At the end of the day, I think that my favorite three presenters were (in chronological
order):
Dave Winer
Seeing Dave Winer in person was really weird. It's easy to talk smack about someone
when you only know that person by their blog, but after hearing him talk, I'm pretty
convinced that he really believes in what he's doing.
As I've mentioned, I don't always agree with the guy, but for someone who takes so
much crap from so many people, I think he's doing a good job.
I think he's an easy target because he sticks his neck out a lot. People like easy
targets, and take advantage of them.
The most bothersome thing is that a lot of the attacks are personal, which
is totally counter-productive when the person is not the topic of discussion. If you're
talking about XML, then you shouldn't be taking swings at a guy who happens to have
some strong opinions about it. If you don't like Dave Winer the person, then there
are probably better venues than a conference at which to express your feelings.
Anyway, XML is so flexible that you're both bound to be right (or wrong) regardless
of the argument. It isn't really worth it.
Yup... Pretty weird.
Brian Jepsen
Brian was just a great presenter with a good topic. I'm interested in consumer level
applications, and his demo with WML was just the sort of thing that I like.
It was a nice, clean break from all the dense talks. It was clear, easy to follow,
and Brian seemed very at home in front of the group.
Also, anybody who does .NET development on a Mac gets extra points.
Keith Ballinger
Keith did a good job of making his topic interesting. In my opinion, it's a lot easier
to learn from someone who manages to deliver a complex topic in a humorous way. The
world is full of serious people, and we all have the rest of our lives to get bored.
Delivering his topic while entertaining us was a fine, fine thing to have done.
Conclusion
This is the first conference that I've ever been to.
It was pretty weird.
I think it was well worth the dough, if only to see the human side of all these people.
There wasn't anything discussed during the conference that I couldn't have picked
up from a book or magazine article. What I really wanted is what I got, so
I'm happy.
The one thing that is a little irritating is all the bickering over pointless topics.
Fighting over whether or not XML should be human readable is pointless (this was a
big one during the panel Q&A at the end of the day) - The people who want to make
XML human readable will, and the people who don't won't.
There. Voila.
These philosophical arguments can be settled pretty easily.
Anyhoo, I'm tired. I'm going to go home, eat some total crap, and watch at least two
episodes of Secret Agent starring Patrick McGoohan.