It’s been a while I visited Japan (in fact I believe it’s been two years since my last visit), but as always this 1 week trip was quite packed and exhausting.
Fist, I’ve made a number of visits to companies big and small using Hudson. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that several largest IT companies are starting to deploy Hudson in a large scale (and in some places they’ve dedlicated engineers to work on integration and deployment.) I’m working with them in the hope that they can discuss more about their experience in public, which would help spread Hudson in Japan.
I’ve also made a number of presentations. I gave one talk about how Hudson can be used to test Android apps, and another about Hudson and cloud. There was a lot of interest in the Android developer community about automated tests (especially with real devices, since there are now so many Android phones) — could be something interesting for CloudBees.
I’ve also helped organize the first Hudson user meetup in Japan, and did a presentation there as well. This was held in one of the biggest room in a local university, and Hudson users showed up in full force — I was told there were 208 people attended. 9 people took turn presenting various topics around Hudson, and there was a healthy mix of Java, Perl, and Ruby. We’ve launched Japan Hudson User Group (JHUG?) in this event, and we are working on hosting another meetup event in Feburary.
The last talk I gave was at the home-coming day of my college, and there I mainly talked about RELAX NG and how what I leanrt there was useful/unuseful in my professional carrer. I particularly enjoyed giving this talk, as it gave me an opportunity to reflect upon my past 9 years in the U.S.
Aside from those day activities, no trip to Japan is complete without incredibly good (and expensive!) sashimi, sushi, and other Japanese cuisines, and too much dose of alcohol. Unfortunately, I had spent most dinners in 懇親会 (a social get-together party after a meetup that involves beer), so I didn’t get to complete my what-to-eat list. But there’s always a next time.
Thanks for everyone who gave me chances to talk about Hudson, and it was nice meeting you all. Looking forward to seeing you again soon!