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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Irony abounds
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
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Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general.
ESUG was a good experience - like a small scale version of Smalltalk Solutions. There weren't that many people from the US or Canada - Smalltalk Solutions usually has more people from Europe attending. It's also a smaller, more intimate show - for most of the conference, there was only one track - which meant that I never had to try and figure out which of 2 (or 3) interesting talks to attend.
Probably the only bad thing was the lack of air conditioning in the main conference room. We had to close the Windows during talks in order to banish street noise - and with 100+ people all packed in the room, it got warm fast. Beyond that, it was quite nice - kudos to Stephanne Ducasse and the rest of the ESUG organizers for doing all the hard work necessary in order to bring this off.
Now the irony part - the conference was in Koethen, which is in the eastern portion of Germany (what used to be the GDR). You can still see signs of that era - lots of rundown/abandoned buildings, and a general feeling that "everyone" has up and left. The hotel was small, but pleasant - and I was able (after some experimentation) to get dialup internet access. We had good WiFi at the conference facilities, so it all worked out pretty well. Then I traveled back to Frankfurt (Main) for my flight home. I had a hotel in the city, which was nice enough - and as expensive for one night as the one in Koethen had been for three. No internet access. They claimed to have DSL, which didn't work. They also had WiFi, but no one I spoke to had any idea what a WEP key was. Dialup didn't work, since the phone system was digital. Heck, to make a call home I had to wait on hold for the MCI operator to pick up, since the phone wasn't processing any keypad input. So much for modernity - I had an easier time of it in Koethen.
That aside, it was a good trip. I would have liked staying for another day of Camp Smalltalk, but I didn't want to be away from home that long. I'll be back in Frankfurt in December, for a Cincom Smalltalk customer meeting - we are putting on a 2 1/2 day conference for people using the product. We are charging for the show - I'll have more information on that as it becomes available.
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