
Ask HN: What is the best developer conference talk you saw in 2011? - puredanger
What is the best developer conference talk you saw (in person or on video) in 2011?  What taught you or inspired you the most?
======
tednaleid
Strangeloop - great speakers (including my favorite keynote in years by Rich
Hickey <http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy>) and great
variety (<https://thestrangeloop.com/sessions>). I'm also happy that all of
the presentations will (eventually) be available on the web
([https://thestrangeloop.com/news/strange-loop-2011-video-
sche...](https://thestrangeloop.com/news/strange-loop-2011-video-schedule)).

I'll definitely be attending in 2012.

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cemerick
Strange Loop 2011, "We really don't know how to compute", Gerald Sussman
([http://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-Know-
How-T...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-Know-How-To-
Compute)).

That's not entirely fair though, insofar as I'm a sucker for a Sussman talk.

Beyond that, I'd have to say Sam Aaron's Overtone presentation @ Clojure Conj
2011.

At the moment, it strikes me that the obvious common element of both talks and
speakers are their absolutely infectious enthusiasm for their respective
specialties.

~~~
bldurling
Sam is a complete rock star. One of the few people I know who can get
showstopper applause in the middle of a talk.

------
jedws
Being in Aus we don't get to see many live and rely on the videos being made
available. Of those I particularly liked Daniel Spiewak's "Extreme Cleverness:
Functional Data Structures" and Rich Hickey's "Simple Made Easy".

We were fortunate enough though to have the excellent YOW conference with many
excellent talks, particular stand-outs coming from Simon Peyton-Jones and Mike
Lee, but the absolute best talk (not necessarily the best tech, it is Perl
after all) was Damian Conway's flabbergasting "Temporally Quaquaversal Virtual
Nanomachine Programming In Multiple Topologically Connected Quantum-
Relativistic Parallel Timespaces...Made Easy!"[1]

[1]
[http://www.yowconference.com.au/YOW2011/general/workshopDeta...](http://www.yowconference.com.au/YOW2011/general/workshopDetails.html?eventId=3496)

------
simonw
Coincidentally I was asked I put together one of those "top 15 of 2011" lists
for .NET magazine on more or less this topic, you might find these of
interest: [http://www.netmagazine.com/features/2011-review-15-web-
confe...](http://www.netmagazine.com/features/2011-review-15-web-conference-
talks-you-need-watch)

------
gmcabrita
"Extreme Cleverness: Functional Data Structures in Scala" at Strange Loop.

[http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Functional-Data-
Structure...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Functional-Data-Structures-
in-Scala)

------
amjith
Strangeloop 2011 - Bryan O'Sullivan

Running a Startup On Haskell: [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Running-a-
Startup-on-Hask...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Running-a-Startup-on-
Haskell)

~~~
gtani
_transcribed_

[https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1eQiXRyStqCVVlp6cMuc...](https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1eQiXRyStqCVVlp6cMucQZ6K3nX4eeaPOkzzgOJRSc7w&pli=1)

------
bitops
Simple made Easy by Rich Hickey by several miles.

Also "Hammock Driven Development" by the same gentleman.

------
fbru02
That's easy : Simple made easy by Rich Hickey

~~~
puredanger
Video for "Simple Made Easy" from Strange Loop:
<http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy>

~~~
erichocean
Thanks for the link, and to the others, for the recommendation. What a great
talk!

------
piotrSikora
Theo Schlossnagle's "Career Development" (Velocity 2011 Keynote):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0mHo7SMCQk>

------
puredanger
One of the most inspiring talks I saw this year was Sarah Allen's talk about
teaching programming to kids: "Easy as Pie"
([http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Easy-as-Pie-Teaching-
Code...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Easy-as-Pie-Teaching-Code-
Literacy)). A month later I found myself teaching my first programming class
to kids and I'm hoping to do some more early next year.

------
conikeec
Of course. Strange Loop 2011.

------
jMyles
Glyph's keynote at Djangocon was hilarious and accurate. It also immediately
sparked some wonderful and deep discussions about the future of Django.

<http://blip.tv/djangocon/keynote-glyph-lefkowitz-5573264>

------
mmcconnell1618
Business of Software 2011 in Boston was great as usual. 300+ people that
actually run software companies getting together to learn from each other. The
most targeted conference for software entrepreneurs that I've seen.

------
j45
Microconf 2011 by a few hundred country miles.

I have never had my head crushed by so much actionable info in 1-2 days. The
entire conference was worth it by the time the first speaker had done his
session and it kept getting better.

~~~
mmcconnell1618
I'll second you on Microconf. Rob and Mike have announced they will be having
a 2012 conference to. This conference focuses on individuals who want to
create and run software companies without outside funding.

------
gkoberger
Sounds cliche and possibly like I'm pandering to the HN crowd, but Startup
School. I quote it constantly - almost on a daily basis. It wasnt way more
about soft skills than actual code, of course, but I find that to be more
important.

Also, my best advice at any conference is to take notes. I took comprehensive
Startup School notes, and reviewed them later. I never would have gotten so
much out of it if I hadn't.

------
davidchua
I like Mike Lee's talk 'Product Engineering' at SL2011
<http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Product-Engineering> as well as DHH's
Railsconf 2011 Keynote speech on Asset Pipeline.

Learnt quite a bit from these two talks.

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3pt14159
There was a Ruby talk the guys at Nulayer did in Toronto that showed that Ruby
can be nearly as fast as NodeJS. I wasn't fully convinced but I learned a ton
of useful things.

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kgutteridge
Two of the lunchtime sessions at WWDC really inspired me as did much of the
entire conference.

Morten Lunds talk at the Power of 1 conference in Battersea powerstation

------
pardner
Design in the Land of Sharp Pointy Technologies, at Twiliocon

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rdouble
I liked the WWDC talks and Chris Liscio's talk at Çingleton.

~~~
simonw
Chris' talk is available as a video <http://lanyrd.com/2011/cingleton-
symposium/smfww/>

------
farnetto
Josh Bloch's talks at Devoxx alone were worth the trip.

