Some observations from Entwicklercamp
by Volker Weber
- Snow tires are a good thing. Not, if they are in your basement.
- A conference in the middle of nowhere has challenges. Snow and DSL are only two.
- If your network uplink is slow and has 1+ seconds latency, the carrier will blame your equipment.
- Don't bring your spouse to a place that has no entertainment and no good transportation.
- DSL with 384 kBit is not enough for 150 people, especially without a transparent HTTP proxy.
- Arriving past midnight and spending a few more hours at the bar does not go well with finding your bed, if the hotel is spread out over five houses in a small village.
- Providing asylum to someone who cannot find his bed may impact your sleep.
- Wearing a kilt can be a geek magnet.
- If you have a Windows mobile phone, bring your power supply. Better yet, dispose of the phone and get something that works.
- Don't expect fine cuisine in rural areas.
- A camera phone that fails to send pictures over Bluetooth or via email isn't very useful.
- Dedication can make for a fine conference.
- Big notebooks can have power supplies larger than small notebooks.
- Movies on an iPod can be good entertainment.
- Having a Blackberry keeps you in good mood when the conference network goes bad.
- Powerpoint can present on dual displays. This does not mean it actually works.
- If you want to sell someone on Macs, just use it for a day in front of them.
- Paul and Bill are not as mad as they pretend. And certainly loads of fun ...
Comments
>Don't expect fine cuisine in rural areas.
I don't know what part of Kassel you were in, but at that '03 fall DNUG, we found "Gutshof" to be a great restaurant. I also think there are things to do in Kassel...maybe not in February, but I would think that spouses could find their way to the top of the "Herkules" hill, the Schloss at the bottom, or some of the museums and have a pretty good time.
Sorry I couldn't make it.
Let's not confuse Kassel, a city twice the size of Darmstadt, with this small village of a few dozen houses. Highland Park after a blizzard is not downtown Chicago in spring. :-)
Rural areas Kassel... not exactly.
Bill, Kassel has a population of about 200'000, while Schauenburg is reported to have about 10'000. One is rural, the other one isn't.
On the conference site it says: "Schauenburg-Elmshagen bei Kassel" which translates to "Schauenburg-Elmshagen in the vicinity of Kassel". Map24.com tells me, it's about 10 miles out of Kassel, beyond Wilhelmshöhe. This leads, if I'm not totally mistaken, more into the hilly areas around Kassel. This, plus "a place that has [...] no good transportation" probably means: No way of leaving Schauenburg-Elmshagen for a dinner.
Ah - please remember that on the Monday night there was a *lot* of snow, and the lady that Volker is referring to didnt want to risk driving the car to Kassel on Tuesday.
Indeed, the conference hotel - short beds and all - was in a very small (and very pretty) location 15km from the center of Kassel.
The roads around this small village were very steep. On the tuesday morning, I was climbing up one in my kilt, heading towards my presentation. I had the 20kg of laptop on my back, and was wearing the "brogues" for my kilt. They're designed for dancing (an awful mental picture I agree!), and have NO tread on them whatsoever.
So when I started slipping, I was determined NOT to fall over (and expose my assets to the world, nor fall onto my laptop (and obviously destroy it).
Ever seen the bit in "Scooby Doo" when they start running - all "windmill legs" and sound effects ? Well, I did that FOUR times on tuesday morning..
:-)
"Not as mad as they pretend to be ?" ? And here's me thinking Volker could be trusted with a secret.. Damn...! :-)
---* Bill
Bill, if you thought the beds were short, than you must also have noticed they were very wide. :-)
Ragnar, you must have been their before, good description :D
Hm, in my opinion the meals were really fine there; never expected that, regarding 150 persons wanted to eat at the same time (and of course lots of them always stood in the queue instead of waiting some time). And the service was quite good, we never ran out of drinks.
Surrounded by snow in a rural village, no escape, that was good for quickly developing a community feeling, I think.
For me, it would be great to return next year, same place!
I think I was one of the missing four dwarfs that Ben refers to on my blog comments.. :-)
---* Bill
Ah - yes - no-one has noted yet - this is the first conference I've been to that had a free bar. Lovely.
And the bar-serving staff stayed up till 4am on tuesday morning - well beyond the call of duty.
---* Bill
I saw eight technical sessions, seven of them superb, one crap. Good quota, I think. Got all the info I came for and made new contacts. Rudi and his team did an excellent job in organizing the event. Gonna be back next time.
As for the location: There are certainly drawbacks if you get stuck with 150 other people in the middle of (s)nowhere, but... it helps keeping the flock together. It was fun and I was glad I brought some aspirin ;-)
Volker - You may wish to add another bullet point.
If you want to "sell" someone on mac's, just use it for a day in front of them.
My charging cable was exactly where I left it on my bed at home. Doh!
Done that. :-)
Nico, no I haven't been there before (except for driving past and through Kassel a couple of times). But the bullets Volker listed pretty much gave it away.
BTW: How's life? Haven't heard from each other in ages... :-)
