[Phoenix-pm] Live from YAPC!

[Scott Walters]

Hi Phoenix.PM,

Wow.  Okay, I knew Randal threw a big party every year.  I didn't know everyone was invited.
I'm just back from that, about 1:30 am local time.  I blogged whining about not meeting
people and the talks being boring.  Well, I met a bunch of people and saw some cool
talks.  Everyone loosens up in the evening but the concentration of 400 programmers in
one place is intense during the day.  They did an auction and I got a limited edition
Larry Wall action figure.  Got to ride the train back with Larry Wall.  At one point, 
we were switching trains and were standing on the platform.  He pulled out a small
compass of the sphere variety, looked at it, and commented to those in earshot that every
memory of his is tagged with a direction he was facing, right or wrong.  Met a bunch
of other interesting people and a bunch of other people of fame, but I'm going to not
list them because that's silly.  Everyone is extremely easy going.  Have a small clip
of video I'll try to rip (camcorder, not $10 camera) of Larry Wall being auctioned off
(for lunch).   Talks are starting to appear on line.  Here are some links to slides
and such:

http://pugs.blogs.com/talks/yapcna-deploy-perl6.swf
http://www.pmichaud.com/2006/pres/yapc-perl6/slide.html
http://perlcabal.org/~gaal/peek/index.html
http://www.pmichaud.com/2006/pres/yapc-parsers/slide.html (to become valid some point tomorrow)
http://blog.bulknews.net/mt/archives/iTunesHacks-YAPCNA.pdf
http://wgz.org/chromatic/talks/perl_hacks.tar.gz

http://pugscode.org/talks/oscon05/movies.html

More are at http://yapcchicago.org/wiki/index.cgi?YAPCSlides but those were my
favorites (in no particular order).

The campus is beautiful.  I've had apartments smaller -- and not as nice -- as the SSV
double dorms.  I could write an essay on just that:  the wrap-around floor to ceiling
windows, the furniture, large bathroom with shower and toilet a room off of the
bathroom, curved aircraft like "hull", patios on the top floor for parties that don't
disturb your neighbors, etc, etc.  IIT is largely an architecture school and they
walk the walk. Some people complain about the bare cement and metal, but I think
it fits nicely with the idea of "postmodernism" with the exposed ducts and all that
that Larry described as a Perlish philosphy in one of his early State of the Onion
addresses.  And while it lacks some superficial comforts such as carpet (ick), it
has others, such as breaks in the building with mini gardens so that the rooms on the
end have a view too, and the top floor patios and commons areas.  The architect
also eliminated the long-dark-hall syndome.  The main halls house the commons areas,
main desk on the first floor, elevator landings, etc, and are glass on both sides.
The halves of the building connected by this hall have an internal, non-day-lit
hall, but the tunnel effect is offset by the main hall being daylit and open.

More than anything else, YAPC seems to be one huge retreat for hard core and
aspring Perl goons, with technical meetings all day long and social meeting
into the night.  Calling it a con underemphasizes the closeness of the community.

-scott




On  0, Scott Walters <scott at illogics.org> wrote:

> http://slowass.net/~scott/larry_talks_people_listen.jpg
> 
> Other animated gif is still uploading.  Sorry.
> 
> -scott
> 
> On  0, Scott Walters <scott at illogics.org> wrote:
> > http://slowass.net/~scott/larry_at_yapc.gif
> > 
> > If people are interested I'll try to get some better pics.  $10 camera.  Sorry.
> > There are a hell of a lot of laptops in the audiance.
> > 
> > -scott
> > _______________________________________________
> > Phoenix-pm mailing list
> > Phoenix-pm at pm.org
> > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/phoenix-pm