They should have used Gen!

OK – so the technology let me down ! The phone blogging stuff I set up to report on the EDGE EMEA 2007 conference didnt work – may be they should use Gen instead !

After the initial introduction by Erik ten Harkel (Coolprofs), in which he broke the ice with some jokes and activities, we heard from some of the EDGE board members (some of whom had flown in from the USA) about the accomplishments of the EDGE user group in 2007 – culminating in the podcast from John Swainson, CA‘s CEO  in which he wholeheartedly supported Gen and gave it a rosy future.

 We then heard from a CA representative about possibilities for Gen r8. At this stage, they are only possibilities, and may not make it beyond the drawing board, or even into beta release, but the features (which include better SOA support, more Eclipse integration, performance and toolset improvements, NGEN support, and so on) mean that the tool is being DRIVEN forward, and not languishing in the doldrums. This means that the product development guys are listening to the people that matter – those who use the toolset – and addressing real-world issues.

Since the toolset IS evolving, it means that we can do so much more with it !

One of the great things about the EDGE conference, is that I met so many fantastic people, some of whom I met physically for the first time after meeting them through this site. EDGE is a brilliant way of meeting up with people who can HELP you and who you can HELP get the most from Gen and the surrounding eco-system’s tools.

On a final note, I had an interesting discussion with a few colleagues about the purpose and direction of gentalk.biz:

The site started out as, and will remain an independant view of Gen – which people are free to comment on. I will promote Gen, through the use of links and so on, and will publish stuff which I think will be of interest to other Gen users and which I think will help promote and advance the Gen “cause”.

The site is not affiliated with any vendor, the EDGE user group, or CA, and doesn’t represent any of their views,  - and they are (as is anyone) encouraged to politely agree or disagree with me through the site’s comments facility.