eurucamp 2014 – my first conference

Well, that was my first conference i’ve ever been. eurucamp 2014 in Potsdam, Germany. From 1st august to 3rd august. What should i say, it was amazing. eurucamp is not a usual conference, it’s more like a big family meeting with camping. Before the conference my expectations were really low, yeah you participate in a workshop, meet some people, listen to some talks, nothing special. But the atmosphere was so inspiring. I’ve been never at a place where so many like-minded people were. Now i think the community is very important for a developer/programmer.

On friday i went to two workshops. They were free for conference attendees. The first workshop was about Lotus, a new lightweight ruby framework who sounds really promising. After a good lunch buffet i went to my second workshop on this day: introduction to d3.js. From now on if i have to do something with graphs, i use d3. It’s simple to understand and to use and you can do really complex graphics with it. After the workshops were over, we all went outside on the lawn to listen to Paolo’s great and inspiring keynote. After he had finished we all went to the party. The party was at a restaurant beside a canal near the conference venue and had a great atmosphere. By live music we enjoyed a burger and some beers.

On saturday the talks started very early at 9:30 am. Every speaker had to give his talk twice, so that everyone can listen to every talk. That was a great idea. My first talk was „Culture eats products for breakfast“ in which Laura Eck explained „assumption is evil“. In the next talk Rin Räuber livecoded a game in ruby. This is a really good possibility to learn ruby better, i have to do it myself. It followed some other great talks.
After another great lunch it was time for a siesta and some activities. Every attendee could create an activity and every attendee were free to choose an activity. I chose the „self-defence for nerds“ activity by Dominik. There were other activities like bike tour around Potsdam or swimming in the nearby lake.

After this refreshment we were concentrated again for more talks. Austin Seraphin, blind since birth, showed us how important accessibility is for everyone. After the regular talks on this day were the lightning talks outside on the lawn. But the weather took this kind of talks literally with a thunderstorm.

On sunday Blithe Rocher showed us „The Scientific Method of Troubleshooting“, a very inspiring talk. She said: „troubleshooting is learning“ and i totally agree with her. You can copy a „solution“ from stack overflow and be done. Or you can define the problem, do some research, establish a hypothesis, design the experiment, gather data, analyze the results and learn from it. But than you have to write it down, for yourself or in a blog post, otherwise you will forget.

After Tworit Kumar Dash talk about „Web Controlled Automation“ i’d like to buy a raspberry pi. And Sebastian Korfmann showed me how important it is to be part of a community in his talk „Far-East Ruby“. Sandra Wendebron tought us how to sketchnote. I tried it on my own the whole conference. It’s a good technique but i have to get better at it. Another lovely lunch followed with Jan Krutisch talk „Decentralise ALL THE THINGS“, but we all should probably do gardening. André Cedik closed the talks with his own experiences with depressions, a very personal talk.

After this we went all outside for a fishbowl. Maximum 3 guys/gals are allowed on stage and discuss any topic. If someone from the audience have to say something, he/she can go on stage and someone there have to leave. The concept of discussion was new to me, but it was funny and a good end for the conference. After the fishbowl, one of the organizer ask all speakers to come on stage and thank every attendee for such a great weekend.

I have to say thank you eurucamp and all participants, too. I’m glad that i can be part of such a great community.