My attendance this weekend of the NFJS tour in Denver, CO proved once again to be as valuable as ever. With a heavy penchant for Open Source and its rapid innovation, the speakers showcased technologies that weren't even on people's vocabulary lists just last year. And take note, these are not just technologies for the sake of technology. The speakers such as Ken Sipe, Venkat Sumbramaniam, Stu Halloway, Neal Ford, and more served out a steady stream of reasons why each new technology is a game-changer in its given space.
A quick top 5 list of the best presentations (that I attended):
- Hacking, The Dark Arts by Ken Sipe
- Towards an Evolutionary Design by Venkat Subramaniam
- Git by Stu Halloway
- Failing with 100% Test Coverage by Stu Halloway
- Mylin by Brian Sam-Bodden
If you have an opportunity to get your employer to purchase a seat for you to attend a stop on the NFJS tour, do it. If you are self employed, then don't even think about not going. This is one of the best ROI's of any conference going today. As Ken Sipe said in his keynote address, you must increase your networking, you must increase your knowledge portfolio, and you must continue to constantly change and improve as we IT professionals work in literally one of the most dynamic industry verticals in the world.
A very interesting article from InformationWeek also touches on the impact of Open Source, like TerraCotta in the Enterprise. With so much Open Source presented at NFJS, one can't help but imagine the NFJS attendees are the drivers of this migration.