So here’s the scene…

• Setting: Moscone Center, Main Hall
• Audience: ~15,000
• Speaker wardrobe: Blue jeans and black shirt
• Hardware on stage: Macs
• Time: Tuesday morning
• Product being demoed: New handheld tech gadget

Sounds like a recipe for success, right? Sadly, no. All that came to mind is this simple equation:

JavaFX Mobile = iPhone - cool

And for some reason, the phone they had on stage looked 10 times uglier than the one in their promo pic. (Where’s the marketing department when you need them?) Of course, the stuttering UI didn’t do much for its appeal either. And is it just me, or did they forget to turn off the spellchecker before they took their screenshot?

=

The No Fluff Just Stuff G2One event officially kicked off my JavaOne festivities last night, and it turned out to be the veritable who’s who of Java geekery. I say that affectionately, of course, and I was quite impressed. It’s a clear testament to the sincere interest the Java community has in the Groovy story. Faces I saw in the crowd (some of which I had the distinct pleasure to meet) included none other than: Dick Wall and Carl Quinn (of Java Posse fame), Emmanuel Bernard (of Hibernate and JBoss fame), Romain Guy (of Filthy Rich Client fame and owner of the French accent making occasional, and always hilarious, guest appearances on the afore-mentioned Java Posse), Stu Halloway (most-recently of Ruby and Rails fame), David Geary (of Swing and JSF fame), and Chris Richardson (of POJOs in Action fame). And when we capped off the event with the panel discussion, we were presented with a surprise guest host, Ted Neward (of interoperability/controversy fame (wink)), to preside over the session. Very cool! It was a blast!

For those that weren’t able to attend the event (or are perhaps still wanting more Groovy/Grails goodness), Jay Zimmerman announced plans for a dedicated Groovy and Grails training program that’s set to debut in September and then the first Groovy Experience conference scheduled for February of next year. Stay tuned. The momentum continues to build.

As a final note, it was great to finally meet so many of the Groovy and Grails pioneers and evangalists in person: Graeme Rocher (who has a good write-up on Day 0 as well), Dierk Koenig, Guillaume LaForge, Andrew Glover, and Neal Ford. Keep groovin’, Guys!

Grails 0.5 is out, and it’s busting at the seams with improvements! This release marks a huge milestone in the march towards Grails 1.0, as it brings with it a whole host of features that truly take Grails to the next level. The real heavy hitters include a DSL for custom URL mappings, command objects, and GORM’s continued quest to free the world from the evils of painful Object Relational Mapping. You’ll also find this release sporting the new Groovy 1.1 beta distro, an improved developer experience (thanks to major improvements in hot reloading of key artifacts), an almost 50% increase in performance, and resolutions for over 200 JIRA issues. Be sure to check out the release notes for details on (and examples of) these and many other features of this slam-packed release.

If you’re heading to JavaOne next week, what better way to get the festivities started than to spend an evening checking out the one-two punch that is Groovy and Grails?! The No Fluff Just Stuff Java Symposium Series is hosting the Groovy/Grails One Meet-up from 6:30 - 10:30 on Monday night at the W Hotel, just across the street from the Moscone Center.

Come on out and hear the latest news on the just-released Groovy 1.1 beta. Groovy Project Lead, Guillaume LaForge, will be on hand with all the details. And, you won’t want to miss Graeme Rocher, Grails Project Lead, as he brings you up to speed on the slam-packed Grails 0.5 release due out any moment. We’ll follow up those presentations with giveaways, demos, and a panel discussion including Dierk Koenig, lead author of Groovy in Action; Andrew Glover, co-author of Groovy in Action; Neal Ford, DSL Guru; and yours truly.

And in a genuine show of class, the NFJS folks have added a charitable angle to the event. Registration is free, but they’ve asked that attendees make a small donation to the charity of their choice. In exchange, you get to check out two of the most promising technologies in the Java world today, meet some of the people behind the scenes, and you even stand a chance to win some cool gear. Well done!

Attendance is limited, so register early!