Caboose Conf 2008
Courtenay : January 29th, 2008
In May, if you don't want to cough up almost a thousand dollars to go learn things you already know, but want to come to Portland to network with skilled Rails coders from all over the world, instead of hanging out in the lobby at the Lloyd Center like I did last year, come to Caboose Conf.
The best part of the last few conferences I have attended in the Ruby and Rails fields have been the "lightning talks", where people have five minutes to present their idea, app, or otherwise. The other great thing about some of these expensive conferences is the networking which occurs in the hallways and lobbies.
So, we're going to hold our own tiny unconference, to be held on a weekend when a bunch of Rails coders will be in town, from May 29 to June 1st, at the entp.com headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
In the grand tradition of the unconference, there are very few planned talks (we'll have an open roster where anyone can sign up for a slot) and it will be completely free. There will be no werewolf.
We'll get a signup page soon.
I have a bunch of ideas:
- We'll be sponsoring a documentation drive, where we hack on Rails Documentation in exchange for beer and pizza.
- Hackfests! Let's work on something awesome.
- Keynotes! Do you want to give one? Hit me up (court3nay gmail.com)
- Workshops. We have local experts in Javascript, BDD, and more -- bring in your crappy code and we can all learn together by fixing it.
22 Responses to “Caboose Conf 2008”
Sorry, comments are closed for this article.
January 29th, 2008 at 07:56 PM
I love the idea, and I'll probably go.... but..
I'd love to see this event run along side Railsconf, like the Web 2.0 Expo (http://www.web2expo.com/) runs along side the Web 2.0 Open (http://en.oreilly.com/webexsf2008/public/content/Web2Open). The Web 2.0 Open is basically a BarCamp unconference during the Expo which is totally free and open to the public. The expo even pays for the space for Web 2.0 open, and both events compliment each other. People from the expo cross over to the open to see short talks, do birds of a feather, and hack.
It'd be great if you could somehow get space for this at or near the conference center. Perhaps even work with the Railsconf team to make this event complimentary so there's no weird vibes.
It's probably to late in the game, but I thought I'd give my unwarranted opinion, feel free to ignore it.
It'd be great to have something either Thursday/Sunday night since the conference ends early those nights. I'd definitely come down. Hope you guys have space for my 500 friends.
January 29th, 2008 at 08:01 PM
Yes, we are 5 minutes from the Lloyd Center.
January 29th, 2008 at 08:34 PM
That's cool, I just hope this isn't seen as the anti-Railsconf conference. Your opening sentence will make people think it is, and there's no reason it needs to be.
I find Railsconf educational, and compared to most Java and .NET conferences of the same sort, it's DIRT CHEAP! So I'll be at Railsconf, but I also love the idea of swinging over to the unconference when the official conference is over.
January 29th, 2008 at 09:08 PM
Honestly I think this is a great idea. The best part about conference attendance are the things that happen between sessions or afterhours (like RejectConf, hackfests) anyway.
All that said, I can't not agree with Gregg that the conference isn't priced badly when compared to many of it's peers. But in general I'd rather sit through an interactive day or two full of lightening talks and ad-hoc hacking than try to figure out which sessions won't bore me to tears.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:41 PM
If the current program is any indication of the rest of the talks, I will not be attending RailsConf 2008 unless someone else pays for it. Most of the talks are uninspired, dupes from other conferences, or crap that you can quickly Google or find in books easily.
I don't care if it's cheaper; that just means that I wouldn't go to it if it costs more. Like you said, the part that matter is the social aspect if you aren't there to learn from the talks, so why bother putting that crap in the way of the important stuff?
I'd rather spend 3 days hanging out with peers and hacking than doing what I did last year, which was bouncing between talks, trying to find one that wasn't so vapid that I had to leave or else I'd hurt someone.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:10 AM
I'm trying to think of ANY reason why I shouldn't spend $250 on treating everyone to free beer rather than hundreds more on a RailsConf ticket. Nothing coming to mind yet...
January 30th, 2008 at 01:50 AM
I'm looking forward to RailsConf (bias: I used to work for O'Reilly), but I totally love unconferences (like O'Reilly's Foo Camp), and this sounds like it would be great.
I'd happily pay for beer/pizza/doughnuts/whatever for caboose conf if you want donors. Drop me a line (marc@wesabe.com).
January 30th, 2008 at 06:17 AM
@jack -- $250 is a lot of beer, and Portland has some damn fine microbrews ;-)
January 30th, 2008 at 07:29 AM
This sounds awesome, Courtenay! Several rubyists in NYC are now planning how much Brooklyn Lager we'll need to bring to support hacking at Caboose Conf :)
January 30th, 2008 at 12:10 PM
My favorite part of the RubyConf and RailsConf is definitely the socializing, and now I'm almost starting to wish you'd have posted this yesterday before I registered for RailsConf. At least now I'm guaranteed to be in the neighborhood ;-)
January 30th, 2008 at 01:22 PM
I really wish you called it Cabooze conf ;-)
January 30th, 2008 at 01:41 PM
@jacqui bringing beer to portland. Dude, we have one of the best selections in the country.
January 30th, 2008 at 01:44 PM
Sign me up! I love the after-hours socializing, hacking, and discussions at Ruby conferences.
January 30th, 2008 at 05:27 PM
Also, leave your werewolf cards at home. We'll have Rockband available :)
January 30th, 2008 at 07:04 PM
There's a proud tradition of this sort of thing in Portland. In particular, FOSCON began as a free alternative to OSCON when O'Reilly stopped offering free registration to local volunteers.
If you drop a mention of this on the PDX.rb list, (http://groups.google.com/group/pdxruby/) I'm sure you'll get at least a few takers -- there's been talk of having a PDX.rb booth at RailsConf staffed by volunteers during the conference, but folks are always up for a good hackfest.
Personally, I probably won't be attending RailsConf, but I'm happy to check out other Ruby (or even general tech) events happening around the same time.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Im all over it! I crashed Portland last year during Rails Conf and was planning to do the same again.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:53 AM
Count me in! Sounds like fun
February 4th, 2008 at 11:52 PM
Damns, that actually might be fun. Get to apply the smack down in person rather than remotely through le blogue.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:37 AM
Great idea! I'd rather be there than at that other conf. Count me in.
February 7th, 2008 at 06:03 PM
Count me in too!
February 18th, 2008 at 09:43 AM
I look forward to dropping by and checking it out.
M<><
February 24th, 2008 at 03:13 AM
I will be at RailsConf, however if the schedule exists (or when werewolf starts up) I will be by for sure.
I haven't been on the home turf for awhile (I grew up in P-Town) and would love to hook up with some smart guys and buy some micros.
Any chance of the schedule being adjusted slightly to allow me to attend a lot of both? :)