I might have come to OSCON if it had been called DamianConwayCon (DCCON?
ConCon?). He is, quite frankly, an amazing speaker. It is possible that
I hold a bias for his usual subject matter, but I have met
non-Perl-mongers who tout him as one of the best technical speakers.
Having received the contents of Damian's slides, I didn't expect I'd take
any notes, but I fired up a Vim instance anyway. By the end of the
tutorial, I had taken nearly 200 lines of notes. This is the second time
I have attended one of Damian's presentations. It seems I always leave
brimming with ideas for my own projects.
I found that I already apply many of the seven principles Damian
put forth as being the root of better API design. There were many
moments, however, when I would stop and think, "Gee, why haven't I been
doing that all this time?"
These best practices always seem obvious in retrospect, but it certainly
helps (and saves time) having someone point it out with big, neon,
flashing lights.
