I’m going to make this a short and sweet recap of RailsConf 2007… I’ve had a day to reflect and with me being sick, it only makes sense to do a short and sweet recap.
- The City
My view of Portland is somewhat skewed… not having a means to leave the city. I think it’s not exactly logistically laid out… and they have a HUGE homeless people on the streets problem. Would I go back just for the downtown Portland life? Nope. Count me out. Would I go back for the scenery and other Pacific Northwest things? Yes.
- The People
The people of Portland are interesting… they always want to have a conversation and are generally nice. There are lots of homeless people. Period. The people of RailsConf were kinda cliquey but I got to meet a lot of interesting “geek celebs”. Martin Fowler, DHH, Zed Shaw, Ze Frank, Tim Bray, Dave Thomas, and quite a few others… and it’s always nice to put faces to people you’ve talked to but never met… like Jeff Cohen and even some of the Ruby.mn guys.
- The Sessions
Average. Not enough code… I saw LOTS of good, well put together slide decks… but not a lot of code. Step it up guys. It felt like a lot of transitional information, like… “We’ve all gotten a chance to write Rails code… now how do we get our tools and idioms in place to make it better.”
- The Keynotes
For the most part, the keynotes ROCKED! Ze Franks and Dave Thomas’ was by FAR the best.. Avi’s was amazing as well… Very inspirational.
Favorite thing learned: “cargo cult”
What really amazed me? That for every 1 person looking for work, there were another 20 people looking for people to work.
Would I go to another RailsConf? See you next year!
Where did you go in Portland? It sounds like you went to Old Town (where all the charity missions are located) and assumed it represented to homeless problem throughout the city. I don’t want to minimize the plight of the homeless or our society’s responsibilities towards them, but Portland actually has much less of a homeless problem than many other cities (particularly compared to the East Coast). Of course everyone I know tells me I’m a typical Portander in that I like to brag about how beautiful I think my city is. Go figure.
All I know is that I took the light rail from the convention center to downtown… near where the market and stuff was… near Dante’s.
I think I would have to get a car and get around before I could make my final decision about Portland, but for right now… I’m not as much interested in it.
:: shrugs ::