In an earlier blog entry I listed my picks for DevNexus 2014.  This blog entry summarizes my notes from this show.

 

I corroborate the common wisdom about DevNexus being a very well run show.  This was my first time presenting and I found the talk selection on the first day to have the right mix of diversity and depth for the working developer.  The second day was much less compelling for me, personally, so I'll just report on the first day.

 

09:00 Welcome and Sven Peters Keynote, Hall A

 

From the buzz around his provocative "Don't use git" meme, I expected a great wake-up presentation.  Sven did not disappoint, though I confess to already being a much bigger fan of Charlie than the Octocat. This presentation was a breezy feel-good about not being afraid to be a good developer.

     

10:30 Intro to Vert.x 2.0 Burr Sutter, Room 103

     

I wasn't able to see as much of this as I would have liked     because I was still finishing up my slides for 4pm.  As far as     Vert.x, Burr stated it bears only a superficial resemblance to   node.js: that it is designed to leverage asynchronous realities.     The unit of abstraction in Vert.x is a "verticle".  He also     mentioned it was a "micro-services" framework.  In spite of Burr's     assertion, I still think that Vert.x is a good place to start for     those that want some of the node.js goodness but withut leaving     Java.

     

13:00 AngularJS Bootcamp, Raju Gandhi, Ballroom F

     

This is part 1 of a two-part workshop-type session. AngularJS     was also recommended on the JavaEE 8 developer survey.

     

I only caught the tail end of this due to hallway chat with Burr.     I sought to validate my value proposition for my UI talk tomorrow:     that the combining of the I18N     feature of JSF with AngularJS would bring unique value not present     in AngularJS alone.  Raju agreed this was worth mentioning.     This one was a very good one to see, and I'd recommend looking at     the video if it ever comes out. (Well, it's nearly five months later     and it's still not out, so I wouldn't hold your breath.)

     

14:30 Node.js intro, Ted Neward, Ballroom B

     

Ted's an excellent speaker.  The first half of this talk was just an     "Intro to JavaScript".  This one is worth seeing the video for as     well.  I wasn't able to stay for the node.js specific part because I     wanted to get in the zone for my talk.

     

17:30 Mobile Frameworks Smackdown, Ballroom A

This one was very unmemorable, though I did hand my business card     to a lady who was asking for a solution to write Java apps once and     have them appear on Android and IOS devices as native apps.     Naturally, I told her about Oracle     ADF mobile.