YAPC::NA 2008 Day 1
I got up at 7AM and got a taxi over to the IIT campus. After a bit of confusion as to where exactly the conference was, I got registered. I made an impulse decision to turn my id badge over and write "Limbic~Region" in large bold letters with a black felt tip pen rather than use the front which had my real name in small print and competing colors. This was a VERY good idea. It was very surreal for people to walk up to me and say - "hey, I know you - you helped me with <some problem> on PerlMonks".
I went into the auditorium for the first few talks. I really enjoyed the first two talks by Karen and Jose.
I was a bit confused by The Perl Foundation's annual report. For some reason, I was expecting to see things like how much money was spent, who and what it was spent on, etc. It was mostly a FAQ of TPF. That isn't to say that I didn't appreciate the talk that was given much more than I would have a boring financial report - just that the title made me think something other than what it was.
Larry's keynote was about Perl 6 and technical in nature. This too was surprising to me since I have checked out many talks he has given in the past and this seemed a-typical. I have been following Perl 6 and Parrot for years, so I enjoyed the talk but after, I heard many people commenting that they didn't get it and some didn't like it.
Lunch was at the cafeteria - primarily because I couldn't find where the outdoor BBQ was. I ran into a couple of guys in from CBS Sports in Florida. Lunch was decent for cafeteria food but also a bit pricey.
The first talk I went to after lunch was Schwern's Skimmable Code. I was a bit disappointed. It was a good talk - it was just stuff that I thought was common knowledge. That just shows how naive I am. There were good nuggets in there - get in, get it done, get out. I did raise my hand at the end and suggested that next time, the talk should cover the situation with long if/elsif/else chains. Schwern apparently misunderstood and thought I was asking a question (such as how to deal with them). He stated that you could use the same techniques already discussed or use a hash (hinting at dispatch tables which is what I was suggesting in the first place) but decided not to go down that road due to time constraints. *shrug*
Next I went to "Handling the Ball of Mud". I was again disappointed. Again, it was a good talk - but I thought it stayed way to surface level to be considered intermediate. Having discussed this with several attendees I came to the realization that my expectations were too high and unrealistic. The conference is only $100 and the attendees cover the entire spectrum (beginner to advanced, sysadmins to web programmers, interested in perl 5 only to interested in perl 6 only). From this point forward, I took Jose's "it is about the people and about the beer" advice from his talk to heart and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the conference.
The last two talks I went to was Strawberry Perl on Win32 (good talk - neither excited nor disappointed) and then the PAR + PDF + FUSE talk. The last talk was a bit too nitch for me. This was my first regret - I think I would have preferred to have gone to Barbie's talk on Understanding Malware.
After day 1, Tye, Josh, Dave Baker, aperion, and myself went out to Pizzaria Due for deep dish pizza. A couple of us didn't have passes for the green line train so we had to be creative in getting there. We had a waitress that probably could not have been any less interested in us. We got too much pizza, had great conversation, but very lousy service. I asked Randal the next day (he and another group showed up) if he had any problems - he didn't. At least I know it was the waitress and not the place.
Dave Baker and I decided to walk down Michigan Avenue. The architecture was amazing. Dave used to live here about 20 years ago and was a font of knowledge. Just as it was getting dark, we went to the top of the John Hancock building (94th floor) which had a 360 degree observatory over looking Chicago at night - it was amazing. Of course, I thought of Jean and how much I would like her to be here with me to see this and then I remembered I had left the camera behind - not good.
I got a cab back to the hotel, called Jean, and called it a night.
I went into the auditorium for the first few talks. I really enjoyed the first two talks by Karen and Jose.
I was a bit confused by The Perl Foundation's annual report. For some reason, I was expecting to see things like how much money was spent, who and what it was spent on, etc. It was mostly a FAQ of TPF. That isn't to say that I didn't appreciate the talk that was given much more than I would have a boring financial report - just that the title made me think something other than what it was.
Larry's keynote was about Perl 6 and technical in nature. This too was surprising to me since I have checked out many talks he has given in the past and this seemed a-typical. I have been following Perl 6 and Parrot for years, so I enjoyed the talk but after, I heard many people commenting that they didn't get it and some didn't like it.
Lunch was at the cafeteria - primarily because I couldn't find where the outdoor BBQ was. I ran into a couple of guys in from CBS Sports in Florida. Lunch was decent for cafeteria food but also a bit pricey.
The first talk I went to after lunch was Schwern's Skimmable Code. I was a bit disappointed. It was a good talk - it was just stuff that I thought was common knowledge. That just shows how naive I am. There were good nuggets in there - get in, get it done, get out. I did raise my hand at the end and suggested that next time, the talk should cover the situation with long if/elsif/else chains. Schwern apparently misunderstood and thought I was asking a question (such as how to deal with them). He stated that you could use the same techniques already discussed or use a hash (hinting at dispatch tables which is what I was suggesting in the first place) but decided not to go down that road due to time constraints. *shrug*
Next I went to "Handling the Ball of Mud". I was again disappointed. Again, it was a good talk - but I thought it stayed way to surface level to be considered intermediate. Having discussed this with several attendees I came to the realization that my expectations were too high and unrealistic. The conference is only $100 and the attendees cover the entire spectrum (beginner to advanced, sysadmins to web programmers, interested in perl 5 only to interested in perl 6 only). From this point forward, I took Jose's "it is about the people and about the beer" advice from his talk to heart and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the conference.
The last two talks I went to was Strawberry Perl on Win32 (good talk - neither excited nor disappointed) and then the PAR + PDF + FUSE talk. The last talk was a bit too nitch for me. This was my first regret - I think I would have preferred to have gone to Barbie's talk on Understanding Malware.
After day 1, Tye, Josh, Dave Baker, aperion, and myself went out to Pizzaria Due for deep dish pizza. A couple of us didn't have passes for the green line train so we had to be creative in getting there. We had a waitress that probably could not have been any less interested in us. We got too much pizza, had great conversation, but very lousy service. I asked Randal the next day (he and another group showed up) if he had any problems - he didn't. At least I know it was the waitress and not the place.
Dave Baker and I decided to walk down Michigan Avenue. The architecture was amazing. Dave used to live here about 20 years ago and was a font of knowledge. Just as it was getting dark, we went to the top of the John Hancock building (94th floor) which had a 360 degree observatory over looking Chicago at night - it was amazing. Of course, I thought of Jean and how much I would like her to be here with me to see this and then I remembered I had left the camera behind - not good.
I got a cab back to the hotel, called Jean, and called it a night.
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