FOSDEM 2012

This was my first FOSDEM and with no hesitation that's the most fun event I've ever participated. The Hackerspace Bytenight was amazing, listening 8-bit remixed music from 90's video games, drinking good Belgian beers and talking with fun people.

I found a place to sleep for four days through CouchSurfing (I've also discovered BeWelcome recently), it seems the best way to enter Brussel's life.

On sunday John Thornton and I gave a talk on Amber Smalltalk - you can view slides online. Johnny arrived from the USA only five minutes before the talk, he's definitely an agile developer ;) We had some fun presenting Amber and the room was almost filled. We wanted to show real working code, integration with Javascript and Nodejs goodies. It's nice to use dynamic slides with Amber.

Photo by Damien Pollet

Marcus explained Pharo's vision before our talk. Huge work has been done, huge work ongoing. I'm looking forward to the Pharo Consortium.

After talking with several people we went back to the Smalltalk devroom. I discovered the Spoon project by Craig Latta. It's a minimal Smalltalk that can be remotely browsed from Squeak.

Then took place an introduction to Smalltalk workshop. Experienced Smalltalkers paired with newcomers to test and add new features to a Seaside application. The idea is nice and allows to listen to people feelings while discovering a new tool.

I finally put real faces on people only known on mailing-lists. Sad we did not managed to have more discussion. One day is short and so much to see...

Thank you Stephan. So nice things can emerge from a single tweet :)

Photo by Adriaan van Os