International Spectrum had the opportunity to attend the
developers conference of our newest addition to the MultiValue
Community—
InterSystems
. The conference, which they called DEVCON 2007, was in
Orlando, Florida, March 25 through 30 (including various pre and
post Main Conference sessions). Of course, we concentrated on the
new sessions that were targeted at the newly released MultiValue
support within
Caché
. Our goal was not just to do a technical analysis on this
implementation of MultiValue, but to get an idea of what the
Caché Community was like, and how MultiValue might fit into that
picture.
There was a half day session on Sunday, followed up by a full day
session on Thursday that was strictly about MultiValue and how it
was implemented as a part of Caché. These sessions were conducted
by Joe Gallant of InterSystems.
Joe is no newcomer to MultiValue. He worked at Prime Computer and
was very involved with Prime INFORMATION. His presentations were
very clear, easy to follow, but by no means a "high level"
overview of the subject. He got into the details, but explained
things clearly. It was good to have someone who understood the
environment and concerns of the MultiValue users being a bridge
between MultiValue as we know it, and Caché's MultiValue
capability as InterSystems envisions it.
Most of the sessions from DEVCON 2007 are available for download
in audio and presentation format from
www.intersystems.com/devcon2007/agenda.html
, including the MultiValue sessions that ran throughout the
week.
While presentations make up the bulk of any gathering of this
type, we were also interested in what else the conference had to
offer. Please note that while most of these observations are
those of the Spectrum attendee, they are influenced by
conversations, lunch-time pow-wows, and "off campus"
conversations with several MultiValue colleagues who were also
present.
Probably the most impressive thing about DEVCON for the
MultiValue attendee, other than the sessions, was the access to
the Developers. You need to realize that "The Developers" is
code-speak within InterSystems. The rest of us call them "The
Product Engineers," the Ones who are actually writing the code.
Most of the MultiValue attendees I talked to were a bit taken
aback at how much access they had to the people who actually are
involved with implementing MultiValue in Caché. It was very
reminiscent of the Old Days when you could pick up the phone and
talk to someone who actually was looking at The Code. One of our
colleagues was even quoted as saying, "This feels like Old Home
Week."
But, cynical types that we are, you would expect this kind of
special treatment during the wooing period. But we noted that
this was not just a MultiValue phenomenon. There was a (large)
room designated as the Developer Room. This was where you could
go and grab someone who worked on the <fill-in-the-blank>
portions of Caché. I decided to test that assertion. So I walked
in, approached the first InterSystems looking person I saw (they
really ought to wear branded shirts or something, otherwise they
look like us), and said, "I need to talk to someone about what
you are doing for cross-platform compatibility of (non-MV) X."
Within 3 minutes (or less) I was talking to an engineer who was
working on X.
Now, not to paint everything roses, we need to note that the
MultiValue developers were not in ready appearance in the room.
That, however, could be explained by the fact that they were on
us MultiValue attendees, as my dad used to say, "like a duck on a
June Bug." They were at all the sessions. They were fielding
questions during the sessions. They were at lunch. They were
always where a MultiValue attendee could find them. This was a
Good Thing this conference. They were where they were needed—with
us. We hope that as MultiValue becomes more well known in the
Caché community, they have to move to the developer room. With
the pizza buffet and the Espresso bar to pass our time, I'm sure
we'll learn how to share them with other users.
In summary, we were impressed with DEVCON 2007. The energy level
is outstanding. InterSystems is making a great effort to promote
Caché's MultiValue capability to the MultiValue community.
However, we are once again in a "who are those people" scenario.
Caché users don't know what MultiValue is about, and MultiValue
folks haven't yet grasped how InterSystem's offering is different
from yet another MultiValue platform. There is much to be done to
convince the two communities they have common interests.
But if InterSystems DEVCON 2007 is any indication, DEVCON 2008
should be very interesting indeed.
Mr. Robert Nagle, Vice President of Software Development, also
granted us an interview. Look for it in the May/June Issue of
International Spectrum Magazine.