WOW! That is all I can say, for now.
Okay, I have just recovered from two days at No Fluff Just Stuff. The NFJS conf is a very hardcore Java based conference, I went for the Groovy. Groovy is the shiznit when it comes to server side languages and it definitely gives people a free and easy way to communicate with the heinous beast known as Java. Heinous in the fact that it takes forever to setup and complains about every little thing.
Based on this conference I can tell you first hand that Java people are far different than UI or Web people. Java people are soooooooooooooooooooooo damn serious about everything, believe me they don’t get the ‘pull my finger’ gag. I guess I am too much a layman for their world. NOT! Thanks to Groovy and Grails of course.
Another thing that I did notice is that they shutter and stall when it comes to UI work. I actually watched someone try and present the Google WTK, or should I say… hack around with Java to create some hacked up Javascript. That was pretty funny to say the least. To top it off the presenter was pretty ignorant, scratch that, uninformed about Flex. Otherwise it would have been a Flex preso.
The moment that I felt cool, which is very rare in my lifetime, was when I pulled out my laptop and people noticed my Flex and Air stickers. They actually were interested, too bad all the presos were about Java and some were, correct that, actually none were focused on the UI. People seemed very interested in getting info on Flex and Air. At one point I had about 20+ people gathered around a very small macbook looking at the code. Guess what? They understood Actionscript right off the bat, guess it was all that OO Java shiznit.
On a side note I heard first that SAS is going Air and Flex, I also heard that most if not all Java developers hate UI. Go figure, they are way too serious. The SAS thing is legit, I have heard it from all the folks I know there, just hope they do it right.
Bottom line, there are too many server side folks that don’t know the joys of Flex and Air. We need to get out there and let them know that Ajax is dead, I will repeat AJAX IS DEAD! But Groovy is cool and very much alive, now we have to convince the Grails folks to use Flex instead of douche’ie ajax.
