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But I do get behind the scenes more than most folks, whether its the nail-biting excitement of a keynote demo, the adventure of setting up equipment with one missing cable, or the rehersals that all the engineers go through both the week before JavaOne and the night before their talk. By the time most people get to JavaOne, my coworkers and I have been working on it for at least a month.

One event that most folks don't even hear about is Licensee Day, an event that Sun throws every year at around JavaOne. This year it was the day before JavaOne in the Argent Hotel. Now, there's little that's said at this all-day event that people won't hear about during the conference itself. The advantage of attending this shindig is that you get to hear it in a more intimate setting, and all compressed into one day. The four tracks - J2ME, JavaCard, J2SE and J2EE (my favorite) comprise topics as varied as Java itself has become. Some talks that I got to hear were on WS-I, JAX-RPC, Web Development Ease of Use, and of course a few different talks on compatability (which is a hot topic for people who ship their own versions of Java technologies).

Probably the biggest topic for the licensees was the Ease of Use themed JSRs that Sun has already submitted through the JCP (scroll to the bottom). A close runner up was the java.net XML community at this very site.

For the rest of the week, I hope to be able to share a side of JavaOne that's a little different from what you see on the floor or hear about in the pressroom.

Jim Driscoll is a manager at Sun Microsystems, in the J2EE group.

Jim Driscoll is a manager at Sun Microsystems, working in the J2EE group.