The Dutch Java User Group (NLJUG) held its annual JFall conference at the new location in Nijkerk on 03 November 2010. I have always been a fan of the Fall session over the Spring versions they used to hold, but since this year we had no choice with cancellation of the Spring version I was again back for more Java immersion. I was also invited to speak with Arnoud Wolfard for a session on jBPM task management interfaces based on In2Flow from the SNS Bank.As always JFall functions for me as one of the primary events of the year to network with everyone I know within the IT business in the Netherlands. From companies I have worked at, to people I have met through my current job, to service integrators and old mates from my university days, they are all there in force. It was even better in the new location as the sphere was more conducive to chatting in the various corners the venue provided. The stands were also spread nicely throughout the venues many halls, rooms and buildings as you can see from the on-line photo gallery.
I personally visited a few sessions, including:
- What's new in Hibernate: a JPA 2 perspective (Emmanuel Bernard)
- Modern Concurrency: STM, Actors & Transactors (Peter Veentjer)
- In2Flow – solving your BPM human task problems! (of course...)
- Activiti: the definitive BPMN 2.0 engine (Tijs Rademakers & Andy Verberne)
The main attraction for me was of course our session that was given solely by Arnoud Wolfard. As you can see from the various photos, it was a large crowd that interacted throughout the entire session with questions and comments. It was very clear that jBPM is active and of great interest to the Dutch Java Users and Arnoud Wolfard discussed the lessons learned by the SNS Bank in dealing with task interaction interfaces in a structured manner for their JBoss jBPM business process implementations. He even managed to finish up the session with Q&A running it right down to the last available minute, well done Arnoud!
As a really nice bonus I participated in the Tweet wall (post a tweet via post-its on a board) contest and won a signed copy of 'Agile SW Development' which you just can't beat for finishing up your visit to JFall 2010 with a positive note. Thanks to all the organizers for another great conference and I will be back next year!