barcamp

Almost certainly no progress on those copious and comprehensive notes about BarCamp Oxford this side of Easter. But it's worth mentioning two offshoots from the weekend's discussions that look set to become big events in their own rights.

Sylwia Presley, Ben Werdmuller, Marcus Povey and others are beginning to organize a Transparency BarCamp, to talk about the ethics of social media and web 2.0, Open Government and individual freedom, and even topics like cyber-activism. Meanwhile another group, including the likes of Matt Thorne and Oleg Lavrovsky, is hoping to try their collective hand at Oxford geek jams, collaborative all-day coding events.

The local geek community---most obvious to me personally at the Oxford geek nights of course, but to others through the Oxford Flickr Group or the Agile Oxtremists---has always been strong and supportive, but in quite a slow-burning way. Suddenly it's like someone's given those flames some air, and the Oxford geek/social scene has warmed up. It feels great.

Today I had a whale of a time at BarCamp Apache Oxford. The social event last night—coffee, beer, curry and then more beer—meant that the majority of BarCampers got to know each other really well before the event. As Ross said early on today, it was clear from the mix of people last night that things were going to go fine, with everyone being very accommodating of each other's talks.

I managed to acquire a hangover despite leaving early last night. It's my age; that and the length of the bus journey to Oxford and back. Still, I made it through the day, thanks in no small part to Prem's funding and Amir's organizing of lots and lots (and lots) of food.

The sessions were all really interesting, and the atmosphere informal—far more so than on the other BarCamp I've been on, in fact—to the extent where you felt that people were in presentations because they were happy to be there, not out of a sense of misplaced duty. That also meant that, as people started to trickle away during my own (shared) session, I didn't particularly take it personally: I convinced myself that they had just turned up to the talk on a false premise based on a misunderstanding of the talk title. And, you know. Blinked back the tears.

I have to go to bed and catch up on my sleep, but I'll try to write up my notes at a (much) later date. In the mean time, there's a reverse timeline of the event on Twitter (the new backchannelling: you could hear the tumbleweed on the IRC channel), photos on Flickr, useful links on Delicious, and blogposts might filter through onto Technorati. Feed your brains.

Well done to everyone involved for planning and executing such a successful, remarkably hands-off event, and the first everBarCamp Oxford in what will hopefully be a long line of such events.

The next few weeks look like they're going to be incredibly busy. Right now my greatest worries are of course about Oxford Geek Night 11 on Wednesday 25 March. All the speakers are lined up---Natalie and Mike are presumably both gearing up to give two great keynotes on CSS systems and graphic design on the web respectively, or maybe they're just enjoying their Sundays---and I've got most of the tech ready, with network cables hanging round my shoulders and blinking lights where there should be blinking lights.

OGN11, though, is starting half an hour earlier---the crowd has spoken, and it was suggested by a couple of people after OGN10 too---which could lead to some confusion this time round. That's right: OGN11 keynotes start at 8pm. But as I've still yet to get the venue to take our money, then they don't actually know about the change of time yet. I'm sure it will all work out fine.

One thing which actually does seem to be working out fine: the local BarCamp is almost full. BarCamp Oxford is on April 4--5, and we've got a tentative upper limit of 50 people. The venue---the elegant University Club---is booked, and catering is pretty much there, so all we've got to do is pile a stack of projectors into the club and wait for everyone to turn up at the evening meal on the Saturday.

Similarly, Oxfringe 2009 is going great guns, and the programme is now finalized. It's huge this year, with John Hegley headlining the festival on Saturday 11 April. I have to start working out just how much we can get round to seeing, and then, you know, buying tickets.

But before any of that, tonight is the People's Premiere of Age of Stupid, a simultaneous showing of the film in some thirty cinemas across the UK. As Torchbox built their site (and I built the first version, back when it was called Crude) then I can't give an unbiased opinion, but the crew preview we went to convinced me that it was probably the most important documentary of this century, and probably of our future years on the planet: however many of those there turn out to be. We've got tickets to see the Oxford node of this twenty-first century, distributed mass screening. That particular cinema has entirely sold out, but if you're near a showing with free seats, then for heaven's sake---for your own sake---go along.

BarCamp Oxford is happening on April 4-5 this year! Like other BarCamps, this will be a loosely organized "unconference", where every attendee is a participant and the sequence of events is decided by consensus: as the BarCamp site declares, "no spectators, only participants."

I'm really pleased that this has got off the ground. There's funding for a great venue---the Oxford University Club---and hopefully more will be forthcoming. The attendee list is nearly half full, and it was only announced late last week. Stick your name down if you'd like to join in the fun.

The current plan is for Saturday April 4 to start late and sociable, with a meal somewhere in Oxford (yet to be decided). For Saturday night, there's a list of crash space on the wiki page for out-of-towners. Then on Sunday the whole day will be at the University Club. It's a great place for talks, workshops and just general unhurried chat. In the evening there'll probably be a pub trip to round things off. If I can still stand, there will definitely be a pub trip.

(Want to sponsor BarCamp Oxford? If so, then email <info@oss-watch.ac.uk>: the organizers would love to hear from you.)

Here's a sneak peak at some of the lyrics from Barcamp Weekend's forthcoming single release, Trailing Comma. It's about the perils of writing Javascript without keeping an eye on the behaviour of a certain class of browsers.

Who gives a fuck about a trailing comma?
I've seen IE alarm a
User,
Confuse her

Though it might not be ECMA,
Most other browser check the
Syntax
Then relax

Why'd you fail to parse the file?
So much coding, just one little flaw,
Goes to show: should always read the spec!

We've all been there, right?

Assaf writes about, among other things, REST as a simplifier of development against an existing system:

REST plays the same role as open source and open APIs: It eliminates tooling and vendoring as artificial barriers to adoption.

Interestingly, a corollary to this was brought up at Barcamp Brighton this weekend. During Gareth Rushgrove’s talk about REST and Nabaztag, a chap whose name I’ve again forgotten (although I’m sure someone like Fatty will enlighten me) pointed out that much of the push of SOAP is coming from the vendors, because the vendors make their money from selling tools, and REST development needs very few tools, most of which are free.

Undoubtedly there’s a set of problems that REST finds hard, but this truism is extended by SOAP vendors to the hard-to-prove (but also hard-to-contradict) claim that it’s a larger set, or a set more pertinent to enterprise solutions, than the set which SOAP finds hard. It convinces the consumers, because intelligent data mining and storage has always been a difficult problem, and a simple solution like REST feels like underkill for the job in hand. They let you confuse libre and gratis, the vendors point out (I see them sitting on the consumer’s shoulders with tridents at this point): so where’s the hidden cost of this free lunch?

(hat tip to Simon Willison)

The slides for my Barcamp talk are available, for those who missed it (most of you, you swine). Of interest if you want to see a Drupal site that doesn’t look like a Drupal site, and how you might go about doing that.

Natalie and Simon are leaving us to move to Brighton, which is a real shame but also an excuse to go to Barcamp Brighton. Tickets went on sale at 11am today, and I’ve managed to nab one before they sold out.

This will be my first Barcamp so I’ve really no idea what to expect. Apparently I’m meant to give a talk, which gives me the creeping horrors, to be honest. Even more chillingly, Barcamp Central calls it a “session”. Hopefully there’ll be a bit more specification of it before I get there. If not then I’ll do that old trick, of saying that my presentation will begin with everyone closing their eyes for twenty seconds and leaving the doors open. They won’t see me for dust.