NSConference '09

Sorry for the long silence on this blog (except for that short link a couple days ago), it's been a busy couple of weeks and with a bunch of travelling on successive weekends, and a few products to be finished and shipped, and I needed some time to catch my breath and, well, just sleep.

But now on to more interesting things: NSConference 2009

For those who spent the recent year with their heads in the fridge, NSConference is the first European multi-day Mac OS X Development conference (briefly called "MacDev 2009" during its inception), organised by the Mac Developer Network's very own Steve Scott, aka "Scotty" in the UK.

The two-day conference (plus a third day of workshops) was a big success: So far I've heard only positive feedback about it. There was a single track of sessions, which meant you didn't have those annoying collisions between the various sessions you want to attend. The Hatfield conference centre was a nice venue, and the room fit the number of attendants well, and there were many well-known names from Mac-developerdom all over the world.

You of course had locals like Martin Pilkington, Tim Isted, Matt Gemmell, Graham Lee, and Fraser Speirs, as well as international guests like Andre Pang, Marcus Zarra, Mike Lee, Bill Dudney, Drew McCormack and Philippe Mougin. The sessions ranged from iPhone apps to Core Animation to Accessibility and security, and each one was more interesting than the next. The presenters were well-prepared and understandable, and the sessions were at an advanced enough level while not overwhelming you with details.

There was also a Cocoa face off session at the very end that was very entertaining.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I learned a lot, and still haven't finished applying the things I learned in sessions and conversations with attendees and presenters. This is a fun conference, and from what I've heard, Scotty is a glutton for punishment and plans to do another one next year.

On a related note, train fares between London and Hatfield are acceptable, and many of the Museums there are free. I spent an entire day after NSConference in the British Museum with a pal from Munich who also went to NSConference (taking time in between to hang out in a nice park around the corner, and seeing the city centre afterwards). I enjoyed my first time in the UK very much (except for the driving on the wrong side part... I constantly had to suppress my urge to scream and had to be extra careful crossing the street ...). So if you go to NSConference next year, make sure to take out some time to check out all the neat stuff in the area. There's also some geeky attractions around.

Update: There's some interesting summaries from other attendees/presenters: Fraser Speirs, Alexander Repty, Matt Gemmell and Martin Pilkington.

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