How to get the most out of Oracle Code One 2019
If Oracle Code One 2019 is your first time at a major software conference, it will serve you well to follow some sage advice and insight from a veteran attendee of past JavaOne and Oracle Open World conferences.
The first piece of advice, for which it is far too late to act upon, is to make sure you’ve got a hotel booked. I did a quick search on Expedia, and San Francisco’s Hampton Inn is listed for over $700 a night. And the true surprise isn’t the price; it’s the fact that the hotel actually has any availability. If you’re the type of person who books hotels at the last minute, I’d say you’d be lucky to find a hotel in Oakland or San Jose for a reasonable price, let alone San Francisco.
Schedule those Oracle Code One sessions
For those who have their accommodations all set, the next sage piece of conference advice is to log on to the Oracle Code One 2019 session scheduler and reserve a seat in the sessions you wish to attend. Various sessions on Eclipse MicroProfile, microservices and reactive Java are already overbooked. The longer you wait to formulate your schedule, the fewer sessions you’ll have to choose from.
When choosing sessions, I find the speaker to be the more important criteria than the topic. Most speakers have a YouTube video or two of them doing a presentation. Check those out to see if the speaker is compelling. An hour can be quite a long time to sit through a boring slide show. But, an exciting speaker can make an hour go by in an instant, and if you’re engaged, you’re more likely to learn something.
Skip the Oracle keynotes
One somewhat contrarian piece of advice I’m quick to espouse is for attendees to skip the Oracle keynotes, especially the morning ones. That’s not to say the keynotes are bad, but it can be a hassle to get a seat if you aren’t there early enough, and you can’t always hear everything in the auditorium. A better alternative is to stream the keynote from your hotel room, or better yet, watch the video Oracle uploads to their YouTube channel while you eat lunch.
Enjoy the party
One other big piece of advice for Oracle Code One 2019: enjoy San Francisco, especially if it’s your first time in the city. It’s the smallest alpha city in the world, but it is an alpha city. There are plenty of parties, meet-ups and events you’ll be invited to, and it’s worth taking up any offers you manage to get. With said that, keep an eye on how much gas you have left in the tank at the end of the day, because you want to be able to make it to all of your morning sessions the next day.
If it’s your first time at a major conference, I assure you that you’ll have a great time at Oracle Code One 2019. San Francisco is a great city, and the greatest minds in the world of modern software development will be in attendance with you.