A look back at JavaLand 2014

JavaLand 2014 is over, and it has been a great first edition of the conference! It was a great privilege speaking there. The sessions I’ve attended were interesting, I ended up with a lot of new ideas for the weeks to come. The different community activities made it really easy to get in touch with others, talking about Java more or less the whole time. Enjoying some park attractions in the late evening did the rest to get to know some new Java enthusiasts. The whole location was nice, definitively the most extraordinary place of any Java conference I’ve attended so far. Like a little geek holiday. Organization was good (with some minor places for improvements). Lunch and dinner buffets were huge. And the floating lunch time avoided long lines. Speakers and organizers welcome dinner on the first evening was a good start, the African food served really something unusual and tasty.

Two minor things I did not like that much were the two too dark session rooms (including mine). I like to see my audience and have some kind of eye contact. Yes, the stage background was really great and something completely different. But simply too dark. The other thing I did not like was the stuff you had to pay for separately. I don’t have a problem that not everything is included in the conference fee (which, as a speaker, I did not pay anyway). But the hotel was quite expensive; to be topped by the drinks at the bar and the drinks you had to pay for after running out of coupons. Yeah, it’s a theme park, which all are at least a little bit pricy. But the park was opened for the conference only, more fair prices should have been possible.

But besides that, I really enjoyed this new conference, definitively worth a visit next year in case you missed this one. And I’m sure that most of this years attendees will come back.


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