Woke every couple of hours in the night but otherwise didn’t sleep too badly and managed to stay in bed until a reasonable time. Perhaps just as well as I was re-presenting my WebSphere ESB pitch first thing. Thankfully I hadn’t been given quite such a large stage to stand on this time! Some good questions from the audience to keep me on my toes.
In the slot before lunch I went to Shane Claussen’s WPS/WESB/WID Technical Futures presentation. As the name probably suggests, that was all IBM Confidential so nothing I can divulge here.
With Project Zero finally set to hit the streets at the end of June as WebSphere sMash I thought it was high time to see how things have changed in the past year. Consequently, after lunch I headed along to a lab entitled "RESTful Services with Project Zero". I have to confess that I was slightly disappointed to discover that aspects of the programming model are still changing and that the lab wasn’t running on the latest code base but understand that the material has to be submitted well in advance of the conference. That said, when sMash (not a name that I like – in the UK at least it is a brand of instant mashed potato) hits the streets then things should stabilise.
Then it was time for my final presentation of the week – rather grandly titled "Architecting Solutions with the Default Messaging Provider". This detailed a whole host of considerations that need to be taken in to account when it comes to both functionality and performance. I’ll not say too much here as it’s slated for a developerWorks article (if I ever find some time to write it!).
The evening brought the conference networking dinner and, more importantly, the chance to watch some colleagues jamming on stage with a local band. Surprisingly un-cringeworthy – some real talent out there. Had to stay up to watch the Scotland’s very own Gaby Telerman (occasionally of the BMX Bandits).