August Be Developer Conference Sessions and Agenda August 4-5, 1997 Hynes Convention Center Boston, Massachusetts

This page describes the agenda and sessions that took place during the August Be Developer Conference. The conference took place over two days and covered a broad range of topics, many of them in-depth.

  Sessions

General Sessions
These sessions cover the broad brush of Be and the BeOS. General sessions are designed for all attendees, and there will not be any other sessions scheduled at the same time. A few of the track sessions will also be conflict-free, as indicated.

Approaching Track Sessions
This track is designed for programmers new to the BeOS platform. Sessions will introduce you to the BeOS, development systems, and the basics of building applications. Parallels to other operating systems will be drawn frequently. Note: All sessions assume a knowledge of C, C++, the basics of object-oriented programming. The Be Developers' conference should not be considered an introduction to programming.

Extending Track Sessions
This track is designed to extend the basic BeOS concepts into more specific (drivers, 3D, etc.) or more advanced areas. Each session focuses in on a specific topic in depth.

 

General Sessions

The State of Be
The opening session of day one will feature Jean-Louis Gassée's welcoming remarks about the state of Be and the BeOS, and will feature demonstrations of new Be technologies, as well as new software and hardware from developers.

Future of the BeOS
This session will cover the directions of BeOS development during the coming twelve months and three releases, both technically and from a business perspective.

Be Team Q&A
The traditional wrap up of the conference will feature the entire Be engineering, product marketing and evangelism team in a general Q&A session. To be followed by a reception.

BeOS Masters' Awards
See some of the best in software and hardware developed for the BeOS, as the Be Masters' Awards are presented to recognize the developers behind the products. To find out more, see the BeOS Masters' page. Sponsored by Be, Power Computing and Metrowerks.

Approaching Track Sessions

Approaching Be
A programmer's introduction to the BeOS. It will introduce you to the development tools, philosophy, object-oriented API, software kits and critical concepts of the BeOS. This is a high-level overview which places the rest of the Approaching sessions in context.

Approaching the File System
An overview of the Be file system. The new Be file system is unique in that it allows you to utilize a standard Posix interface as well as an enhanced set of features such as attributed files. This session introduces the Posix interface as well as the advanced query features.

Approaching Messaging and Scripting
An introduction to the concept and use of messaging and scripting capabilities within your Be application. This includes scripting and both intra-application and inter-application messaging.

Approaching Networking
An overview of networking within the BeOS, with a focus on Internet-based networking. Will cover the basics of sockets, services, and high-level objects such as Mail.

Approaching the Market
A session designed specifically to deal with all the things you need to do after the software is finished. Included in this session will be installation, distribution, customer registration and Internet awareness programs that can help to build your business.

Unicode and International Issues
This session outlines how to structure your application to be localized and take advantage of the BeOS's new foreign scripts support. Sample code will be utilized to show you how to support multi-byte languages such as Japanese.

Extending Track Sessions

Writing Print Drivers
This session provides an overview of printing in the BeOS. It includes a discussion of the PS driver, PPD's and a source code walk-through of a sample printer driver.

BeOS and 3D Graphics
The BeOS has a wealth of 3D capabilities. This session will cover the 3D Kit and how to make use of it. In addition, we'll touch on the first implementation of OpenGL® within the BeOS.

Writing Drivers
Learn how to writing hardware drivers to extend the capabilities of the BeOS.

Replicants
The BeOS includes a light-weight component architecture called Replicator technology. This session discusses how to create and accept these components on the BeOS.

BeOS and Unix Compatibility
This session explores the command line interface and Posix layer of the BeOS.

Writing Java on the BeOS
Java is a cross platform development solution. The BeOS implementation of Java is optimized to take advantage of the unique threading model and other modern features. In this session you will learn how to optimize your Java code for use on the BeOS.