SteveX

I'm not going to MAX this year.  I went last year, though, and had a great time. 

Last year's MAX experience for me was mostly about discovering that the Flash player has become a serious virtual machine and runtime for even CPU-intensive applications, thanks to its ability to compile ActionScript down to native code.  There's even a Commodore 64 emulator for Flash Player 9. 

And it was about discovering Flex and Flex Builder, the Eclipse-based IDE that you use to build Flex apps.  I had no experience with Flex before MAX; now it's near the top of my "things to dive into more deeply" list.

Last year, MAX happened just before the Adobe / Macromedia merger was finalized, so there wasn't any official Adobe sessions; this year, MAX has a track for Adobe LiveCycle Technologies.

This year Flash and Flex folks will have the opportunity to discover LiveCycle the way we LiveCycle folks had the opportunity last year to discover Flash and Flex.

If you're in that boat, don't miss Matt Butler's session on Adobe's Core LiveCycle Architecture and Hands On Deployment, and Sanga Viswanathan's session, LiveCycle 8: What's Coming.