Conferences in 2010
I used to think of conferences as something that happened in the summer, and a northern hemisphere summer at that. Now I know that there are conferences that I could attend in every month of the year, if I had the time, money, or inclination.
The first conference I’ll be attending in 2010 is Perl Oasis and it’s taking place in Florida next weekend. I won’t be speaking. It will probably take me until April to have new talks written for 2010. I had also wanted to go to Frozen Perl, but I’ve decided that it’s a bit expensive. Not the actual conference, it’s low-cost at $100 (US), but the flights and hotel would cost me more than $1000. As well as the cost there is the cold. It is being held in Minneapolis, which is expecting a low of -23°C today. In the past this has appealed to me but I’ve already had enough travel hassle in the past month due to cold weather to make me want to avoid this where I can.
This year I’m not going to attend OSDC.tw. I enjoyed the conference last year but the four days I spent in hospital with food poisoning after the conference has put me off, even though I know it wasn’t the conference that caused the illness. I do want to attend some non-Perl conferences again this year but I’m not sure which ones yet. Gabor has been organising an events team on behalf of TPF to attend FOSDEM and CeBIT but I’m going to be in America during FOSDEM and won’t be able to travel to Germany at the start of March for CeBIT.
The main Perl conferences of the year take place between June and September. So far, there is no information on YAPC::NA apart from the fact that it will be held in Columbus, Ohio. I’m hoping that it takes place some time in June as this year family commitments will prevent me from attending conferences in July and early August. This means I won’t be going to OSCON and I won’t be able to attend YAPC::EU. I’m disappointed that I will miss YAPC::EU as I’ve been to the past 9.
As for the rest of the year I haven’t decided yet. There’s been noises made about a Vancouver Perl Workshop and I really enjoyed OSDC in Australia this year. But I think I’ll wait until I finish my next trip before I make any more decisions.
January 7th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Open Source Bridge will likely occur in June this year; I prefer it to OSCON anyhow.
http://opensourcebridge.org/
January 8th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
I heard good things about that conference last year. I’ll keep an eye out for announcements (or I’ll let my computer do that for me 🙂 )
January 9th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
With the current weather in the US, perl oasis might be colder than all of the previous frozen perl’s…
I cannot fault you for avoiding Minneapolis international airport in the winter.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Orlando does seem to be going through a cold spell, and I imagine that their airport isn’t exactly used to dealing with frozen planes and runways – so hopefully it gets warmer.
The recent travel chaos in Amsterdam and London caused by snow has put my off winter travel. I’ll still be going to New York and Pittsburgh, but that was all booked before my European trip.
January 12th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
My Europe picks are Devops (if you have a sysadmin side), EuroPython in Birmingham and FroSCON. I’m going to give FOSDEM another chance and if the talks haven’t improved I’ll skip next years. YAPC::EU never gives me the speaker list far enough in advance so I’ve missed the last few and the Nordic Perl Workshop is always a laugh.
I’d love to do SCALE or Velocity but the costs are insane compared to any three Europe conferences. And