CodeMash Summary (Coherent One)

CodeMash 2008 has come and gone and it was a terrific event.  Way more better than last year, and last year kicked butt!

We had a terrific lineup of speakers this year, and all three keynoters knocked it out of the park.  Neal Ford's talk on the evolution of software as an engineering discipline was the perfect kickoff to the conference.  Scott Hanselman's talk was a winner for several reasons: his opening schtick ("My life from DNA to this afternoon") was hysterically funny and absolutely perfect as a re-energizer for a group of folks who had spent the morning in sessions and then followed up with lunch.  No snoozing allowed. Brian Goetz's talk was very well-delivered and thought provoking.  Concurrency is an awfully difficult thing, and Brian did great job of planting a number of critical seeds in attendee's brains.

As always, the Kalahari Resort was a blast.  I didn't get to the water park (again); maybe next year if my family manages to come.

Many highlights were had, and only a tiny number of insignificant lowlights.  The hard work that the organizers did to put this on is stunning.  One of the greatest things for me personally was when Sara Ford said she didn't realize the conference was run by volunteers.  Another highlight was seeing Scott Hanselman spend a huge amount of time playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band and just hanging out with folks.

Brian Prince, Jason Gilmore, Jason Follas, Jeff Blankenburg, Josh Holmes, Dianne Marsh, John Hopkins, Brian Sherwin, and Chris Woodruff -- y'all did amazing work putting this together.  Many, MANY thanks!   Special thanks, too, to all my Quick Solutions homies who did extra lifting for the event: Matt Casto, AlexiG, Arnulfo, and all you other guys who I'm too tired to write out and link to.  Thanks for making my workplace and CodeMash something very special.

Perhaps one of the best highlights of the conference: finding my vest with my keys in the pocket in a corner of the conference venue this morning.  Now I can go home to my family!

Again, many thanks to all the folks who made CodeMash 2008 such a great success.  Organizers, sponsors, and most of all the passionate, tuned-in attendees who showed up and made it a great event.

Update:  Fixed spelling errors in keynoter names.  Maybe this wasn't such a coherent post after all...  (Thanks to Jason Gilmore who fell back to his old role as an editor and slapped me around about the errors!)