Knitting at LCA

Saturday, January 21st, 2017 at 10:17am

For the past week I have been in Hobart for linux.conf.au, a conference about open source software that I find hard to explain to non-tech people because it has Linux in its name. Yes, there is a big focus on Linux as an Operating System, but what I find interesting is the stuff a step away in the form of interesting projects or culture/team aspects of software development.

With the decline of OSDC this has become my go-to tech conference, it is an indictment on how slack I have been about writing blog posts in that this was my fifth LCA over the past six years. My first was Ballarat in 2012 and I should not have skipped Auckland in 2015.

I have a lot of things to think about, but there are three clear highlights:

  • You don’t want rockstars
    I always like going to talks on “soft” topics such as culture, communication and teams because it is guaranteed that you will be working with other people. There were a couple of talks this year, but the ones that stood out weres Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Rock Star Developers and Imposter Syndrome
  • Knitting is programming
    There was mention of knitting last year in Geelong at LCA2016, but it was also mentioned in a couple of talks this year, but it was Ada ❤ Lace and Knit One, Compute One that drive home how a knitting pattern is a program. I’m tempted to learn how to knit…
  • Space is cool
    Although not part of the talks or schedule, once an opportunity became available to get a tour of the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory quite a number of us jumped at the chance. It was impressive to stand in the shadow of the 26m dish that had supported NASA mission when originally located at the Orroral Valley Tracking Station near Canberra (which I have been to).

As with my last trip to Hobart I am not heading home straight away, as I type this I am waiting for Damien to drive down from Devonport (after travelling on the Spirit of Tasmania overnight) to meet me. This afternoon we have a booking for a short cruise down the Derwent River before heading over to near Port Arthur, from there we will spend the following six days working our way up the east coast of Tasmania before we both head back to Melbourne on the Spirit of Tasmania.

In visual form it looks something like this:

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