So this was the first year of OSCON in Austin, the conference was not as large as the ones I had attended in Portland and even the booth area was notably smaller. This did not take away from the focus at professionalism of the conference. They definitely lacked the student crowd that the hall pass in Portland, which for me also meant not seeing alot of the freelance developer crowd who could not justify the cost to fly to Austin. There was a smaller Non For Profit section I felt this year and once again not sure if its because of costs or also because the conference did not just change locations but changed dates aswell and there was a clash with other conferences.
It was good to catch up with EFF there and hang out at the Docker Drinks at the Container Bar, of course. As always the conference party was great, but also was not in the spectacular that I have seen in earlier years in Portland. Overall the conference kept up to its normal level of high quality speakers and also a good introduction to new tech. A highlight of the conference would have been seeing Larry Wall speak about Perl 6 and the reasons behind changes/modifications in the language. I really do enjoy seeing Larry talk, he is such an intelligent amazing brain and also such a humble one. I learnt Perl back in 1998 and is a language I still use here and there but even if I am not I love following its progression and finding and excuse to delve back in.
They announced that next year 2017, which also came with another changed conference date and this time one that looks to see possibly more clashes with other tech conferences. Oh and it will also be in Austin again, so it seems like I will be back for another year at least 🙂
https://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/open-source-2015/public/content/2015/04/16-austin-bound-for-2016
https://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-tx-2016