This issue of our magazine almost coincides with the third annual Firebird World Conference, starting November 13 in Prague, Czech Republic. This year’s conference spans three nights, with a tight programme of back-to-back and parallel presentations over two days. With speakers in attendance from all across Europe and the Americas presenting topics that range from specialised application development techniques to first-hand accounts of Firebird internals from the core developers, this one promises to be the best ever.

Registration has been well under way for some weeks now, although the time is now past for early bird discounts on registration fees. At the time of publishing, bookings were still being taken for accommodation in the conference venue itself, Hotel Olsanka, in downtown Prague. The hotel offers a variety of room configurations, including bed and breakfast if wanted, at modest tariffs. Registration includes lunches on both conference days as well as mid-moring and mid-afternoon refreshments.

Presentations include one on Firebird’s future development from the Firebird Project Coordinator, Dmitry Yemanov and another from Alex Peshkov, the architect of the security changes coming in Firebird 2. Jim Starkey will be there, talking about Firebird Vulcan, and members of the SAS Institute team will talk about aspects of SAS’s taking on Firebird Vulcan as the back-end to its illustrious statistical software. Most of the interface development tools are on the menu, including Oracle-mode Firebird, PHP, Delphi, Python and Java (Jaybird).

It is a “don’t miss” for any Firebird developer who can make it to Prague. Link to details and programme either at http://firebird.sourceforge.net/index.php?op=konferenz or at the IBPhoenix website, http://www.ibphoenix.com.