It might be a week late, but I still want to share how awesome Houston Open Spaces was. I was concerned at first when I found out how small it was going to be and that certain intellectual giants were not going to be in attendance.

But… I knew I should have been prepared to be surprised. And I was.

First of all, the WPF Workshop was well attended and I enjoyed presenting. Unfortunately all my recording attempts failed. :( But we live and learn. I figured out my issues with Camtasia. I made some newbie mistakes like not stopping the recording during every break. So although the talk isn’t online or recorded, the slides and code are. They can be found on my GitHub: http://github.com/RookieOne/JBsWpfExamples

At the conference proper I had a blast and learned a lot. Open Spaces is truly a unique type of conference. The philosophies around the conference and the quality of people in attendance naturally lends itself to fantastic conversations and melding of the minds.

Check out the site here : http://altnethouston.com/

For those that could not attend, be sure to go check out the wiki (http://houstonaltnet.pbworks.com/). A lot of work was put into the wiki by attendees in order to share what was talked about in each of the sessions.

I also brought my recorder to do some trial runs recording sessions. I was extremely pleased with the quality of the audio it recorded. Especially when you consider the size of the rooms and the volume levels people were talking at.

Not all the sessions I attended I was able to record but check out these sessions for the audio.

http://houstonaltnet.pbworks.com/Polyglot

http://houstonaltnet.pbworks.com/Virtual-Brown-Bag-One-Year-Later

http://houstonaltnet.pbworks.com/Design-Patterns

I convened the Polyglot and the VBB One Year later sessions. I then attended the Design Patterns and had a blast discussing patterns.

Ruby was discussed a lot and it is on my short to-do list for this year. I was pointed to Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby (http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/) and have begun to go through this hilarious and informative online guide. The writing style and zaniness is exactly what I need in a technical manual. :D

I also really enjoyed Rod Paddock’s session on Movie Making as a metaphor for software. Although nothing concrete came out of the session, I left with a lot to think about. I might look into a book about movie making and see what I can learn. Sometimes you need to take a step back and re-examine what you think you know and this was a great session to challenge me with a new perspective on software development.

I am looking forward to being active in next year’s Open Spaces. I also think I will plan to attend the one in Seattle next year as well.

So a big thank you to all those who put the conference together and those who attended. You guys rock!