Today was an excellent day. I have to admit that at, the more I've gone to conferences, the less interested in sessions I've become. This year I'm meaning to change that, so today I did.
In the morning I saw Damian's "Best Practice Perl." Contrary to Damian's CPAN persona, he does understand the difference between Good Code and Clever Code. To a large degree, the talk was a reenforcement of a lot of my own style. Thankfully, however, I also learned a few new tricks that I plan on trying out. Since style, and especially effective style, seems to grow organicly, that's an important point. Try things on before dismissing them, and dismiss things that don't fit right.
After lunch I went to "Presentation Aikido," another of Damian's talks. Speaking effectively was the subject, and it was demonstrated in clear detail right from the beginning. Nearly first on his agenda was a bar fight with Larry, where they beat the crap out of each other. Mind you, this is Aikido, so they did it very gently and passively, all the while considering the opponent before themselves.
Dinner was eventful. 13 of us descended upon a poor Chinese place around the corner. Sadly, they were not the best service in Portland. I couldn't possibly begin to remember everyone that was there, but I'll try. Two folks from MSDW, Arthur Bergman, James Duncan, Nicholas Clark, Robert Spier, Tim Bunce, Jouke Visser, Ricardo Signes, and three other guys. The food was pretty good, but I thought for sure I was going to have to fight for my Credit Card back. There's no way I learned enough Aikido to pull that one off. Thankfully, they finally figured out I wanted it back.
Again with the wakeup call. tomorrow brings RT and Security hacking, and the State of the Onion.
Posted from caseywest.com, comment here.
