I meant to blog a little bit each day of OSCON, but I didn't get around to it after the first day. I was too busy being away from a computer, which illustrates the main difference between this year's show and the previous couple. I'm lousy at public speaking, so whenever I have to give a talk at a con, I spend the entire time stressing out about it, and usually I have to skip lots of sessions to sit in my hotel room and write the damn thing. Not having a talk this year, I was free to cruise around the talks and be relaxed and social. Made all the difference.
I looked around for talks on scaling web sites and chose to go to the YouTube one. It was interesting enough, but I didn't really learn anything I didn't already know. For instance, they found that eventually they had to partition their database and that they broke some table joins apart and re-implemented them at the application layer. This is the same story I heard from eBay and something that's been in the back of my mind for Cosmo from day one. I think probably the world of web site operators is full of little groups of people who've come to the same conclusions independently by bootstrapping themselves through months or years of booming startups. Apparently there were a couple of other talks at the show that had basically the same content, and I'm glad I only chose to go to one of them, but it's good to have that kind of volume, because maybe the next generation of developers and admins can learn something from them and go back to their job a little more prepared rather than having to figure it all out by trial and error and maybe killing their business in the process.
There were a handful of other talks I enjoyed, such as the open source voting one that I mentioned in the previous OSCON post, and several I meant to attend but didn't get around to, like the PHP 6 and Perl 6 ones. I guess I was too busy hanging out with new friends. The best moment of the show was when the OSAF and Metaweb crews wound up at the hotel bar and I preached semi-drunkenly on the merits of Atompub as a calendar server access protocol. There were many smarter people than me at the table, and none of them pointed out any particularly foolish claims, though perhaps they just didn't want to be rude. In any event, I very much enjoyed the social aspects of the convention, new to me this year, and now I'm waffling about submitting a talk next year and submitting to all that stress again.
Started the day with a 6am run along the east side of the river and through quiet, extremely green neighborhoods.
Spent the morning at the keynotes, a Subversion talk, and a session on open source voting, which I find quite interesting. The voting guys are trying to put together a prototype system in six weeks before debate ends on some sort of voting machine bill in the California Assembly. I would fully have volunteered to help if I wasn't spending all of August on vacation.
Jim and I took the light rail across the river, meaning to go to Powell's, but we spent so much time finding a good place for lunch that we headed back directly so that he could hit the afternoon sessions. I was drag-assing from the run, so I went back to the hotel for some quick work and a nap.
Hooked up in the evening with Jim and the Metaweb crew for Powell's where I picked up I am Legend (must read before the movie comes out). Hit the gelateria across the street for coffee and chocolate hazelnut gelato and then met up with the gang again for dinner at Eleni's. This restaurant is unbelievably good. I had the Biftekia ("Painted Hills beef meatballs with onion, fresh oregano, mint and Italian parsley served in our special tomato sauce"), Manitaria Me Skortho ("seasonal forest mushrooms sauteed with pancetta, garlic, onion, and fresh sage, served over Orzo pasta") and for dessert a poached peach infused with port. Yes, two desserts in one night! I'd be concerned about packing weight back on if I wasn't running 25 miles in the next four days.
]]>spent last week in Portland at OSCON 2006. gave a talk on Friday along with some coworkers about Cosmo (here's a nice summary). don't have much to say about the show - checked out some Ruby talks, but mostly i spent my time rewriting slides (yea i'm sure the effort shows in the final version of the preso! pfft) and raiding Blackwing Lair. just couldn't get that excited about the geekfest, but it was nice to run into some old friends and to wander around town a bit. Portland is pretty, if a little bit quiet. maybe next year i can find a native to show me around.
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