Thursday November 02, 2006
Touring Europe
Filed under: postcards
The world kept turning, of course, as I was on the road for the last couple of weeks.
Part
vacation, part work: meeting up with our Java SE teams from Grenoble
and Dublin, and dropping in to the NetBeans team in Prague.The Java SE 6 platform JSR and its component JSRs entered the JCP Final Approval Ballot. So Java SE 6 is in the home straight now as the ballot ending is the go ahead for us to be able to release it. I hope all your fingers and toes are crossed.
JSR 277 produced an Expert Draft, and has been stirring up some controversy to keep us from getting boring. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Mike Ernst and my new JSR 308 passed its inception ballot, which aims to extend the annotation mechanism first introduced in JSR 175 by allowing annotations to be slipped into various hitherto forbidden places. The expert group is open, so go nominate yourself if have some spare time to devote to helping out.
While in Prague, a highlight was to meet the NetBeans evangelists. Such a high energy bunch. Its like a Marketing bird mated with the Engineering bird, and out of the eggs hatched this brood.
Does it surprise you to know that Roman is more effervescent in person than on his blog ?
I also gave a talk about Java SE 7 to the Czech Java Users Group. Since you and I have no secrets, here are the slides. Someone had a video camera there, so I believe I should be able to point you to recording in the next week or so. Should you want to see the real thing.
[I haven't seen it yet, but if I look flustered, its because I, in a moment of gallantry, allowed an elderly lady to go ahead of me on the Prague Metro. You know, snowy haired, kindly looking, harried, grateful. But once I had calibrated her glacial walking pace from behind, I had lost sight of the rest of the NetBeans gang, any rational connection with knowledge of the venue I was due to speak at in 10 minutes, and most of my sanity. Thanks to Tim for rescuing me...]
Speaking of cameras, I also developed a new YouTube crush. Gary Brolsma, lonelygirl15, geriatric1927: over, over and over. CBS may have Katie Couric, but we have our own MaryMaryQuiteContrary, who has unleashed her sparkling persona into visual form.
Since I know you are better read that I am, I'll tell you that my trip acquired an spooky literary dimension. Hardly a week after my dad recommended Stendahl's Le Rouge et le Noir (I'm catching up on my European classics), was I eating at a restaurant in Grenoble feet from where its hero awaits his execution in prision. And having recently read Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a few days later I was dining on Petrin Hill overlooking Prague, scene of a pivotal moment for the 'heavy' Tereza.
I'm glad to be home !
Posted by dannycoward ( Nov 02 2006, 12:42:38 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [3]
