BarcampRDU 2007
I had the pleasure to attend the 2nd Barcamp here in Raleigh-Durham at Red Hat's campus. After a great experience last year that provided me with new relationships and great inspiration, I'm pleased that the sequel lived up to the original.
First, I'd like to thank Fred Stutzman and the entire organizing committee for another very well-organized conference. This is a great example of how passionate volunteers can outperform the paid staffers at traditional conferences. Here are some brief highlights:
Camping
I had to attend a minimum of one Ruby session. It simply wouldn't be a Barcamp without it. Camping is a Ruby-based web microframework that focuses on being 4K (in size). Why 4K? Well the answer was that it is simply an interesting constraint. Camping applications typically fit in a single file. Why? Well that wasn't clear either. There was a question about when Camping would be suitable to use. Following a noticeable pause, the presenter suggested demonstrations, mock-ups, etc.
Honestly, I don't get it. I had a hard time getting past the very important one character method name, 'R'. Having had to maintain other people's code, one character member names give me violent shakes. Now I realize that there is no maintenance on applications all contained within a single file, but this is all-too reminiscent of macros in Excel spreadsheet. While at MBNA, I encountered many macros whose life began as a demo or mock-up which morphed into critical business applications.
One potential application I see for microframeworks like this is education. Eliminating much of the overhead required to build scalable applications would be useful to help focus on learning concepts and ideas.
Kid in a candy shop
I often felt the need to clone myself, so I could attend all the sessions that interested me. The afternoon especially had 3-4 sessions in every slot that were interesting. This is partially due to the fact that I enjoy a myriad of different topics. Business / entrepreneurship, process, and technology topics are all interesting but often the sessions overlap forcing me to choose. I'm not sure if this warrants making this a 2-day conference or twice a year conference, but I know that this was a challenge for me.
Talent in the Triangle
One of the great things about this year is that I had the opportunity to revisit with many of the great people I met last year and meet new great people. The attendance was a fantastic mix of alumni and new blood. I get very excited when I get more visibility into the amazing talent we have here in the Triangle.
Give Barcamp a chance
BarcampRDU is a first-class event that I would recommend to anyone. The hardest part of Barcamp is getting there. Honestly, the thought of an all-day conference on a Saturday starting at 8AM is tough. But I encourage folks to put this aside and trust me that it's one of the best uses of your time , and there's plenty of coffee to get you going.
2 Comments
Todd Olson ( 2007.6.08 5:43 pm )
Very cool. The only thing stopping me from trying it out on my son is a Mac OS X version.
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