Yes, I think it is. I finally got back home Saturday night after a very long, and very exciting, week at MAX. I spent the latter half of the week at Broadchoice in some pretty intense meetings and am happy to be back in my office slinging code. In no particular order, here are my thoughts on MAX 2008.
First off - I think the biggest complaint last year involved the amount of walking folks had to do to get from one place to another. I was concerned about it again this year, especially with the larger amount of people attending. Turns out the location was just about perfect. All sessions were within two main hallways, all of which were about 5 minutes away from each other. To be fair, I spent 90% of my time at the Unconference, but the few times I did walk around, the setup seemed to work very well. I've said this before and I'll say it again - I'd much rather go for a less glitzy location if it means a conference I can more easily get around in. I think Adobe did a great job on the location.
I can't really speak to the quality of the sessions. Because I spent my time at the Unconference, the only session I attended was my own. My impression was that folks were satisfied, although I heard that most CF sessions were on one day which made it harder for folks to see them. I'll have to let other people chime in with their thoughts on that.
Keynotes were perfect. Absolutely perfect. No dull moment at all. I can't remember them ever being this good before, so again, kudos to Adobe.
Special event: It was certainly an interesting location, but I didn't stay there long. My buddies and I actually left rather early and all of us just went to our rooms and hit the sack. I blame the night before and too much Anchor Steam.
As a speaker, I was really impressed by the fact that I got my evaluations less than 24 hours after presenting. If I had been giving multiple talks on the same topic, that would have been really helpful. I've never been to a conference that had turn around speed that fast before.
The Unconference: Heh, well I'm a bit biased here as I was running it, but I loved it. I really hope Adobe gives me the opportunity to do so again. It seemed to be the place where all the 'cool kids' hung out, so I guess I'm lucky they didn't kick me out. ;) I did learn a few things. One - and this is kind of obvious - next time plan some space between presentations. Duh. Two - next time I'll insist on a projector. The TVs worked great for slides, but horribly for code. For those who want to download presentations, I've updated the main page with download links where I could.
All in all - my favorite MAX yet. I'm hoping for good things from LA next year!
And now for my 3 OT best things about MAX.
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Seeing Mike Relm display my giant fat head on screen in front of 5,000 people.
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Beating my high score at Galaga (no, mine isn't the top score, but the one on the left):
- And the number one best OT thing about MAX - the 5 Tagger Posse:
Archived Comments
Ray,
I agree. Excellent MAX this year. Great networking. Great keynotes. Great sessions. Great surfing. Great fun.
Will you (or have you) posted the code from your AJAX session? Some great examples that are directly applicable to a project one of my graduate assistants is working on.
Thanks,
Bob
Soon it will be up on Adobe TV: http://www.coldfusionjedi.c...
But I will also upload to SlideSix tonight.
I will check those out. Will you post the code samples as well?
Thanks,
Bob
What do you mean over??! I am heading to Milan next week (ok, going from ColdFusion Camp in Munich)!
Oh, I beat the tagger, I so beat the tagger with the CFEclipse chevrons tattoo ;)
@BF: Yes
@MD: Doh. You will forgive me for being US-Centric and not remembering that the rest of the planet existed. I blame Bush.
(JUST JOKING!! Ok, maybe not really....)
I have to say I was a little disappointed at the ColdFusion coverage in the general sessions. I was amazed that they barely mentioned the CF/Hibernate integration for CF 9, given that it's already been blogged about a little. I mentioned that to Jason Delmore when I attended the ORM session and he said they hadn't planned on talking about it at all and that's why it didn't really make it in. Still a bit disappointing, I think if they had talked about it in the general session the ORM session would have been packed.
A great MAX and a great job with the CF Unconference, Ray.
I wonder if the CF9 features were played down so as to make a bigger splash next year, when maybe there won't be Player 10, Flex 4, Builder 4, CS4 etc. etc. etc.
I'm not sure it's fair to say it was downplayed. With all the products Adobe has, I think CF got a fair amount of time. I actually expected more CS4 stuff since it was just released.