QCon

[qatsi]

Previously, when asked at work if I want to go to any conferences, I've been indifferent; this year, somehow, I agreed to go to QCon London and so I spent three days away from work, if not away from London, last week. Having worked with two of the speakers - Sarah Wells, who gave the opening keynote presentation, and Nicky Wrightson - gave me some familiarity, as well as a chance to catch up with friends. Trying to mix familiar and unfamiliar, I also attended talks on Test-Driven Machine Learning, Life Beyond Java 8, Open Banking, Reactive Architecture, High-Performance Culture, Functional Composition, and the final keynote on Bad Science, Better Data by Ben Goldacre. It was intensive and exhausting; although there was ample time for breaks, it didn't really feel like down-time. At the best of times I'm not cut out for "networking", and this wasn't the best of times either. Nevertheless I did enjoy the conference and would recommend it to others in the profession.