CodeMash: The Late Night 3 Beer Blog

First event of CodeMash was just wicked cool. The Language Panel consisted of some of the BIG names in development: Bill Wagner, Bruce Eckel, Neal Ford, James Ward, Jay Pipes and David Stanek. Extremely enlightening. The big reason I was so interested in this pre-session, was that I want to start looking at a new language. Who better to ask which language to learn than the experts, right? Well, I did learn that I will probably put off Java for a while longer despite the fact that I am currently reading Thinking in Java. But that is pretty much the only decision I've made. I'm attracted to functional programming simply because it is completely different from what I currently know. But I've seen strong arguments for learning Ruby and Python.

Before I hang-up, I must put out some kudos and thanks to the very deserving people who have made this conference work, especially since I am an organizer (as opposed to being a disorganizer). CodeMash has run about as flawlessly as one could hope. Naturally, as a coordinator, the first thing I was concerned about was people would be able to register with both Kalahari and CodeMash with NO problems. Well, that happened thanks to Kalahari and Brian Prince and staff from Quick Solutions (I will certainly make sure that "staff" be recognized individually, since each of their contributions can stand on their own merit). John Hopkins also gets a big Pat-on-the-Back for jumping on any task that needed to be done. Thanks, John. Jim Holmes, our general, has been a rockstar. His guidance and organization has made the first hours just flow. I'd also like to thank Microsoft, one of our Adamantium sponsors. Drew, with out your support on behalf of Microsoft, this conference would never have happened. Thanks for all you've done. There are a lot of other people I have to thank, including the Kalahari staff, but we'll get to those tomorrow. It's late and my bed is calling me.