Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

Allen Holub has an interesting article in the latest SDNews. He's charting the decline of JavaOne as a conference. Now, this doesn't actually have anything to do with Java itself - it has to do with the conference and how it's run. Allen says that the early shows were educational affairs - he ralates an experience in an AWT class at an early JavaOne:

I vividly remember a session on the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT), for example, where the speaker analyzed the library in terms of the implemented design patterns and showed how the APIs fit into those patterns. The APIs were put into a context that allowed me to understand the whole library, including those APIs that were not discussed during this session. The talk, which didn 19t follow a rigid format, was packed with information. I came out of this session thoroughly understanding AWT and its architecture, and could immediately apply what I 19d learned.

He contrasts that with this year's show, where he found too much (Sun) marketing and too little technical information. So why do I care? Well, I'm one of the people involved in getting Smalltalk Solutions off the ground each year (although not nearly as much as Alan Knight, who is the technical chair, or Joy Murray, who does the most of the work around site selection). One of the things I hope we do a good job of is the talks at the show - do attendees find them useful and interesting? Do you learn new things?

Certainly there's a place for marketing and advocacy at this type of show, but interesting and useful content is what makes the rest of it possible. So how are we doing that way? Do we do a better job than shows like JavaONE? A similar job? A worse job? Let me know.

We (STIC) have started planning for StS 2005 - we are trying to select a location. We have some ideas, but I have a general question - if we held the show in a "vacation" location, would you be more likely to come, or less likely? Would you be interested in combining the trip with a vacation if we did that? Or, would you rather that we made a selection along the same lines as the last few (Seattle, Toronto, Chicago...)? Thanks!

I'll be off for Smalltalk Solutions in a few hours - I won't be getting to the hotel until after midnight (any night owls up for a drink?) My slides are actually done - you can have a look at them here. Should be a great show.

StS 2004 starts Monday - there's still time to sign up and get there. I'll be arriving late on Sunday - so I likely won't see anyone until then (unless there are some nightowls in the hotel bar on Sunday). It's going to be a great show - I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Smalltalk Solutions is rapidly approaching, and there's still time to register for the show! What will you miss if you don't come?

• Avi Bryant's keynote address on Seaside, and why it's a better way to build web apps
• George Bosworth's keynote address on the Microsoft CLR, and how it fits with dynamic languages
• Lars Bak's keynote address on Resilient, and why he chose Smalltalk instead of Java for embedded systems
• Smalltalk night at the Space Needle - have dinner with the Smalltalk crowd at the top of Seattle
• All the other fine talks and tutorials at this year's show

There's a lot of great stuff packed into three short days. See you there!

If you are flying into Seattle for StS 2004 and need a convenient ride to the conference hotel, then check out the Seattle Airport Shuttle Express - the fares and schedules are posted on that page. A cab will likely run you about $35 USD. See you in Seattle!

I'm giving a talk on the implementation of BottomFeeder at StS 2004 - there's still time to register, btw! Anyway, saying I'll talk about the implementation is a bit broad - what am I going to discuss?

I've now given a variation on this talk three times - to two STUG meetings, and at ot2004. The STUG talks were more technically oriented, but I got a lot of good feedback at ot2004 about it. So before I really get into implementation, I'll (briefly) do two things:

• Explain what a blog is - it's easy to assume that "everyone" knows what a blog is. It's still something of an insular world though, so I'll provide a brief overview
• What's an Aggregator? Again, as with blogs, not everyone knows what one is. I'll again give a brief overview of what an aggregator is.

Then I'll talk about how I stumbled into this field, followed by some of the implementation details of BottomFeeder. I've uploaded the slide deck here. I've made a few changes since I sent in the presentation for the StS CD, so it might be worth downloading. I'm speaking bright and early - 8:30 am on May 5th. See you there!

Yes, we were slow about this :) Still, better late than never. The presentations from last year's StS are online:

Presentations from Smalltalk Solutions 2003 are now available at: http://www.whysmalltalk.com/Smalltalk_Solutions/ss2003/ss2003presentations.htm

Smalltalk Solutions 2004

For those of you local to the Seattle area, or if you just happen to be in town for a day, we have added a one-day pass for the conference. The one-day conference pass is $200 USD and gives you full access to that day's events (except for tutorials). One-day passes can only be purchased at the conference. I look forward to seeing everyone next week in Seattle for the 2004 show.

It's not too late to register - details here. See you in Seattle!

I won't be the only one blogging events at StS this year - Michael Lucas-Smith will be blogging the events he attends - if he can get is notebook configured, that is :). Rich Demers will be there as well, although I have no idea whether he'll be blogging on it. Sames and Alan will be there as well. This year I have a USB stick, so if anyone else transcribes notes that they'd like to see published, just find me - it should be easy enough to do. This is going to be a great show, and I look forward to seeing everyone there!

You can still register for StS 2004 - I've been putting a few finishing touches on my BottomFeeder presentation. I've made a few changes since I spoke at ot2004, based on how that went. It looks like it's going to be a good show - lots of interesting talks, and a lot of good people coming out. Seattle's a great place for the show as well - it's a great city to hang out in. See you there!