I saw Jay give this talk at CODODN. First of all, he was the only presenter to specifically request feedback in any session that I or my colleagues attended. Jay stated that he really coveted the feedback as he was striving to be a better speaker. I think that says a lot about him.

His presentation was very well put together and his talk was tight. His demo went off without a hitch and the entire talk definitely seemed very polished. Too many times, I see presenters who apologize for their slides not being complete because they were drinking the night before while putting them together (true story) or they warn that their demos might be sloppy because this was their "first time doing it" (happened even at this CODODN).

In contrast, if you looked at Jay's Twitter feed, he tweeted the night before that he "Ran through my #CODODN demo. Encountered a few kinks, but everything is worked out." Even though he has given this talk before, he still did run-throughs and found ways to improve.

I think this was a great talk and that Jay is a great presenter. In my opinion, there is no limit to how far he can go in the community.

I can tell that Jay worked hard on this presentation, and his reputation as a CI expert appears to be well-founded. I've never set up a CI server, so it seemed like a black box to me, but Jay's session made me want to go home and try it right away.