We've just completed the lineup for the next Boston JUDCon and although it hasn't gone public yet I can say that it was very difficult deciding on the sessions. We had far more submissions this time and the quality across the board was excellent, with a great mix of presenters from within JBoss and our communities. This was really good to see as well.

We had originally thought that two tracks for two days would suffice, giving us room for about 24 presentations. That in itself would make for an excellent agenda and hopefully a similarly excellent turn out of attendees. However, we got over 50 submissions for JUDCon and it was simply impossible to whittle them down down by over 50%! I've been on countless program committees over the years and I don't recall having had as much trouble with them as we did here. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Anything but! This is a great situation for us to be in and I think it shows that JUDCon has quickly become an accepted part of the JBoss community.

So rather than get rid of sessions that really deserved to be in the conference, we racked our brains for ways around the problem. Maybe we try to add a couple more sessions early in the morning or during the hackfests? Maybe during lunch? Unfortunately neither of those options would really suffice and give the sessions the attention they deserve or allow us to have as many extra sessions as I wanted. Plus I don't want JUDCon to feel like it's chaotic or a mishmash of presentations. Therefore, we've decided to add an extra track all to itself (we're not sure whether it will be across both days or just one). This should give us about 30 presentations covering a wide range of topics that I'm sure all JBoss developers will want to attend. The fun will be choosing which ones to go to!

Now unfortunately even with this extra track we can't really cram 50+ sessions into the conference. Plus it wouldn't be right to accept everything that's submitted to JUDCon: a little competition really does help! So some presentations won't get in this time, but I really hope that those submitters aren't disheartened and will resubmit these sessions (or submit something new) to the next JUDCon in a few months time. Remember that without your submissions JUDCon wouldn't be as appealing or successful as it is!

And with that I'll just say thanks to everyone who submitted a session. We appreciate all of the hard work you put into them and the good problems that caused in making the final selection.