My take on RailsConf Europe
Hot on the heels of Aimee’s lovely overview earlier, here’s my take on the conference from a technical lead/business owner/recruitment manager angle (my team keep telling me I need an array of hats so they know which of my 14 roles I’m currently operating from, but enough about that).
I thought it was an excellent conference. It was a little smaller and more intimate than last year, but that suited me as it wasn’t quite so crammed and I had more time to talk to people. It was definitely worthwhile taking the whole team; everybody learnt an enormous amount, and we got a lot of team chat in, which is always good. From a business standpoint, there was plenty of old-fashioned hand-shaking, and a few people who might just find the time to come along and work for us – we’re always looking for talented programmers. The message boards they have at these conferences are always good for this.
My conference highlight was the fresh take on legacy code from David Heinemeier Hansson. Looking back on previous code you’ve written should make you cringe to some extent; how else do you know that you’re improving as a programmer? A good lesson in confidence for programmers everywhere; it was great to hear the message from someone so high-profile.
Not sure we’ll go in such numbers next year, but it’s great that we managed to get there this time. There’s a chance that RailsConf Europe 09 might be a bit closer to home, which will be nice. I’m also planning to head to Future of Web Apps in London next month (at least for the expo) – drop me a line if you’re going.
-Chris