Codemash 2009 thoughts

Another Codemash has come and gone, which means there are more than a few recap posts out there, so I'll add mine to the pile.

The biggest take away for me this year was the sheer number of people I got to talk to, shake hands with, and bend an elbow with. In past years, that group has been basically limited to the other Quick folks that were up there or a small circle of people outside of Quick that I knew. This year, though, that number was much larger. I can easily attribute this to two things.

First, I got out and about in the community more in '08 than in past years, including a few speaking gigs around the region. I got to hang out for extended times with new colleagues from Cincy to Grand Rapids and a lot of places in between. That made for a lot of familiar faces while strolling around Kalahari.

Second, and this is probably the larger of the two: Twitter. I started in on Twitter last year after Codemash and before I headed to Mix, and it showed at this year's edition of Codemash. The number of people I could talk with in person because we'd had a few conversations on Twitter made starting those conversations much easier.

For the content itself, I was really impressed with the Pre-Compiler. This was the first year for the extra day, and I wish they'd have spread that material over the whole conference. I found myself wanting to be in three places at once on Wednesday. I ended up with a morning of Ruby with Joe and Jim, and an afternoon of Lean and Kanban with Dave Laribee.

For the full conference, I was all over the place. Some open spaces, some sessions, some hallway conversation, some recovery time that we don't need to discuss here, etc, etc. I took in Venkat's second session (skipped the Scala one), made sure I saw Mary Poppendieck, saw Laribee's DDD talk, and a few others.

Open Spaces I was really looking forward to on the heels of all the news from DevLink and what Alan Stevens did down there. I got to two, one on pair programming and one on branding yourself. I submitted one, but thanks to the snow and the room changing a couple times my turnout was five other people from Quick. We decided we could cover this at another meeting and headed back out into the sessions. So, overall I was a bit let down with the Open Spaces, but I think good content in the sessions combined with good content in the Open Spaces makes for some tough choices. Alan runs a slick Open Space, though. The ceremony is kind of cool. [Insert essence v. ceremony joke here]

My mini-speaking part in the show was when Jon Kruger, Steve Harman, and myself gave some first hand experiences with Kanban in the QSI vendor session. We ended up with a decent turnout and went 10 minutes over our allotted time taking more questions. I thought it turned out really well.

So, another Codemash behind me, and another kick in the butt to start the new year. Top of the list, clean up the blog. In the branding open space I learned that using the default theme from .txt turns people off...thank goodness I use the default blogger theme, instead. I'm going to get Graffiti installed and get a better look for it.

CodeMash: Feeling The Vibe.

I had originally set out to cover my travels through CodeMash similar to my post from Day 1. Give a recap of my morning, afternoon, etc. However, it soon became clear that keeping up with what I was hearing and doing was going to be tough, and that I wasn't going to have the time to sit down and enter it. On top of that, it feels like giving a couple sentences to somebody's 1:15 presentation gives them a disservice for the work they put into it.

Then I read Scott Hanselman's entry on his day at CodeMash, and I couldn't agree more with his point about "The Vibe" of the conference. Scott made a great contribution to The Vibe with his great keynote followed by just wandering the halls and jumping into conversations. A few of us were lucky enough to have him jump into our conversation before he discovered Rock Band. What's odd is it was kind of the "CodeMash Way" to have Scott drop in and say, "So, what are you guys talking about?" It just seemed normal, and the conversation didn't miss a beat.

The "CodeMash Way" is that everybody wants to learn something from everybody else. Nobody's language or approach is any better or worse than the person you're talking with, both of you are trying to learn something from the other. It's at its most evident when you look around the room during a presentation. Josh Holmes was giving a talk on Microsoft's DLR, and in the back of the room Joe O'Brien is taking it all in...and helping Josh along with some of the dynamic language benefits. The flip side is Josh was in the back of the room for Joe's talk on testing in Ruby the day before. The aforementioned Scott Hanselman was sitting along the wall for Dustin Campbell's presentation on F#. (And Scott's phone rang twice...that's two rounds of donuts, Mr. Hanselman.)

Suddenly the community isn't defined as the Ruby community, the .Net community, or the Java community...we're one big problem solving community exploring what weapons we can add to the arsenal to solve those problems. What .Net or Java guy heard Joe say, "I have 100% code coverage in Ruby at all times," and didn't have their jaw hit the floor? (Probably more than one since he asked the room what their coverage was and got answers ranging from "code coverage?" to 25% to 80%.)

I added a little to The Vibe, giving some advice on ASP.Net AJAX in the hallway (and thinking next year I should offer up a talk titled, "The Update Panel Sucks"), but for the most part I just soaked up all I could soak up. I went to Ruby discussions, saw plenty of Java code, and my only .Net sessions were on F# (where I was lost about 8 minutes after, "Hi, I'm Dustin Campbell" - functional programming not my bag) and Josh Holmes's talk on the DLR.

