So you may have noticed that I had three conference wrap-up posts yesterday.
I did notice. What’s up with that?
Well, I went to three conferences: /dev/world, PHP New Zealand, and Kiwi PyCon. One after each other.
What, just going from one to the next?
Yes.
Wait, but you’re not (Apple,PHP,Python) developer
No I’m not.
Then, why?
Because I had the oppurtunity to.
Wasn’t that exhausting?
Bloody hell was it exhausting.
What made it awesome?
A few things.
One: being able to contribute to each. I did full talks at /dev/world and Kiwi PyCon. I did lightning talks at all three. I even got to MC a track at Kiwi PyCon, and that was awesome.
Two: the people. I knew a few people at each conference, so catching up with them was awesome, but the new people I met, oh my gosh. The people who take the time to contribute to these communities are amazing. They actually care. I had so many awesome discussions about so many different things, with people from so many different backgrounds, both geographic and programming language.
Three: the learning. I love learning new things. Going to conferences outside my domain teaches me so much. And it’s also interesting to see how the different communities deal with cross-domain talks is always interesting. Go talks at an Apple conference. JavaScript talks at a PHP conference. Functional programming talks at a Python conference. And more general, “soft skill” talks at each.
What made it less than awesome?
Not being able to stay for longer. I know I missed out on a few social events because I had to go onto the next thing.
Having a full day of information being thrown at you to take in is awesome, but having that everyday for a week means that you start to not being able to pull everything in. I was life tweeting the entire time, and I will have to go back and re-read all my own notes to remember all the things that I saw and learnt.
Also, as amazing as the community is in general, it’s unfortunate that there are exceptions to this rule.
But overall, reflecting back on the entire week, it was overall a positive experience.
Do you regret it?
No.
Would you do it again?
Yes. In a heart beat.