eurucamp 2014 retrospective
I am just coming back from eurucamp 2014, this year held at HPI in Potsdam. My head is buzzing with all the different concepts I have learnt about and things that I want to try now.
Just like last year I collected some notes on the talks I liked most, and also some thoughts about the conference in general.
Talks
There were many good talks, and if I had to pick a best overall, it would probably be Frank Webber’s Utils is a Junk Drawer! Still there were so many good talks, that I think it si best to highlight some of the good ones in different categories.
Most fun:
- Internet of Dusty Things - Daniel Bovensiepen
- Let’s build a game with Ruby - Rin Räuber
Most thought provoking:
- Utils is a Junk Drawer! - Frank Webber
- Decentralise ALL THE THINGS! - Jan Krutisch
Most surprizing:
- The Scientific Method of Troubleshooting - Blithe Rocher
- Take note! - Såndra Wendebørn
Last but not least, the best slide came from the Take note! talk. Too bad I cannot draw like that :)
Feedback
Great talks, great people, great food, great weather, great conference all in all.
My sincere thanks goes to the eurucamp organizers for making this event happen. I appreciate all the hard work that went into it, and I even took a membership applications for Ruby Berlin e.V., to see how I can contribute to keep this community as vibrant as it is.
I also have some constructive feedback:
For me the Pendelverkehr between the two presentation halls didn’t work that well. Especially on day 2, people moving in and out of the rooms created quite a bit of distraction.
Day 1 had an almost 5 hour long lunch and siesta break. The majority of the activities happened in that time. For me that was too long. Personally I would have preferred to pull some of the evening talks to the front and rather move the activities to the end of the day.
While I understand that the eurucamp concept is a bit different from a traditional technology conference, I still think that some more technical talks would do the conference good.
As always with feedback, this is just my personal opinion.
That said, I will certainly be coming back next eurucamp. This conference has me convinced that speaking at conferences is worthwhile and possible. So thanks to all organizers and speakers for providing that type of platform.