I've been around the block a bit when it comes to Java developer conferences and for some reason Silicon Valley USA is a tough nut to crack, for the conference organizer. This difficulty flies in the face of the obvious surplus of top tier talent in the area, but for some reason it's been hard to replicate the success of European conferences in the hometown of US tech. That hasn't stopped the big names from trying, though. In 2011, S&S Media launched the one-and-done JAX Conf 2011. I was not blessed with the honor of speaking or presenting, but I have heard from multiple sources that it was not a success. This is very surprising, since S&S run a great show and are very well organized. This week, the Devoxx folks are having their go. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to attend Devoxx US. I've spoken at JavaPolis and Devoxx Antwerp, and these shows have a well-deserved reputation for excellence. Devoxx US looks like it could be great as well. Here, then, are my session picks.

Tuesday — Conference Day One

  • 10:30 Grand Ballroom 220A Java EE 8 Work in Progress

    I'm very excited about Java EE 8, and I'm proud to represent the Servlet and JSF communities as they deliver two key parts of the most mature and stable enterprise computing platform. Linda's talk will give the lowdown on this long overdue update.

  • 11:30 LL 20 B Cloud Native Java

    The inimitable Josh Long is fronting a compelling story at Pivotal and he knows his stuff. Worth a look in.

  • 14:00 LL 20 C Hands-on with Kubernetes - from basic to advanced features

    Readers of my blog will know that I'm a big fan of Ray Tsang, so I'm recommending this hands on lab. Unfortunately I will probably not be able to attend due to time constraints, but I wish I could. As such, I am going to list a regular session talk in this slot as well.

    14:00 Grand Ballroom 220B Code Review vs. Pull Requests

    We've fought with Gerrit in my group, even though I'm personally in favor of it. I'm also a fervant backer of Atlassian products, especially as a counter to the GitHub hegemony.

  • 15:00 LL 21 B What's New in Java EE Security: JSR-375 and Beyond

    I know how hard it is to bring a JSR to completion, and I know how hard this problem is, so I have great respect for Will and his JSR team. I'm looking forward to seeing what is in store for security in Java EE 8.

  • 16:30 LL 20 D Keeping your data sane with Bean Validation 2.0

    I was on the Bean Validation 1.0 and 1.1 Expert Groups, so this is a great chance to see what they've been up to.

  • 17:30 LL 20 A Operational Service Views - Reactive Web Programming with Baratine

    I know nothing about Baratine or Sean Wiley, but the abstract hit on an important fundamental point: The need for server side web frameworks to be aggregators and also be asynchronous. Let's see what Baratine has to offer.

  • 20:30 LL 21 C Getting Started with Apache Spark 2.0 and MLlib, for Java developers

    This is a hard-core timeslot, but the speakers will make it worth your while. I know Ellen and Bob from the Dataverse days with JSF. They are both excellent speakers who bring their from-the-trenches experience to the topic at hand.

Wednesday — Conference Day Two

Thursday — Conference Day Three

  • 10:00 LL 20 A Machine learning at scale: Tensorflow in the cloud

    I've never attended a machine learning talk before. It's high time I did and now seems like a good time.

  • LL 21 A 11:00 JAX-RS 2.1 Reloaded

    I know I just said that I looked askance at the textyness of REST, but REST is still extremely popular and powerful, and JAX-RS is the best way to do it. This talk is a followup to my DevNexus session about JAX-RS 2.1.

  • 12:00 LL 20 A microservices with aggregates

    Chris has taken the "aggregates" content from the DDD book and turned it into a talk. On the surface, that is not very compelling. However, when you add Chris's experience and delivery style, it is very compelling.

  • 13:50 Grand Ballroom 220A The Seven (More) Deadly Sins of Microservices

    Daniel Bryant is a powerbroker at QCon. His abstract includes "today’s shiny technology is tomorrow’s legacy,". I'm sold.

  • 14:50 Grand Ballroom 220 C Maven v Gradle: Dawn of Project Automation Tools-in-Action

    This talk will share the Israeli-Estoninan axis of Java build technology. Well worth a look.

  • 15:30 Grand Ballroom 220 C Deploying Docker Containers with Netflix's Spinnaker on Kubernetes and Titus

    I've never heard of Spinnaker, but it's claim to be a "multi-cloud continuous delivery platform built by Netflix in partnership with Google, Microsoft, and others" is worth a look.

  • 17:00 Grand Ballroom 220A JavaPosse LIVE podcast

    I was present at the birth of the JavaPossee during Sun's Project Rave. I was present at the death of JavaPossee at Devoxx 2014. I may as well be present at this reboot.