Hmm, too few posts. I definitely have to change this. In my defence I’ll say, that only for this summer I’ve visited 12 countries. But you will argue, that for example Josh Long (my hero) made 12 countries only for this week, and he still has written several blog posts for this time. And you a right, I’m too lazy, I have to post more often!
Finally I’m in the local Starbucks, my cappuccino is ready, looks like it’s a perfect time to remember one of the greatest adventures of this year so far – JavaZone 2018!
When earlier this year, in May, I have received this email telling me that my talk “Java and the GPU: unlock the massive performance” was accepted for this year’s edition of JavaZone in Oslo, Norway, I literally jumped out of mu chair shouting out “Yes!!!”.
Visiting this conference was definitely one of my dreams, I’ve heard so many good words about it! Now finally this dream came true. Huge thanks to the committee for accepting my talk!
Finally September has arrived, I’ve landed in Oslo and literally fell in love with Norway from the first site!
An express train brought me from the airport directly to the Oslo central station for only 19 minutes. You may ask – so what? Actually the airport is about ~60 km away from the city and we were cruising with more 220 km/h. And those trains are scheduled to make this route every 10 min. This so cool!
For this conf choosing the train was the best choice, as the venue – Spectrum arena is just next to the central station. The hotel was there as well. So we were perfectly located.
Oslo welcomed us with a grey rainy weather
But just 20 min later it was beautiful and sunny, like in every northern town
In the evening we were invited to the speakers dinner that took place in a beautifully located restaurant with some stunning views of Oslo!
Oh, thats Chris Thalinger also making some photos of this wonderful sunset. By the way it’s raining.
Definitely a wonderful place to relax before the conference. We stayed there until late.
The next day was the first day of the conference. The first thing I saw was the looooong queue of the attendees.
The good (or may be the bad) part was that my talk was scheduled on for the second day. So the first day I had a chance to explore a little bit.
The conference organisation, or I may even say “architecture” is totally different from all other conferences I have attended. The venue is a huge arena, where big concerts take place. There is a big central area where you can find a lot of software company’s booths.
Just take a look how big is it and how many people are in!
The conference kick-off was lovely with some guitar players
The coolest part is that practically all the booth serve their own food all day long! Yes, yes.. you can have food all the time, all day long.. all two days! There was only one major problem for me – I couldn’t taste it all! I haven’t had enough capacity! Definitely OMG.
But not only food, but tons of other cool activities
One of the unique features of JavaZone are the 8 parallel tracks. Yep, 8! That’s a lot! The rooms are themselves not very big, but that makes the cozy.
That’s me attending Vlad Mihalcea’s great talk.
And like every conference the main reward is actually meet and talk to people! Hey, that’s Chris (..and Doug)!
My good friends Simon, Simon, Phillip and my new friend Jennifer
Finally could meet Sharat Chander in person!
Awesome hardcore JVM company of Doug, Volker and Steve
The discussions we had were really useful to me!
At the end of the day we had a wonderful hangout with David, Vincent and Matthew
Then actually came the funny part. My talk was scheduled for 9.00 the next morning. I was sincerely wondering who will ever be interested in GPUs and massive parallel computation so early in the morning? I was a bit nervious wen my talk was approaching.
But I was ready!
So I was expecting a maximum audience of 3 people to show up. What was my surprise when I found my room fully packed!
Oh My God! Absolutely unexpected!
I sincerely want to thank everybody that came. I hope the talk useful and fun to you!
By the way, it became available just few hours later in vimeo! Cool organisation at JavaZone!
When I was done with my talk I took the chance to hang around the beautiful city of Oslo!
Definitely a beautiful capital!
JavaZone 2018 was a great new experience for me! I’ve seen a cool organisation, met great friends and made great ones!
I want to say huge thanks to Rafael, Rustam, Mark and all the team for having me and making this conf a blast!
At the end as always my best five IMHO sessions of the conf from those I was able to see myself live:
Now I’m on may way watching the other talks I’ve missed (and those I’m able to understand)! They are just great!!!
So good bye Oslo! Thank you for being awesome! Hope to see you again!
