As a newcomer to Paris, one of the things I love about living here is that there are so many opportunities to meet fellow Geeks!

When I heard about Java Camp Paris 7 on Twitter I knew I had to attend. Since it was going to be my first Bar Camp, I didn’t really know what to expect. Somehow I had gotten the idea that each participant would give a lightning talk on a subject he was interested in, but that was not the case. I was a bit relieved since the talk I had prepared on Using Computer Vision techniques to improve Mobile UX wasn’t really ready for prime time!

The evening went very smoothly, because Luc Bizeul and Philippe Antoine did a first class job of organizing it. We started out with everyone introducing themselves by saying 3 themes they were interested in. After that we quickly chose the 12 or so themes. Finally we split up into small theme based discussion groups.

First I participated in the Android group which was very eclectic, ranging from one of the foremost Android experts in France (Cyril Mottier), to Geeks who were complete beginners in Android. The session was very lively and a good mix of beginner and intermediate level discussion.

After that I attended the “New Browser Wars” session, where we talked about how HTML/CSS is evolving through coopetion between the major browsers. In this group I mostly listened to the experts who knew way more than I ever will about vendor specific attributes and properties ( -moz-border-radius, -webkit-border-radius, etc.). During the discussion someone mentioned a great resource for HTML5 andCSS browser compatibility charts. Just learning about that made it well worth my while to attend.

All in all, it turned out to be a friendly, informal meeting with fellow Geeks. My only regret was that I couldn’t attend all the sessions I was interested in.

Seeing the Google Paris offices first hand was just the icing on the cake