Yapc on Hashbang.ca

Thoughts on future conferences

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 03:14:00 -0400

YAPC::NA 2011 was great (read about it: 1, 2, 3), and I enjoyed almost every minute. I have only a few gripes, collected here in no particular order:

You can never have enough power in the conference halls. Never.
Yes, a four-day conference would be great. Give it a try!
Make the area immediately outside the conference halls a comfortable place to sit and/or mingle. Having an area for hacking at the other end of the building isn’t good enough, it needs to be right there. And close the doors so the talking doesn’t distract attendees listening to talks (or the speakers).
The auction is a problem. It should absolutely not interrupt prime socializing/networking time. Make it a silent auction for the run-of-the-mill items, limit the live part to a half-hour of the big-ticket items, and don’t be so desperate for large donations – it’s unseemly, exclusionary, and probably raises less money than many smaller donations.

I heard about these from other attendees as well.

YAPC::NA day three

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:00:00 -0400

Miyagawa strikes again

On day three (read about days one and two), I spent most of my time socializing and networking rather than attending talks.

YAPC::NA day two

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:00:00 -0400

If you haven’t already, read about day one.

Postmodern Module Packaging

I began day two with “Postmodern Module Packaging” with Ingy döt Net. This was a great comparison of the current module packaging toolchains, and a good introduction to a philosophy Ingy calls “Acmeism.”

YAPC::NA days zero and one

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:00:00 -0400

I doubt my recounting will be anywhere near as colourful as Yanick’s, but I think it’s worthwhile to share my experiences at YAPC::NA 2011.

My YAPC::NA 2011 lightning talk

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:37:00 -0400

Well, YAPC::NA 2011 in Asheville, NC is over, and I had the opportunity (after getting bumped around more than a couple times) to give a lightning talk as part of the final session. I had previously done a blog post on the subject, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts with a wider audience.

Heading to YAPC::NA 2011

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 20:56:00 -0400

Last year, I stumbled across http://presentingperl.org and discovered Yet Another Perl Conference, and the other hackathons, meetups, and workshops that the Perl community organizes all over the world. I immediately wanted to attend, but I wasn’t able to arrange to go. This year, I’m lucky to be working at DRDC for the summer, and they’ve given me time off to attend YAPC::NA 2011 in Asheville, NC.