Sun Tech Days 2008

I've attended the Sun Tech Days last June 18 and 19 at the Makati Shangri-La. This event is organized by Sun Microsystems, and is held in 15 other cities worldwide, with this event being the last for this year.

You know, this event is very memorable to me. It's my first time to step on a hotel, my first developers event I attended, and of course I have fun. Aside from the things I've learned, I have these bonding moments with my classmates and other friends from the other sections and other schools.

First thing first. There are a lot of topics discussed during this two-day event. Actually, it's a three day event, but I wasn't able to attend the June 17 University World Tour because we have a mock defense in our SSD subject. Anyway, the main tracks are Web Development using programming tools made by Sun Microsystems, Desktop Applications, and OpenSolaris, the operating system made by Sun.

Aside from this tracks, I was enlightened about open source. Before, I only appreciate software made by Microsoft, which is not open source. With open source, I can get the things I need for my computer (such as operating system like OpenSolaris), without paying for its license. How do these open source companies earn profit? When customers want additional tools, they have to pay for it. And aside from this, these open source companies are more community-oriented, unlike their counterparts that are profit-oriented.

During the first day, I attended the Web development track and the last part of the OpenSolaris track. And if you are a java programmer, Netbeans is the ultimate development tool. Aside from java, Netbeans has also plugins for Rails on Ruby (RoR), Grails, Java ME (mobile edition, this one enables you to create programs for your mobile phone. Wonderful!), and even C. Except for the OpenSolaris track, I was with my classmates all the time. The food on the first day was not suitable for my pang-kanto tastebuds and I came to realize that I cannot stand the food on any hotel because of that.

During the second day, I attended all interesting tracks. But my favorite tracks are the Developing Java using Mac and the MySQL track. I need to be on the MySQL track because we are going to use MySQL for our backend in our system. And actually, the best speaker was in that track: articulate, not boring, straight to the point, although I find him boastful. Now Mr. Gaffar Mua, what you've said is true; Indian developers are boastful.

The other speakers are mostly Singaporeans and Chinese developers. The speaker in the Mac track is a Filipino, a UP professor. I find him good, but maybe because of Mac's (and Apple's) disadvantages in Java programming, I wasn't impressed that much. I also like the Singaporean Sang Shin, a Java Evangelist.

And food is better at the second day. WOW. Although we were not able to seat this time, maybe it's worth it. It is also during the second day that I met other students from other schools, namely, Informatics Northgate and Arellano U.

And it's not because of those tech stuff I met the Arellano guys, it's because of my piano playing. But the head erminguard stopped me and said, "Gusto mo magbayad ng PhP2,000.00?" Put*** ***, if I will become a successful musician and I will be playing at the same venue, I will bring my own piano. I don't care if it's only a bright or even a stage piano, I won't use their PhP2,000 per play hell-sent piano.

Me and my classmates also took pictures during the event. I'll just wait for them to upload them and post it here.