JAOO 2007: Kresten Krab Thorup - JAOO What. How. Why.

Posted By: Charles | Oct 16th, 2007 @ 8:02 AM
I recently got the chance to attend JAOO in Aarhus, Denmark. Besids learning a great amount about various approaches to solving hard problems that we all face as programmers (regardless of the stack we spend most of our time developing on), I got to meet so many interesting people from all walks of programmer life. What a great conference! For one thing, JAOO not about specifc products. It's not about one company's view of the world. It's not about one class of technologies or developer. It's not just about Java and LAMP or .NET and Windows.

JAOO is a unique conference and I love the way sessions are reviewed by attendees: after the session ends attendees can simply choose red, yellow or green pieces of paper and place them in a bucket. Red means the session was poor. Yellow means it was OK. Green means it was good. Attendees are also encouraged to write feedback on the piece of colored paper they choose. Simple, yet incredibly effective. Hey, PDC people. Pay attention.

JAOO is a truly interdisciplinary conference that attracts some of the smartest folks in the industry. Luckily, I got a chance to spend some time with a few of these programming pioneers and innovators and you will get to meet them over the coming days.

First up is Kresten Krab Thorup. For those of you who program in Java, you've undoubtedly heard of Kresten. Dr. Kresten Krab Thorup is Chief Architext and Co-founder and one of the Software Pilots of Trifork. Kresten in largely known for his work on integrating generics into Java. He is also one of the creators JAOO and each year, besides being the MC of the event, he can be spotted wandering around the conference in a bright green jacket engaging attendees and speakers.

I had a great time and JAOO 2007. My perspective has changed in terms of Us vs Them mentality as well gaining a new respect for both dynamic languages and functional programming. (You will be seeing some very interesting interviews with some of the pioneers of these two "hot" programming techniques).

Enjoy and a very big thank you to the wonderful JAOO team for inviting me to JAOO 2007 and providing unrestricted access to the event and speakers. I hope to be back next year!
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