Software People Inspiring

Software Craftsmanship 2011 - Thanks & Thoughts

Just a short post today (far too knackered for anything more substantial, I'm afraid) to send my heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped make yesterday's Software Craftsmanship 2011 conference a success.

Major thanks go to all the wonderful people who contributed amazing sessions (both scheduled and impromptu): Krzysztof Jelski, Remco Mulder, Gordon Barrs, Christian Horsedal, Justin McLean, Peter Lind, Rob Westgeest, Willem van den Ende, Chris Parsons, Jon Jagger, Matt Williams and Michael Feathers. Both challenging and educational, this year's sessions certainly gave us plenty to think about and talk about.

And huge thanks to our generous sponsors, JetBrains, whose support for craftsmanship has been invaluable.

Massive gratitude also to Claire Urwin, Kelsey Griffin, our amazing tour guides and the rest of the Bletchley Park team for their wonderful hospitality and superb organisation. It really is a fantastic venue, and if you're not thinking of holding your next event there, then think again.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who came and supported craftsmanship as well as Bletchley Park. Between you, you raised in excess of £14,000 yesterday, and I know that your support is greatly valued by everyone at Bletchley Park. Apologies again for the unfortunate situation with the computing museum on the tours. Rest assured, we'll try our damnedest to sort something out for everyone who missed Colossus this time.

And finally, a thought:

Several people asked me yesterday "what does 'craftsmanship' mean to you?"

To me, "software craftsmanship" is a pub where a certain crowd of talented, brilliant and passionate programmers hang out.

Back in the late eighties and early nineties, they hung out in the "Object Oriented Arms", which had great real ale and comfy chairs. But the OO Arms got overrun by consultants and salesmen in suits who all stood around drinking expensive cocktails and talking ignorant crap in very loud voices, so the crowd started drinking in the "Patterns Bar" a few hundred yards down the high street.

That too soon became overrun by the suits, so they moved to the "Agile Lion" (briefly stopping off at the "UML & Firkin" for what turned out to be a very heavy, stodgy meal that made them feel slightly sick).

In recent years, the Agile Lion has started to fill up with suits - indeed, it's more of a wine bar these days. So a bunch of us have decided to open our own pub, called "Software Craftsmanship" - a traditional, no-frills boozer where all that matters is quality beer and good conversation.

At the moment, there's no sign of the suits, but it's only a matter of time before word spreads and they start appearing at the door.

And that's when we'll have to make a tough decision - do we let the suits in and move on to a new watering hole where we can be sure of good, reasonably-priced beer and sparkling conversation, or should we stand our ground and put bouncers on the door?

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