On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Future of Web Apps Summit laid on by Carson Workshops. It was a single-track day packed full of interesting talks by some influential people in modern web applications. Not just theorists, either – people doing it for real. With eight presentations plus a panel session for less than 100 quid, it really couldn’t have been better value. Superb.
I suppose my only grumble would be that Adobe, as a headline sponsor, were given a presentation slot despite not really having anything to teach us. Seven industry insiders and a Technical Sales guy from Adobe. No matter how cool the technology Adobe were trying to sell us on (and it was pretty cool) it simply didn’t fit with the rest of the summit. We weren’t there to be sold to, we were there to learn something of the practicalities from the people who have learned the hard way. The day would have benefited from dropping the sales pitch and given each of the other presenters an extra few minutes. That said, if it enabled the summit to happen for so many people at such a low cost, perhaps the sponsor’s sales pitch is a small price to pay. It wasn’t enough to dampen the event.
I contributed to some note collaborative note taking with Simon Willison via the free event wifi and SubEthaEdit. I pitched in a little, but my efforts were nothing compared to Simon’s university-honed note-taking fu.
Probably the most thought-provoking presentation for me was from Tom Coates – which surprised me. I though I’d find the more technical presentations of interest, but of course there’s only limited value to hearing someone reiterate things you’ve already firmly established in your mind. DHH’s Rails presentation was terrific, but it was all stuff I knew, and most of which I agree with. Tom made me rethink a lot of the stuff I’m currently working on and has given me cause to check myself and my decisions. And that’s where the real value is, I think.
I thoroughly recommend you check out the podcasts of the event once they’re available. Thanks to Ryan and Gillian at Carson Workshops for putting on such a valuable event.
Comments
I did I writeup of the conference at http://urbanmainframe.com/folders/blog/20060210/
In the comments someone anounced Cake On Rails – “It Really Scales”
http://www.cakeonrails.co.uk/
Almost within minutes a mashup appeared:
http://noasla.coconia.net/index.php
This Web 2.0 sure moves fast…
As you know (I think you were joined my document a few times) I liveblogged it.
It was great fun, really different from what I expected but in a good way :)
I’m glad you enjoyed my presentation. I’ve got a really good buzz from people about it.
I definitely agree with your thoughts on Tom’s presentation; insightful, thought provoking and lovely to listen to.
BTW, it was good to meet you in person. I think I was still suffering from flu so I probably made a fool of myself with my feverish gibberings but it’s nice to now be able to put a face and a voice to the person behind the site:)