REAL World 2006: Day One

Well, the first day has come and gone. The day opened with a nice continental breakfast, followed by registration. I also went to a brief speaker orientation, where I got my nice new polo shirt. Once everyone was settled in and signed in, we were treated to Geoff Perlman’s opening keynote.

And he had some surprises in store. One of the bigger announcements was the formation of REAL Software Europe and REAL Software China. He also spoke a great deal about the huge strides REALbasic in the Linux market. I knew they were doing well there, but I didn’t realize just how much progress they were making. It’s a market that’s growing, and it doesn’t show signs of stopping or slowing just yet. Our conference bags also contained free copies of Novell Linux Desktop, so maybe I’ll see if I can pick up a cheap hard drive to throw in my PC so I can try Linux again (I’ve tried it several times before, but it’s always seemed like more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s been a while).

After the keynote, we broke for lunch, then started our sessions. The first one I attended was Developing Slick UIs by Bryan Lund of Radical Breeze. He talked at length about the little UI details that give an application the “wow” factor. And I must admit, several aspects of his advice shamed me into rethinking some of my interfaces.

Then I attended Taming Complexity, by the esteemed Joe Strout. Joe shared some great tips on managing projects, such as using design patterns and using consistent naming conventions.

The third and most interesting session of the day was Jon Johnson’s Updating Your Application to Cocoa. This is a great thing that holds tremendous promise. Jon was practically giddy as he demonstrated some cool stuff coming down the pike. And afterward, he gave me some good news, but I won’t share any details.

I also had some interesting talks with Will, Joe, and the other Dave. All in all, a great first day.

Looking forward to tomorrow, although I’m a bit nervous about my own session.

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