eurucamp 2013 retrospective
Wow! eurucamp 2013 is over, and I left with a lot of new impressions about ruby but even more so about the awesome ruby community in Berlin and Europe. I met rubyists from Hungary, Italy, and Spain and everybody seemed to enjoy the event.
One of the few things that a particpant of conference can give back is feedback. This is what this post is about.
Feedback for eurucamp 2013
Location. The conference location at Hotel Müggelsee was great. First I thought it might be too far on the outskirts of Berlin but actually that in itself had the benefit of keeping the conference participants together as a group. Some of the other hotel guests probably thought that a radical splitter group of the NSA took over the place, flying and hacking AR.Drones, talking about this strange thing called ruby, and all speaking English. But they will get over it :)
Timing. The conference being on the weekend made it easier for me to attend. I often see conference scheduled during weekdays, and while that might have its advantages too, many cannot afford to take vacation for going to a conference.
Affordability. The ticket price of about 120 EUR is a very affordable for a 2 1/2 day conference, especially when compared to others. In that context it is even more impressive that coffee, beverages, fruits, small snacks, and lunches were provided. Awesome!
Organization. Check-In, sessions, and breaks were all well planned. Generally there was very little confusion about the schedule or what would take place when and where. My only pliece of constructive feedback here is that speakers should stay to their allotted time, in order to respect the overall schedule as much as possible. So the organizers of Ruby Berlin e.V. could be a little bit tougher on the speakers in this regard.
Activities. The activies at eurocamp made for a nice compensation for all the sitting. They presented an easy way to get to know other conference participants, that you otherwise might not have interacted with. Thumbs up for that idea!
Talk Selection
Simply put: Good work with the talk selection! I am sure that with this variety of talks, everybody found somethink new for her/him.
Either by design or by accident the Saturday contained most of the less technical talks while Sunday’s talks tended to be more technical.
Also the topic of diversity carried us through the conference. Not only was it part of the code of conduct - which was explicitly stressed during the opening remarks - but it was also picked up by a couple of speakers afterwards. This definitely contributed to the overall success of the conference as well.
Top Talks My favorite talks were:
- Once Upon a Time … ruby. by Vicent Martí - @vmg
- Practice makes perfect? by Ellen König - @ellen_koenig
- Debugging Production by Michael Grosser - @grosser
In Summary
All in all I had a great time at eurucamp and recommend it highly to everybody. If you get a chance to go next year, do it! For me personally it definitely triggered a greater interest in getting involved with the community of rubyists in the Berlin area. So thanks to everybody who made this event as great as it was!