So the very first JUDCon is over and planning begins for the next event in Europe. It was a great event with a pretty good turn out for the first occasion. It seemed that everyone who attended the sessions got a lot out of them and the direct contact with core developers and their communities should lead to further improvements in our projects: it's a lot easier to talk with someone face-to-face than via a forum or email and you tend to get a lot more done. I lost count of the number of times people came up to me and said they'd got as much done in a day at JUDCon as they would expect to do in weeks of to-and-fro activity at a distance.

I don't want to single out any one session or track, but it's probably true to say that Infinispan stole the show. Manik and his team have done a great job over the past year or more and this showed through with the attendees, their questions, feedback and of course the JBoss Community Recognition Awards, which was almost a clean sweep for people related to the Infinispan project. We'll definitely be hearing more from the team in the next few months and who knows, maybe at the very next JUDCon too!

It was also good to see a mix of community related projects in the tracks. Yes JBossAS and related projects dominated, but there was time for other projects such as Mobicents, JBossESB and TorqueBox. And judging by the feedback I had from talking with attendees afterwards, this mix of projects was something they appreciated. In fact some of them found it pleasantly surprising to see that although we may have been relatively silent over the past year or so we've been hard at work innovating. It was also good to see that there was a mix of attendees too, not just those using projects from the community but also customers who wanted to understand what was coming from us in the future.

After the tracks we had the Community Recognition Awards, followed by copious amounts of pizza and the hackfests. It seems that we may need to rethink the hackfests and not put them straight after a full day of talks or not position them too close to a bar or pub, since they did eventually degenerate into a drinkfest. Oh well. At least it was still By Developers For Developers!

So finally I want to say thanks to everyone who attended, whether presenting or listening. It was a wonderful event and I'm looking forward to JUDCon 2010 Europe!