I had an enjoyable weekend last weekend at Railscamp, and I had this whole 3-page summary written up for you readers but I’d figured I’d spare you that lengthy document (for now, ahahaha) . These are the things you need to know:
- It was held at Kariong (I kept calling it Kai-rong), about 6km from Gosford which itself is 1 hour and 30 minutes by train from Sydney. Scenic country-side, yada yada.
- I am in love with Sydney trains. Flippable seats and no noisy engines.
- The venue (one main hall, one “cafeteria” hall and two separate-but-joined domitories) was exceptional. We ran everything off a number of power points that you could count on one hand.
- The people were exceptional. The talks were exceptional. Nothing beat Pat Allen’s talk (the very last one at Railscamp 2.0), and nothing will ever.
- Yes Guitar Hero was played. Two and Three. Yes, I won. Yes, I’m a sore winner.
- I also coded. Gitjour became a little weekend project and it was fun working on that with Lachlan Hardy, Tim Lucas, Dr. Nic & Others.
- Other applications included the ever-awesome Duke (Upload, Vote, Boogie), Swore-DS, and Pete Yandell’s proposal to create an application to track species in the wild.
- Dr. Nic was obsessed with Cherry Pie. When he wasn’t playing it on Guitar Hero 2, he was humming/singing it.
- The beds were creaky. Earplugs were my saviour.
- Lachie had a machine that made him sound like Darth Vader whilst he slept. Very chilling. Earplugs helped here too.
- There was a waterfall. We walked behind it. Then we bashed through the bush to camp.
- Risked life / possible broken bones to climb a large rock face. using nothing but what nature provided. All this whilst trying to stop my camera from bashing against it. Then walked back to “camp”, only come out 500m away at the office. Stupid GPS!
- Went away feeling fantastic.
There was talk of possibly another Railscamp by the end of the year, or another one this time next year. I’m looking very much forward to it.