I would have preffered a smaller city for the conference. The routes are longer and it harder to find your directions. Also food it more expensive etc. And I usullay don't have the energy and time for any sighseeing. But it was okay. The hotel was good ( Ibis budget ) and the metro station near by and the food delicous.
It was my first polyconf and I enjoyed it a lot.
It went for three days and was single tracked which I liked. So I don't have the feeling to always be in the wrong talk ;)
Since its about all languages and VM's and what not there was a whole lot I didn't understand and that also caused me some headaches. But most of the time I understood at least the broad idea behind it and that sometimes how it works :D
I liked for example the talk about screenhero from Don Goodman-Wilson and how many languages are involved in building that tool. I think it was 16 but I am not completely sure. Anyway it was a huge number and it was interesting to hear how every languages was good for the special task it had to do.
The talk by Anjana about programming paradigms was really good for getting more an overview over programming. It was from a philosophical angle and I really loved her example of how object oriented programming is like a cell while functional programming is more like a treadmill in a factory. Every machine just had one function. I love to picture things that way i remember them better. She has been given a lot of talks and I plan to watch some more of them.
It was the first time I have heard of protobuffer ( its like json but better ) and truffleruby (its like jruby but simpler ).
I first heard and learned to say "Homoiconicity". A talk by Franka about Clojure and I loved the code examples and the colors and the next clojurebridge is in my calender. ( Just saying ... )
Lisa was even gave a 5 min lightening talk about clojures transducers. ( And we are not talking about that: Rocky Horror Picture Show: Dr. Scott: This sonic transducer...it is, I suppose, some kind of audio-vibratory-physio-molecular transport device? )
At the end I was and still am super motivated to learn more languages. \o/ And the best thing was to hang out and chat and have a great time with my colleague. Thank you!!!
