Спасибо St. Petersburg
Participating in Sun Tech Days delivers a multitude of benefits to the participant, to Sun, and to the developer community. The Sun folks get to present their products and showcase the fruits of their day-to-day labor to an attentive audience. The attendees get to learn about the latest in technology, ask questions, and become experts as well.
For me, it's an exciting opportunity to engage in conversations with developers and understand how they use the products, how they wish to participate in community projects, and what features and improvements they want to see. I get to meet, face-to-face, many of the community contributors I only know from mailing lists, chats, and projects. It's so much nicer to be able to put a friendly face to a name and email address. I like to hear about their projects, studies, careers and personal lives. This makes the collaborative efforts real to me and personal. At the St. Petersburg event, Maxym, one of the long-time NetBeans contributors, sat with us in the Documentation & Localization booth and engaged developers in discussions.
Additionally, I get to know many of my colleagues that I only know by conference call or email. The best way to get to know people, is of course, the famed beerfest. Several technical documentation writers (James, Patrick) came from Prague, as did the NetBeans Program Manager (Ivan) and one localization engineer (Jeremie). The local St. Petersburg team of tech writers (Dancing Irina, Blond Irina, DIMA, dima, Alla, Catherine, Nastia, Barbara) were warm and welcoming hosts. We did plan several outings after work and enjoyed getting to know each other which will make the future projects we collaborate on, all the more enjoyable and productive.
CAPTION: Tech writers from Prague, Colorado, and St. Petersburg, Globalization team members from San Francisco and Prague, NetBeans team members from Prague, and community member Maxym, gathered around the Sun Tech Days Documentation & Localization booth in a toast of camaraderie. (Photo courtesy of James Branam)
CAPTION: Celebrating after three days of Sun Tech Days. (Photo courtesy of James Branam)
