHT ! #JMaghreb
Great presentation of The Future of the Java Platform: Java
EE 7, Java SE 8 & Beyond #jMaghreb
@arungupta is a great Guy apparently #JMaghreb
On a personal front, the hotel (Soiftel Jardin des Roses) was pretty
nice and the location was perfect. There was a 1.8 mile loop dirt
trail right next to it so I managed to squeeze some runs before my upcoming marathon. Also enjoyed
some great Moroccan cuisine - Couscous, Tajine, mint tea,
and moroccan salad. Visit to Kasbah of
the Udayas, Hassan II
(one of the tallest
mosque in the world), and eating in a restaurant in a kasbah
are some of the exciting local experiences.
Now some pictures from the event (and around the city) ...
And the complete album:
Many thanks to Badr, Faisal, and rest of the team for organizing a
great conference. They are already thinking about how to improve the
content, logisitics, and flow for the next year. I'm certainly
looking forward to JMaghreb 2.0 :-)
