Cristian Vat, Deathy, and other alter-egos

It’s been a week since I went to Euruko2008 so I think it’s about time to note my impressions.

First of all I liked revisiting Prague after a few years. It’s a nice city to visit and especially to drink some beer

This year’s Euruko was one of the best conferences I’ve ever been at. This although I wouldn’t call it a conference, it seemed more something between a barcamp and a conference. And that’s what I liked most about it. I saw a lot of interested people ( the attendance was a lot more than I expected ), talked with some of them and saw some good presentations.

Of course there were some language barriers ( japanese slides anyone? ), and the not-so-interesting or well-prepared presentations but that’s good!. For one thing it wasn’t boring or monotonous and I had the possibility to try out some things from the previous presentations.

Catering and beverages were very well organized such that they surprised me. Also big thanks to who made the “Euruko This way ->” posters and put them on the streets. I might have gotten lost without them, but even if not they were a nice touch

And finally, although Sun was a Platinum sponsor I really think they were sublime. They knew their place and didn’t just blatantly promote their stuff like I saw with other sponsors at other conferences. I really enjoyed the presentation about JRuby and the NetBeans T-Shirt.

The JRuby talk is probably one of the best things I’ll keep from the conference. Charles Nutter really knows how to present  and he really did present some interesting things. A slide came up saying “JRuby 1.1 is released!” and I was immediately downloading it and finding if all gems I needed were supported. A bit after I saw Charles presenting the glassfish_rails gem and of course I immediately ran gem install on it and tried running one of the projects I’ve been working on with Silviu and Cosmin. AND IT WORKED! The rails app just started and worked without any changes to configuration or anything. And it wasn’t tested on anything but MRI before. So thumbs up for JRuby and I’ll try to use it at work for some of the smaller projects to test drive it. Finally I’ll be getting payed to write ruby

A very good article on Put Things Off I read is Writing things down: 13 reasons to switch back to paper today

I highly recommend the article, not really to make yourself start using paper and pencil today and throw all your gadgets/software, put because sometimes it’s useful to remind yourself how you did things some time ago. At the least you used paper in school and even though it’s not impossible it’s very hard to forget how to use it.

Although I don’t agree with all the points in the article here are my favorites:

1. It’s cheaper - the “hardware” is cheaper, and the “software” you already got for free in school.
2. It’s faster ( although at this moment I think I type faster than I can write ) - for most people it usually is faster. If you want bullets for something you just almost without thinking dash a few lines, you don’t need to look for a toolbar/menu or move one of your hands to a mouse to click a button.
3. It encourages creative thinking + It means a break from the computer screen

The third point is what I think is most important. No matter how geeky I think every person enjoys a break from the computer screen and suddenly they think differently. Maybe that’s just what’s needed to review all the things you need to do or to “think out of the box” for that hard problem you were trying to fix. It also frees you from most user-interface limitations and thus you can be more creative.

There are also problems with paper which are mostly solved by software:

• Reminders
• Collaboration
• Capacity

Regarding Reminders.. Why are we so busy we need reminders? Just get a grip and exercise your memory. If you really have too many things to remember each day then you have deeper problems and should reorganize your life.

Regarding Capacity and Collaboration(at least in localized teams) we have a solution: WHITEBOARDS! They can hold more information, they encourage creativity and most of all they encourage collaboration. You can have a whole team in front of a whiteboard, standing up, discussing a certain problem, and even writing on it at the same time. In my opinion every office in the world should have a whiteboard, or more. Or just plaster as many walls as you can with whiteboards like Google

I’m actually thinking of getting one at home and convincing the powers that be to buy more for work. It’s really the best thing without involving a computer, and with smart/interactive whiteboards you are bridging the gap with the computer.

I only took a bite of JobShop on Tuesday because some people also have to work, and this post is also late because of work

Got there a few minutes before 12:00, just in time for Marius Ghenea. He held a presentation on entrepreneurship, start-ups, financing, and usual trends in business. A lot of good information and structured well. The only thing which could have made it better, and I wanted, were more examples from his own experience. And he didn’t have any problem starting to talk without his presentation when the power went out for a while ( note to the organizers ).

After the official end of the presentation I had a walk around the place and met some friends to talk to. And what do I see when I come back? Marius Ghenea with a group of like 5 students around him, continuing with a Q&A session. That can be the best part of a presentation in my opinion. I think after a presentation the presenter shouldn’t run away to the airport, he(she) should just move some distance away. If there are people who are really interested about what you have to say, and really want to ask you some questions, they’ll follow you! And also in a session like that you can be more relaxed and talk in more detail than in a presentation which has to be general since you don’t always know your audience. He’s also put the presentation on his blog so go ahead and grab it.

Then we ( me, Silviu and Cosmin ) went to Andrei Rosca’s presentation. While he was setting everything up I noticed there was a wireless signal. So I took out my laptop and dared Silviu to live-blog(or something like it). Surprisingly he accepted the dare and you can read Silviu’s account of the presentation.

I really enjoyed Andrei’s presentation, mostly because it seemed more hands-on, no charts, just simple steps to follow in your business and in your life. And of course a universal advice is “JUST FUCKING DO IT”. I really like this kind of presentation which just calls for action and presents small bits of practical information. However I think listening to both styles of presentations close but not right after another is the perfect solution. A big thank you to the organizers of JobShop because they made this possible.

And to end this, a few bits of information from Andrei’s presentation, commented:

“Romania is the only country where brilliant ideas aren’t stolen.. probably because they mean work” - this is so much like the “Good ideas: A dime a dozen”(Rob Adams) which Marius Ghenea talked about.  It’s comforting if you have what seem to be good ideas but ultimately it’s sad because it’s true: most people avoid real work.

“I don’t think anything is impossible” - I agree, however I’d expand it with “If it’s impossible it will take a little longer”.

Again meaning of course the third try at making a blog. Everyone is entitled to a third chance, only after the third strike are you out…

I really let my old blog fall to pieces always blaming the lack of time to blog. And of course now I’m slapping myself and if you ever said something like that you should to. If you really want/need to do something, you can make time! And having a positive attitude also helps

So what’s this blog going to be about? About me of course, about what (technical/social) things I do. I’m going to try to keep personal stuff mostly out but that can’t be completely so. However, for short things which I don’t consider to need a post of their own I have other social thingamajigs available.

Yes, I am Romanian and semi-proud to be so. However I’ll only post in English, since I want to exercise my writing skills, I think it brings a broader audience, and if you don’t know English I probably don’t want to know you.

And I’m beginning now because there are some interesting events coming up, some where I’ll hopefully be present to give my impressions. I was at ITFest on Saturday, unfortunately only for the last presentation.. But that’s ok since after Filip’s presentation a few of us got together and discussed more. Silviu has more on the topic.

Moving on, on Tuesday and Wednesday I hope to see Marius Ghenea, Andrei Roşca and other interesting people at JobShop. The last JobShop was really hectic for me, I hope this year I’ll be able to enjoy the presentations and the people.

And of course I can’t forget Euruko 2008 which is less than 2 weeks away and where I’ll be going with Silviu and Cosmin. I’m going to make sure they don’t completely enter ruby zombie mode, and they’ll make sure I get home safely after sampling all the beer I’m going to find in Prague

It’s already looking like a busy month, and the year is just starting.