The best place to dig The Vibe is in the hallways, the open spaces, and the "Ask the Experts" sessions. I got the chance to meet and talk to Sara Ford in the hallway, but only because Jim Weirich had stolen the experts room to give his 10 things about Ruby talk, which I was attending.

The amount of Ruby I learned in there pales in comparison to the informal sessions many of us had with Jim. I really lucked out here. It started with CodeMash committee member and speaker, aspiring member of the Blue Man Group, Rock Band star, agile aficionado, and all around great guy Brian Prince walking up to Jim at the QSI sponsored Meet and Greet and asking what Aaron and I needed to do to get started in Ruby. That started an hour long discussion that many people walked up and joined. The next day at lunch, a few of us were sitting at a table eating when Jim walked by and recognized us from the night before, so he joined us. More opportunity to soak up what he had to offer. (I later commented to Brian, "Jim walks by and you learn something.") This isn't meant to be the Jim Weirich love-fest, he's a nice guy and all, but more along the lines of the "accidental" things that happen at CodeMash to add to The Vibe.

Compared to last year, I think The Vibe took on a much bigger feel this year. Maybe that's me moving out of my comfort zone at sessions, but mostly I noticed it outside the sessions while walking around. The informality of CodeMash builds The Vibe, but the people attending and speaking dropping our "barriers" is what takes The Vibe to a fever pitch. I'm already looking forward to next year's edition.

Of Note: I didn't win an iPod this year, like last year. I didn't win an Xbox or Wii, either. I did win a book...ON RUBY!!! Woo-Hoo!!

CodeMash Day 1 Morning

CodeMash has started out with a bang for me, as I missed the first half of Neal Ford's Keynote on Software Engineering and Polygot Programming because I thought it started at 9 rather than the actual starting time of 8. The best part was I didn't oversleep, I was up in plenty of time, just didn't put my reading comprehension skills to work to read the start time of the keynote.

So, the last half of Neal's talk was excellent. (Referencing ORMs as programming's "Vietnam" was fun to witness.)

Following the keynote, I headed off to Testing Mandatory, a session given by Joe O'Brien about testing in Ruby. Solid session, and makes me want to learn Ruby that much more. Joe kind of shoots from the hip, but the message gets through. The biggest message was how easy testing is in Ruby, that it's built in from the beginning. He also provided a good idea on how to learn Ruby: Take one of the libraries and write unit tests for it.

The last morning session I headed to Intro to Castle with Jay Wren. Jay's pretty accomplished in Castle, so knows the material well. However, from my headbanging with Castle during my current project with trying to wedge it in our existing code base gave me all the intro that Jay was laying out. He did go more into MonoRail, so that was good, but I'm guessing my first trip into MVC land on ASP.Net will be with Microsoft's release of the same.

A little CodeMash love

Coming up in a few days will be CodeMash at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH. Having been to a few conferences, I consider this one a "don't miss." And here's why...

1. It's an indoor waterpark...nerds in speedos!

2. The collection of speakers and topics is second to none. This isn't your, "JAVA OR DIE!!!" meeting, just as its not, "Bill Gates cured my brother-in-law's limp," type show, either. It's a gathering of people passionate about their chosen field, wanting to share that passion, and get information on areas outside their comfort zone.

3. The Kalahari sells alcohol. Consider the alcohol induced war stories: "I had to deal with a five part composite primary key that allowed nulls!" It can only get better from there...

4. Keynoters that include Neal Ford (who also gave a keynote last year), Scott Hanselman, and Brian Goetz.

5. Breakout sessions with Neal Ford, Brian Goetz, Bruce Eckel, and Brian Prince! (Yes, I know, "one of these things is not like the others," but he has a direct impact on my paycheck.)

6. Conference food!!

If one or more of those six items hasn't piqued your interest then how about adding them all up: Brian Prince in a speedo delivering a presentation on Agile Development with a beer in one hand and a ham or turkey sandwich in the other.

Now that your interest has waned, fear not that won't happen. (And that direct impact on my paycheck is likely negative, now...)

Seriously, this is a good conference. If your looking for a "bang for your buck" type deal, then it's tough to beat CodeMash. I've been to pricier conferences and gotten much less out of them, mainly because much less was available. Last year's highlights for me were two breakout sessions with Scott Guthrie following his keynote and a session with Neal Ford on how to be a better overall developer. (Additionally, I had a strange urge to attend Burning Man...)

I came away last year being a little upset with myself for focusing too much in my .Net comfort zone, something I'm going to avoid this year. There are a couple of .Net sessions I want to see to learn some of the newer features, and one on Castle that I want to see. Beyond my comfort zone, there are a few Python sessions that I think I'll check-out. Oh, and I'll be in attendance at anything being presented by Neal Ford.

If you're planning on attending, look me up and say hi. I have a nullable composite key story to share with you. And, I don't own a speedo.

Yet.