This week I attended ODTUG KScope24. I lost track of count, but my first attendance was way back in 2011 in Long Beach California, and ever since (with some small interruptions) I have visited almost annually. Anyway, this year’s conference was in Nashville Tennessee, and I once again had the honor of presenting a session.
With that being said, I also found that many of my old friends no longer visit the conference. Neither as a presenter, nor as an attendee. This is most probably due to the fact that some technologies are no longer as popular as they used to be. Think of Oracle Fusion Middleware, with ADF, WebCenter and SOA Suite, which in the past had dedicated tracks, but now no longer have any sessions at all.
That makes sense, as these technologies are gradually being replaced by other stacks. These can either be open-source solutions, but also Oracle JET, Oracle Visual Builder (which is an IDE that helps you to build JET applications in a declarative way) and other Oracle Cloud Solutions that help you build integrations and business processes. I presented on Oracle JET and Oracle Visual Builder last year (KScope23) and I know that there were also presentations on other “newer” technologies such as Oracle Digital Assistant.
It strikes me that also none of these rather new solutions had any sessions at KScope24. I wonder why this is. Aren’t they being used? Is there no one who submits an abstract? Or are there other considerations being made by the conference committee?
Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with that, if “this is what the people want”. I can adapt, I am used to learn new stuff, that is where I get my energy.
This year I presented a session on UI by AI, which was focusing on AI (or better GenAI) solutions that help you create User Interfaces. I’ll write a separate blogpost on that. It was technology agnostic, although the second part of my presentation touched on Oracle APEX’s AI Assistant and Oracle Autonomous’ Select AI solution. Audience was (as far as I could see) enthusiastic to see something new. Imagine, many people hadn’t heard of GIT, Figma, V0, not had they ever used ChatGPT. Also, Oracle’s Select AI feature was unknown to many in the audience.
What I am trying to say here is that there is an audience for new technologies, and there are many people who want to broaden their horizon, so if we have some more of these sessions next year, people will come in, listen and learn.
This brings me to my next point.
Because there were very few sessions in my “comfort zone” I forced myself to step out of my comfort zone and walk into some APEX sessions to learn new things! And even for me (25+ years of experience in the Oracle Ecosphere) there are new things to learn. I attended a total of 7 sessions in 3 days (could have been more), but I was able to pick up several things that most definitely helped me to fill up my backpack with new knowledge. And in the end, that is what it is all about; you go to a conference to learn new things and meet new people. And in that perspective, KScope24 was most definitely a success for me.
Let’s see what happens next year. And in the meanwhile, don’t be afraid to look back and enjoy the good old times……
….. but also make sure to look ahead to the good things that are coming.
