DABlog

I’ve been here in Portland since Saturday, which means I got here early for OSCON (happened to be traveling in this part of the country anyway), and I’m leaving today, which is a couple of days early (have to do stuff back home and then come back to the West Coast next week).

It’s been interesting and fun. I’ve hung out a lot with many of my fellow Rubyists, including Pat Eyler, Jim Weirich, the Prags, and Phil Tomson; surreptitiously (or otherwise) watched people leaf through my book at the Powell’s Bookstore table in the conference venue; had dinner on Saturday with conference organizer Nat Torkington and a couple of his friends; went to FOSCON last night; and generally had a great time.

Jim Weirich and I were talking yesterday about the culture(s) of the event, and of the various communities that make it up. There’s certainly a lot of potential interest to social scientists and analysts.

One thing I find particularly intriguing is the undercurrent of laptop use, especially during the presentations themselves. This isn’t school, so I’m not out to stop people from doing it (as I was during my professorial days; I didn’t allow laptops in the classroom at all). What interests me about it is wondering what’s actually getting done. People talk at OSCON and other conferences about synergy, networking, and all the rest of it—and I have a suspicion that a lot of this goes on in laptop sessions during talks. But when it takes that form, it’s not celebrated. It’s accepted (or at least tolerated) as a corollary of the existence of laptops. But it’s actually a bit taboo, I think, to make too much of it.

I wonder…. I remember starting to learn Rails by sitting at a conference talk and conducting a private chat session with David Heinemeier Hansson, who was sitting one row behind me and coaching me through the rudiments of the MVC architecture. That was a real and substantive moment in my development as a developer. I wonder what else is going on. I have a feeling the laptop stratum is at least as rich as the “BOF” sessions and acts of hallway networking, when it comes to personal and community growth.