Which Conference?
So new year / new budgets. Your conference menu for 2007 looks like this:
JavaOne
| Where: | San Francisco |
|---|---|
| When: | 8-11 May 2007 |
| Size: | About 15,000 |
JavaOne gets all the big announcements, it gets the biggest range of speakers, and some good swag. On the other hand, it is really impersonal, you are forever queuing, and it's impossible to randomly meet interesting people. It's also very expensive, but I guess that only matters if you are paying.
QCon
| Where: | London |
|---|---|
| When: | 12-16 March 2007 |
| Size: | Unknown |
I'm excited by QCon because for me it's local. It seems strange that there has been so little conference action in the UK - I'm guessing that London has one of the highest density of Java developers outside of the valley and New York. QCon is a collaboration between InfoQ and Jaoo, so if people love QCon the way they love Jaoo, it will be a great week. Both QCon and Jaoo have a large chunk of non-Java talks, which may be good or bad depending on your perspective.
Javapolis
| Where: | Antwerp, Belgium |
|---|---|
| When: | December 2007 |
| Size: | Around 3,000 |
Javapolis is the second biggest Java event so it does get some good announcements, this year for example they had the release of Java6. Despite it's site, however it's not too impersonal and it's great value for money. For me, the cinema location isn't great; the laid back layout maybe good for getting into a film, but it could be better for learning.
Update: Maybe it's just me - in the comments Stephan says most people love the venue, so the relaxed seating is even more reason to go.
The Ajax Experience
| Where: | Various: San Francisco and Boston |
|---|---|
| When: | No dates known for next year |
| Size: | About 700 |
The 2 Ajax Experiences rank amongst my favorite. It's not too commercialized (it's run by the No Fluff and Ajaxian.com) and personally I've found the speakers and the content really interesting. The swag is top notch. Not just a bag and a bunch of CDs and T-shirts, but also good books and a iPod Shuffle for all attendees. They also have a swag givaway, at which you can win bigger prizes. In Boston, The table I was sitting at won 6 nanos because I remembered this blog post. Someone whose name I forget, Howard, Greg, Jan and James (who was on photo duty), were very pleased.
Hey - Ben/Dion - are there going to be any more?
Ajax World
| Where: | Various: San Francisco and New York |
|---|---|
| When: | 19-21 March 2007 |
| Size: | About 2,000 |
I've never been to an Ajax World, so I can't really comment, but I think there is a good chance that I'll be going to the New York event to speak. It's a lot bigger than the Ajax Experience, and feels more commercialized. It's run by Sys-con.
Jaoo
| Where: | Aarhus, Denmark, but has been in France |
|---|---|
| When: | 23-28 September 2007 |
| Size: | Around 1200 |
For a quiet country with only 5 million inhabitants, there it a lot going on in Denmark. I've been to Javagruppen (very small conference) and CMForum (More CMS stuff than Java), but never to Jaoo. It seems expensive, but people seem to like, it and even love it. Like QCon, it caters for more than just Java.
The Server Side Java Symposium
| Where: | Various: Barcelona and Las Vegas |
|---|---|
| When: | 21-23 March 2007 (Las Vegas) |
| Size: | About 500 |
TSSJS in Barcelona was a nice, small event. Very friendly and easy to meet people. If I recall correctly, it used to be called Java in Action. I've never been to the Las Vegas event, but I heard many similar comments about it being friendly.
No Fluff - Just Stuff
| Where: | All over the US |
|---|---|
| When: | All the time |
| Size: | A few hundred |
The no-fluff guys have a regular series going on - there is something almost every other week, with a fairly regular set of speakers. The conferences are very intimate, not commercial, and have good swag.
OSCON and EuroOSCON
| Where: | Portland and Brussels |
|---|---|
| When: | 23-27 July 2007 (Portland), September (Brussels) |
| Size: | Big. 5000? |
OSCON is big and has some great talks. Dick Hardt's keynote on Identity 2.0 is fairly famous for example. In the past the Java track hasn't been great, however it seems that they recognise this and are putting on a real effort to get it sorted out, so I expect that it will be a lot better this year. They are looking for submissions; you've for until 5 Feb.
ApacheCon
| Where: | Amsterdam, San Diego |
|---|---|
| When: | 1-4 May 2007 (Amsterdam), December (US) |
| Size: | Around 1000 |
By being mostly specific to Apache projects, ApacheCon is the place to go to hear about projects that don't get to speak at other conferences. I'm not sure you'd get a talk about Apache James anywhere else. I've never been, although I've spoken to people that have and they've enjoyed it. On the downside, the website reminds me of something knocked up in 5 minutes in FrontPage Express.
Others
I've missed out a whole bunch of conferences like EclipseCon, SpringOne, The Spring Experience (it's easy to know if you need these) and JavaZone (Can't find details about 2007 conference) and others.
Which conferences would you recommend?