Java DevCon 2004 - May 18th (Next Tuesday)

["Burr Sutter" <sutter@bravepoint.com>]

The countdown begins...May 18th is the big day for Java DevCon 2004.  After
many months of discussing and planning this event will happen next Tuesday! 

To register: www.ajug.org/devcon2004

Andy Hunt (The Pragmatic Programmer) is on deck and ready to deliver a great
keynote address on the areas of agile methodologies and all sorts of
practical advice for the software developer.  He also plans to hang around
through the lunch period so bring your books and ask for an autograph!
Manning Publishing (The Art of Web Development) is providing some giveaways
since Neal Ford is one of our speakers (MVC Frameworks).  And our speakers
will be available throughout the day for informal discussions.  Some of the
most skilled architects in Atlanta will be available to mingle with you.
You can learn more in 30 minutes with Jason Chambers (Large Web Apps) or
Joey Gibson (Ant) than you could in months of plodding along by yourself. 

Attached is the Java DevCon flyer and preliminary schedule.  We will
finalize the schedule soon. 

We are covering open source topics like frameworks and Ant to esoteric
topics like P2P programming with JXTA and how to build a great rich UI in
Java. Plus we have practical and applied uses of Java in our community to
solve large scale business applications (ever heard of large airline company
in town or purchased a product from an office supply store?).  

Don't assume another colleague or co-worker of yours is aware of this event.
Sometimes AJUG announcement emails go into the "spam" bucket along with all
of those African millionaires who need a place to park their money or the
pills that can grow any body part to 5x its present size! 

Registration turnout has been great and we only have few spots remaining to
hit our goal.  We have to alert the Galleria by this Friday (May 14th) to
the final headcount so they can layout the rooms and plan for the meals!

As always we would like to thank our sponsors who support Java DevCon and
all AJUG events throughout the year (they pick up the tab on our room and
equipment rentals allowing us to keep the costs to our membership very low):
- Anteo Group (www.anteogroup.com)
- BEA (www.bea.com)
- ClearNova (www.clearnova.com)
- Compuware (www.compuware.com)
- Inflow (www.inflow.com)
- JBoss (www.jboss.org)
- SpectrumSCM (www.spectrumscm.com)
- And now Wily Technology (www.wilytech.com)

I'm also very excited to see the job growth for software developers in the
Atlanta market. Several jobs were posted just in the last few days:
http://www.ajug.org/ajugcontext/servlet/getJobs
And I've had other hiring companies tell me they are having a tough time
finding the bodies with the right training and experience at the moment.

Keep learning!  You are in charge of your education and future, not your
employer.  Think of yourself as a free agent with continuously developed
skills available to the highest bidder.  

Burr

AJUG_DevCon_Schedule.pdf

JavaDevCon_flyer.pdf