The JAOO conference has changed it’s spelling, but not its excellent multi-technology, multi-discipline, deep, pragmatic content.

Apart from the great conference lineup, I’m particularly excited to see the Erlang tutorial (by Ulf Wiger) and the F# tutorial (by Amanda Laucher and Joel Pobar). This continuing investment into functional programming by the conference organizers shows a real dedication to the advancement of the software industry.

Even if you don’t think you’re going to ever be paid to write an Erlang or F# program (I initially thought the same of the dinky C++-like language for writing browser applets that rhymes with ‘palaver’), you will be delighted at what you’ll learn about more straightforward approaches to parallel computing, highly reliable systems, declarative expressions, and concurrent execution. Most all of the material will be applicable to similar languages, and some of the techniques are idiomatically used by good OO developers (particularly in languages like Ruby, C#, and Scala).

Go on, add some flavour to your profession and learn from the best about these two languages! Sign up for a workshop now at http://yowconference.com.au/melbourne/registration/index.html

See you back downunder for YOW!

PS: The Rails workshop by Obie should be great too – I rewrote a couple of chapters of his book for The Rails 3 Way, so I’m looking forward to it!

PPS: I’m not paid to pimp the conference, I just think that it’s one of the best in the world, and Australia very much needs this conference (and more like it) which is why I’ve supported it and been to it each year.