Not at OSCON

My colleague David got to go to OSCON this week. I've been talking to him on the phone each day to find out what I've been missing. It sounds like a lot — I'm really starting to wish I had gone.

On Monday, David got to hear a tutorial on Ruby (given by Dave Thomas) and another on Rails (given by DHH). He reports that both were solid, though geared to the mostly newbie crowd. However, he got to quiz DHH for a bit after the talk and got some really good answers to many of the problems we've been struggling with.

And on Tuesday night, David Heinemeier Hannson won the award for hacker-of-the-year from the conference folks. The award is well-derseved. DHH has managed to create a phenomenon.

David also had the amazing good luck to hear both Paul Graham and Larry Wall speak. Paul Graham gave a talk on "What Business Can Learn from Open Source." Larry Wall gave his yearly State of the Onion address, but I can't find it online anywhere yet. However, both are talented writers, and equally entertaining speakers, I'm sure. I hope someday I'll have the chance to hear them both.