So I'm leaving for OSCON at some ungodly early hour tomorrow morning.
As a result, I have completely stopped being productive. It's not that I don't have plenty of things to do, it's just that I'm not doing any of them...
Instead, I'm alternating between stressing about my two talks and being excited about what amounts to a week long vacation where I get to totally geek out with a lot of really cool people.
Anyway, I figured if I'm going to be blogging the whole 'OSCON experience' again this year I might as well start with the pre-conference jitters part of it...
While I'm on the topic of conferences...
Rich is right on target here. Personally, I fall between the "Conference as a Classroom" and "Conference as a Social Gathering" parts of the spectrum. I do learn a lot at these things, but I also find that many of the talks are rehashing things you could get from the FAQ, and that a lot of the value in going to a conference like this is in the people that you meet.
Oh, and for those of you who are thinking to yourself "if you don't learn anything you can't find in the FAQ and you're really just going to hang out with your friends, why is work paying for this again?" let me refer you to what Casey has to say about it. I pretty much think he's exactly right on that one.
