Throughout the centuries there were [people] who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.
~ Ayn Rand

There won’t be a single blog entry, wiki entry, vlog or podcast that can ever capture the essence of what this past weekend’s Alt.NET Conference in Calgary was like. Period.

I’ll offer links for the content, I will add my comments on the speeches to the wiki site. I’m only making this entry in reflection of the soft-side of the weekend and things (good and bad) that I noticed.

Sessions

  • All of them were excellent. I particularly enjoyed “DDD Day” and especially listening to James Kovacs and Greg Young speak on DDD, implementing it in a team and applying it during refactorings and also most importantly stating it’s not a magic solutions. I find this topic unending fascinating and I look forward to learning more and of course working with it hands on either in practice or in the field. Greg Young did an awesome job in breaking DDD down and delivering the basic fundamentals of DDD and also itemizing his own approach to DDD.His expertise on the subject was reflected in how well attended this session was.  He’s very easy to watch and follow
  • Another session I quite enjoyed was Greg’s Command/Query separation, Future of Alt.Net and James’s “Convention over Configuration”
  • Angel’s “Future of Web technologies” was almost like creating a wishlist for new technologies, and how to move away from HTML’s limitations and complexities into a new - age markup. It was a very well attended discussion, not necessarily a large number but excellent contribution by the participants

Attendee’s

Hmmm, people are so interesting! Well the Canadian’s were definitely in the house, people came from across Canada with the same issues and desires and thats exactly what makes this type of weekend work. There were some way-too quiet people who we all know to be brilliant, and some way too loud people who really would have learned more if they were quiet. One lesson is to ask a question and hear the answers and discussions as opposed to trying to prove a point. The weekend’s not about you! If you don’t like it, blog it lol. Overall, what I found most striking is how different we all are in our personal lives. It was great to learn about what people do when they’re not coding or how they got to be where/who they are today.

Overall, most people were open to meeting and speaking with whoever happened to be in their session or in the hallway or in the seat next to theirs. Because nice people are always the best to be around, I have to give a shout out to Mo, Peter, Kyle, Greg, Chris, Geoff, Wes, Don, Dave, James and of course Doc!

Topics & Atmosphere

I found the atmosphere to be relaxed, and very Canadian! I think the level and receptiveness of the crowd was vastly different than I’d anticipated. I know a lot of people had doubts and it was obvious. To get past any hesitation I may have had, I decided to make the most of the weekend and make it applicable to me. This may be why I find it was time well-spent!

Another nice thing to see was how light-hearted John Bristowe was about the t-shirts! He showed up and it was all taken in good spirit, that was nice to see! I can respect that.

Also, I made the uncommon decision to go out to a pub on Saturday and was quite suprised at how late I was out, I’m not a pub type of person but it was a lot of fun mostly because of the good company and hospitality.

Location

Calgary is cool, I’m hoping we get a really exotic location for the next one!

Links

http://www.altnetpedia.com/

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