A refreshing change from my daily routine as tilllate CTO (90% meeting, 10% coding) was my visit at the first Webtuesday Hackday yesterday (Hackday = “a day spent hacking with like minds”, as organizer Harry Fuecks defines it).
My mission:
- learn about new technologies by listening to the lightning talks
- socialize with other developers and exchange experiences
- give back to the community by writing tests for PHP
- Kiosk Clerk – tilllate sponsored a box full of unhealthy treats and sweets to ensure the developers get enough sugars for their brain cells
I accomplished part 1) by listening to Lukas Smith‘s talk about Doctrine ORM, 2) by talking to a lot of interesting people (like User Experience Architect Hugo), 4) by offering about 6 million calories to the hackers.
Failing.
I failed miserably at 3) because it took me 1 hour to compile PHP5.3.0-dev on my VirtualPC based CentOS, then I was absorbed by talking to everyone, listening to the talks (e.g. Leo’s talk about “the big rewrite”) and finally I had to leave for the babyschwimmen with my son Orell… At least Leo was able to use my virtual machine I worked so hard for to write his tests (as his outdated Kubuntu machine did not feel like compiling PHP from CVS 🙂
Nevertheless: It was a real fun day and I will be there next time. And that time I’ll have PHP ready right from the start 🙂
Was indeed a really nice day getting to know everyone.
(hugo’s link seems to have a typo failure 😉