I took part to a workshop, before the conference proper, to which
I had submitted a contribution. The workshop was on Putting
Distributed Objects to Work.
The workshop was chaired by Steve Vinoski, from HP, and by Rachid
Guerraoui, from EPFL (Lausanne University of Technology).
The participants made their presentations, followed with brief
discussions, and it took the whole time. There was no global
discussion, nor any attempt to summarize, which was a disappointment
to me.
Next I'll briefly review the presentations (I have paper copies of the submissions, which are available through the following web page):
Breakfasts, pauses between the sessions, meals and "social events" (well organized), were the occasion to meet interesting people.
I was introduced (by Antero) to a group of "patterns" people (Coplien, Johnson, Vlissides).
I went for dinner with Steve Vinoski (HP) and Kevin Sullivan (from IONA Technologies). The two knew each other well, and had been working in collaboration on the CORBA to C++ mapping specification.
I had passionate discussions with Joergen Knudsen (one of the authors of the BETA language) about the relationship between inheritance and genericity.
I also appreciated Markku Sakkinen very much.
The general mood in the academic world is very negative to C++. There was no abuse of the current buzzwords like design patterns and Java.
Many academic papers aim at publishing, more than at finding their way to applications. People too easily start e.g. designing new languages.
The most interesting is during the breaks: discussing the
lectures, making personal contacts.
This was rewarding. I'd hope the contacts created could be revived in
later occasions, maybe for collaborations.
Next year in Jyväskylä, Markku will be charing.