Oracle Magazine: Survey Says

Oracle Magazine (July/August 2011) has a Community Bulletin by Justin Kestelyn. The article details a survey performed on community members (not sure that I took this one, but I generally do take their surveys) about what they want and need from Oracle Technology Network (OTN) and Java.net (not mentioned, but applies). The overall rating was "Good" which I think is a fair assessment. I am happy that the Sun Developer Network (SDN) was merged into OTN. They still need to have a number of links fixed, but in fairness some may have been previously broken. Google often resolves this from a cached version of the link you are looking for if it is broken.

I am very thankful for the upgrades to Java.net, and the continuing support to make it better.

One of the items was the lack of attendance at Virtual Developer Days and Developer days. I have attended a few of them, and some have been very good. It is a gem in the rough, and I think that more developers should attend one to decide on their value. One note is to remove any sales/marketing people from the events. If I like your tech, I will follow-up with your sales people. Marketers are welcome to listen in (mute), but I would like "Marketers are to be unseen and unheard." Please don't misconstrue my remarks to mean these are vendor talks my fellow developers... the sales and marketing people are just sometimes at the events too.

The benefits of membership are not clear on OTN, or Java.net. These should be more prominent.

I was surprised that newsletters were ranked higher than sample code. Who doesn't like good sample code!

Rewards points was a surprise. I can see one thing that Sun did well and Oracle has not gotten down quite yet: T-Shirts. I know it is hard to believe, but we developer like swag, and t-shirts are like a badge of honor. A manager at my former company asked  "Why do you always wear Sun shirts? Why don't you wear our company shirts?" My response was simple: "When you start giving out our shirts for free, I will start wearing them!"

I think that Java.net and OTN are doing good work, and as a community member I would like to thank the teams who make it work everyday. Thanks and keep up the good work.