Why I'm Excited About ALT.NET Open Spaces, Seattle

Update:  Catch Dave Laribee on Hanselminutes discussing ALT.NET here.

It's almost a month away until ALT.NET Open Spaces, Seattle and things are coming along nicely.  As you may have noted, we filled up rather fast while keeping some spots open for some pre-invites.  We have a great crowd of people not only from inside Microsoft, but outside as well.  We've put a bit of effort into getting this off the ground, and I can admit I've spent a bit of time doing so.  But to see names like Ward Cunningham, Jim Shore, Martin Fowler from the Agile spaces, folks from Microsoft such as Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack, John Lam, Jim Hugunin, Brad Abrams, Charlie Calvert, Brad Wilson, P&P, Microsoft Research folks such as Rustan Leino and Peli, the CodeBetter guys, the Israeli crowd (Ayende, Osherove, Dahan) just warms my heart.  To give you an idea, I'll put the list at the end.

In case you missed it, Jeremy Miller had a great article in the latest MSDN magazine called "What Is ALT.NET?" which sums up my thoughts exactly on the topic.  Very nice stuff!  And I think Ayende might be onto something with these ALT.NET logos here.  Something tells me t-shirts need to be made.

But where will we go from here?  Dave Laribee and others, myself included, have been kicking around the idea of a RailsConf, QCon, Spring Experience, No Fluff Just Stuff kind of conference.  I really do like that idea and I want an active learning conference where we in the ALT.NET community can learn from each other, but also spread the message outside.  Dave set four basic criteria that I think were well worth noting for parameters for such an event:
  1. It would be longer: four or five days.
  2. It would start 2-3 days of workshops or classes upfront on advanced topics: DDD, T/BDD, Agile, Patterns, SOA/Messaging, etc.
  3. The final days would lead into a kind of "dream conference" with talks given by well-known speakers.
  4. It would cost money, not a lot, but some...
Anyhow, I love the idea but I'd rather keep the cost as low as possible.  I realize that many of the "dream conference" speakers that we're talking about do put a lot of effort into these events efforts should be made to accommodate their needs.  I would love to have something like this next year, and who knows it might just happen.  I would also like some of that effort to help grow at a local level like I have been doing with DC ALT.NET.  During this process, we'd love to hear what you think what works, what doesn't and so on.  But, it's going to be a great time!

It's hard not to when you see names like these:

Jonathan de Halleux, Trevor Redfern, Russell Ball, Jonathan Wanagel, Ayende Rahien, Brad Abrams, Shawn Wildermuth, Anil Verma, James Franco, Wendy Friedlander, David Pehrson, Scott Hanselman, James Shore, Donald Belcham, Eric Holton, Michael Bradley, Joey Beninghove, Greg Young, Jesse Johnston, Tom Opgenorth, Harry Pierson, Anand Raju Narayan, Justin-Josef Angel, Chris Sells, Matt Pisut, Jeff Olson, Martin Fowler, Rustan Leino, Oliver, Roy Osherove, Rob Reynolds, Brian Donahue, Alan Buck, Jeff Certain, Sean Solbak, Dave Laribee, Dennis Olano, Owen Rogers, Bertrand Le Roy, Jarod Ferguson, Douglas Schroeder, Terry Hughes, Simon Guest, Rod Paddock, Jean-Paul S. Boodhoo, Dustin Campbell, Eric Ness, David Airth, Aaron Jensen, Wade Hatler, Adam Dymitruk, Chris Salahub, Charlie Poole, John Lam, Ben Scheirman, Brandon Lang, Miguel Angel Saez, Dave Woods, Ashwin Parthasarathy, Matt Hinze, James Kovacs, Alex Hung, Joe Ocampo, Alvin Lee, Steven "Doc" List, Kevin Hegg, D'Arcy Lussier, jakob Homan, Pete Coupland, Rob Zelt, Tom Dean, Joseph Hill, Arvind Palaniswamy, Chris Sutton, khalil El haitami, Kelly Leahy, John Nuechterlein, Troy Gould, Kyle Baley, Rhys Campbell, Joe Pruitt, Ronald S Woan, Michael Nelson, Matthew Podwysocki, Piriya Thongtanunam, Howard Dierking, Pete McKinstry, Dan Miser, Eli Lopian, Raymond Lewallen, Neil Blake, Jacob Lewallen, Mike Stockdale, Kirk Jackson, Brad Wilson, Eric Farr, Jeff Brown, Ian Cooper, John Quach, Cameron Frederick, David Pokluda, Charlie Calvert, Shane Bauer, Rajiv Das, Jeff Tucker, Phil MCmillan, Udi Dahan, Bil Simser, Martin Salias, Bill Zack, Chris Patterson, Greg Banister, Osidosi, Gabriel Schenker, James Thigpen, Phil Haack, Ray Houston, Colin Jack, Robert Smith, Sergio Pereira, Brian Henderson, Michael Henderson, Chantal Laplante, Dave Foley, Ward Cunningham, Bryce Budd, Chris Bilson, Scott Guthrie, Robin Clowers, Craig Beck, Phil Dennis, Jeffrey Palermo, Robert Ream, Carlin Pohl, Glenn Block, Tim Barcz, Dru Sellers, Scott Allen, Jeremy D. Miller, Grant Carpenter, Chris Ortman, Drew Miller, Weston Binford, Buchanan Dunn, Rajbeer Dhatt, Justin Bozonier, Jason Grundy, Greg Sangha , david p buchanan , Don Demsak , Jay Flowers , Adam Tybor , Scott C Reynolds , Chad Myers , Nick Parker , John Teague , Daniel , Jim Hugunin , Scott Koon , Justice Gray , Julie Poole , Neil Bourgeois , Luke Foust

Still working on my F# posts and IoC container posts, so stay tuned.  Until next time..

kick it on DotNetKicks.com

2 Comments

Comments have been disabled for this content.