Wow, today was great. This morning, I got up late, at a bit of breakfast, then went in and gave the “ESBs with Spring and Mule” talk. I was really expecting this to be a niche talk, maybe 10-15 hardcore messaging people with a ton of JMS questions. But there were 50-60 folks in the audience, from all over the place, with tons of insightful questions (only a few of which threw me into panic “I don’t even understand your question” mode). Hats off to the folks here at the show, that was a great talk to be the presenter for.

I followed it up with an intro to Spring MVC, which I also thought might be lightly attended. Again, I was wrong, and the folks that came were really into the topic and had lots of questions after the talk. I love that, because it means that a) people weren’t sleeping, and b) the info was on target. People who aren’t engaged don’t ask questions.

I got the opportunity to sit on the “Expert Panel” after lunch with Rod Johnson, Rob Harrop, Juergen Hoeller, Colin Sampaleanu and Matt Raible. It was a pleasure to be in such august company, even if the microphone seemed glued to Rod’s hand ;-). Somehow, the only time I felt like I had to jump in was when a question came up about what Spring and Rails can learn from each other.

In all, its been a great day so far, and the attendees seem to really be enjoying the show, which is, after all, what it’s all about.