Kevin's Weblog

Various other people seem to be making posts about this year’s OSCON, so I guess I’ll add mine.

I almost certainly won’t be going to OSCON this year. Mostly this has nothing to do with the conference itself. Theoretically, I might have liked to give a talk again this year, but I’ve been so busy there was really no hope of me producing something. I’m also hoping to take some extended vacation around that time; originally we were thinking in Europe, although that’s probably getting pushed a year. At any rate, trying to conference and vacation in close proximity just isn’t something I want to do again this year. Finally, there’s this unfortunate fact that OSCON pretty much always conflicts with my daughter’s birthday, and while up until now she’s been young enough to be happy with celebrating while off in some new place, that’s not going to work indefinitely.

I do have to say, though, that this year’s Perl track surely doesn’t make me feel like I’m missing much. Haven’t I heard 90% of these talks before? I wonder what’s going on in the talk selection process. Are there just not enough novel submissions to fill the week, or does the committee really feel that half the schedule has to be the same “Annual Update on Foo” each year?

I am pretty happy to see a new Programming track, although it seems to me that there’s plenty of room for that track to grow with more meaty programming subject (rather than version control usage and project management).

Anyway, that’s all I have to say on the subject for this year. We’ll see how next year looks.