ESUG 2009 kicks off, VAST goes free, Technology Awards break records

ESUG 2009 has got off to a successful start, with a packed programme of events lined up for the next few days.

After an introduction from Stefan Ducasse for ESUG and local organisers Alain Plantec and Loic Lagadec, Georg Heeg looked at Smalltalk’s history and future direction and James Foster ran through news from the Gemstone world, including brief discussions of Metacello and Scaffolding.

After lunch there were a series of shorter presentations including the “academic strand” of the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies.

In the evening, Instantiations sponsored the reception event in the evening, and took the opportunity to announce free editions of Visual Age Smalltalk for academic and open source usage, which was very well received!

Attendees also had the opportunity to see the entries for the ESUG 2009 Innovation Technology Awards. A record-breaking 21 applications were entered this year, and the results of the voting will be announced at the conference social event on Thursday.

(Photo from Adrian van Os’ site)