Not everything in JavaOne is about Java. Since Oracle decided to combine all of its conferences (OpenWorld, Oracle Develop and now that they own Sun, JavaOne), they did a massive party at Treasure Island in San Francisco. Around 50,000 people went there to enjoy different bands and artists, like the Steve Miller Band, Don Henley, Berlin, Montgomery Gentry, The English Beat. But the main event to me was none other than The Black Eyed Peas. They did a wonderful job in getting the audience excited, and they played many of their hit songs from several of their albums.

That concert totally made my day. I leave you here with a sample.

Well, I was going to try and talk about every session that I've been to, and about many of the new and old frameworks that I've seen, but one of the downsides of having the sessions in multiple hotels is that you're basically running from one place to another in between session. But I will eventually try to talk about all the things I've seen at JavaOne. At least it gives me material to keep posting stuff for a while.

I'm also very excited because as part of the Basement Coders podcast, we were able to interview many people. And we have a very special podcast coming out pretty soon in which we interview the Father of Java, James Gosling. Yes, that's right, we talked to him for a full hour and we discussed many things, including Oracle's ongoing lawsuit against Google and the controversy regarding his position for making Java free. I think it is a very interesting talk and you should definitely listen to it.

In general, I've enjoyed the conference so far, and I'll keep discussing the different aspects of it. I've actually felt good that I've talked to some people who've I've never met, and they tell me they've actually read my blog before. I think that is the best incentive for me to keep doing this for a long time. Thank you all for your comments.

Yesterday I attended Oracle's JavaOne keynote, presented by Thomas Kurian. The keynote focused on how has Java evolved and where it is right now. Millions of users use Java every day and the JVM is everywhere, form desktop computers to embedded devices. But we all knew that.

As for the future of Java, Thomas mentioned the new features that will be released in Java 7 and Java 8, scheduled for release mid 2011 and late 2012, respectively. I've already covered those, so I won't go into detail. They are also trying to promote Netbeans as the standard IDE for Java developers.

Then the presentation turned to JavaFX. It seems that JavaFX the scripting language is going away, but the technology is staying. JavaFX 2.0 plans are to move the script APIs to Java, so that developers won't have to learn a new language. They also plan several enhancements like binding APIs, Hardware Accelerated Graphics, HD Media support, etc. They showcased a demo where several video sources were being displayed simultaneously, with 3D effects like breaking a single video into hundreds of simulated cubes that would still play parts of the video. The plans are to release this sometime next year.

Overall, I don't think the presentation had much impact. It seems to me that, intentionally or not, the keynote was just a message from Oracle that is business as usual, and that they plan on keeping Java around for a while.