This year, I was fortunate enough to attend both RubyConf and OOPSLA. These conferences exposed me to many new ideas and lots of new people. If you’re used to living in the Microsoft (or Java, or PHP, or Linux, or Apple …) world, it’s a really good idea to break out of your monoculture and experience something different.
For the Microsoft folks, instead of attending a PDC, Tech Ed, VS Live!, or DevConnections conference every year, choose to attend a different conference with your conference dollars. Attend a RubyConf or a JAOO or an OSCON. Rails is hot this year, but something else will be hot next year.
For me personally, I’ve spent way too long in the statically typed languages world. Last year at the Middleware conference in Toronto, Steve Vinoski and I had a great bonding moment when we recounted our recent experiences with Python. At OOPSLA, I had a chance to chat with some old-school Smalltalk programmers (hello Jim!) who were more than happy to point out that most “new” language features in Python/Ruby were in existence long ago in Smalltalk. The same, of course, can be said for languages like C# as well :)
That said, it’s still important to use the right tool for the job. The libraries in the .NET world are simply too useful to be ignored. Bridging this gap is an itch I have to scratch. More on that soon.
