I was glad to attend Steve Holden's OSCON Survivor's Breakfast, as I'd missed the party for the Program Chair.
This follow-up event gave me an opportunity to sit at Sarah Novotny's table and personally register my appreciation for the focus on inclusivity, non-profits, collaboration with other disciplines.
Everyone seemed jazzed by Andrew Sorenson's keynote the morning before, and I filled in more of a picture of the guy, highly regarded. We were lucky to have him. I'd watched on Live Steam with somewhat choppy DSL, knowing I could go back to Youtube later (above).
Another topic at this table was the 40 hour work week, which business analysts back to Henry Ford Sr. had discovered was a local optimum. People need time to recharge and enjoy the fruits of their labors. Without rewards, motivation drops away, and with it, productivity. Yet many in management seem to have forgotten this wisdom, when it comes to exploiting a steady stream of young talent eager for a foot in the door and not realizing they're being set up for PTSD and "pager hallucinations" i.e. that feeling of being on call for possible emergencies 24/7.
Duncan told me about Hy, a LISP dialect that's friendly with Python. I'm eager to learn more.
At Tatiana's table, I learned about her pleasant chat with Tim O'Reilly during the interview period at the O'Reilly booth (my role was to be at the OST booth around then). She continued the discussion about i18n (internationalization).
I hadn't realized how prolific her father is, in the Portuguese language, sometimes including original translations from Sanskrit in his works. Both her parents are university professors.
By analogy, a future O'Reilly title might go directly from Python to Portuguese and vice versa without going through English along the way i.e. this would not be a translation. Tim said he was open to such proposals (but of course it would need to be something more concrete than a mere notion). I am grateful to Tati for continuing the conversation.
In sum, much appreciation was expressed for the program managers and the assemblage of keynotes this year. People seemed satisfied this was one of the best OSCONs ever.
The Hilton provided a world class breakfast and I partook with gusto, having barely touched my food last night after some unfortunate mixing of food and beverage earlier. But hey, I survived.
I was glad Don Wardwell of Wanderers could join us. He was able to take positive advantage of some of the networking opportunities a room full of such high caliber folks offers.
