Denver JUG Meeting and Struts
I managed to attend the DJUG meeting tonight (as I wrote this, time slid past midnight - oh well, it looks better on a new day). I arrived early for the Basic Concepts meeting and stayed for the Main Event. Both sessions were focused on Struts - the first being a very basic overview of MVC and Struts, and the second highlighted the newest features (i.e. Declarative Exception Handling, Validator, DynaActionForms). Like I said earlier, I wanted to meet Sue in person, so that's why I got there early. I introduced myself and she actually seemed to remember me (from the e-mails). I confirmed that she really did remember me (or she faked it quite well) at the end when she signed a copy of her book (that I won) - she asked me if I spelled my name with one "t" or two? Cool! BTW - do you know anybody named "Mat?"
When the DJUG Prez asked if anyone was looking for work, I raised my hand and said a few words about this site and Roller. I doubt anyone will find this site though; I didn't see anyone writing my domain name down, and how the heck do you spell "Raible?" So to offer a little Google love, here are a few different versions: Rabel, Riable, Raibel, Raybel, Rable, Raybell. If I was really bold, I guess I could send an e-mail to the DJUG Mailing List. I think I'll have to pass though, I'm just not that forward of a guy.
The meeting was packed, probably a 100 people showed up - most they've had in long time from the way they were talkin'. It was at DU, my Alma Mater, so it was fun to visit the ol' stompin' grounds. I had Mini-Me with me and found the DU Wireless network, but it required VPN software to get in (and my old id/pass didn't work to d/l the software).
Sue was a good speaker and did manage to impress me with her Struts knowledge. I didn't know that she is a contributing author of the JSP and Servlets column at O'Reilly's OnJava.com, nor that she's got a list of seemingly great publications. I tried to give her a tip about XDoclet, but she said she already knew about it and was planning on mentioning it in her preso. Doh! She really put me in my place. The best part of her presentation (for me) was the declarative exception handling, which I tried to implement on my current project, but it was too immature and buggy at the time. I think it's time to re-examine and refactor.
As a service to my readers, and possibly to readers from the meeting, here is a whole posse of good Struts links:
- XDoclet Struts Tags (see Tag Reference for @struts)
- Struts Mailing List and Archive
- Struts Newsgroup (duplicates mailing list)
- About Struts at husted.com, Tips, Catalog
- Learning Struts 1.1
- Struts 1.1 (PDF) by Chuck Cavaness Atlanta JUG
- Display Tag Library - awesome for pageable or sortable lists
I'd love to see some weblogs published by Sue or Chuck (Cavaness) - it'd be great to see more Struts Evangelists in the blogging community. The next meeting should be good. Marc Fleury, founder of JBoss fame is going to be speaking.
Russell 
