thejavajar

I had a great time this past weekend at Barcamp Tampa at USF. This year I attended the Dev Day (Saturday) and the New Media Day (Sunday). I like the atmosphere at the event. The attendees/presenters/sponsors bring a passion for all kinds of technology and the event’s attendance  is evidence that there is a growing tech community here in the Tampa Bay area. I was hoping to see more interest from Tampa Java User Group members, maybe next year. I learned quite a bit about iPhone development, Rails and local start-up support.

I had a good time and attended some great presentations at BarCamp Tampa Bay. Unfortunately, I only attended the “Dev Day” portion of the event. It was well organized and the space provided by USF was more than adequate. For a zero attendee cost event, I was extremely impressed. I really enjoyed the presentation on Adobe AIR and the introduction to Python. I am very interested in learning more about Python and I found out that a Tampa Bay Python User Group exists here and meets on the first Wednesday of each month. I look forward to experimenting with AIR and Python in the next few weeks and I will definitely have to put together a presentation for the next BarCamp.

I am looking forward to attending BarCamp Tampa Bay. I attended BarCamp Orlando last year and I am extremely pleased to know that the concept of the “unconference” will be coming to my backyard. Working with the Tampa Java User Group has shown me how passionate our community is about Java and through my channels, I know that there is a passionate Ruby community as well here in the Tampa Bay area. You can register for the event at http://www.barcamptampabay.com.