That Was The Workshop That Was

At the start of this week I ran my second DataEase/Ffenics training workshop.

The first one was eight years ago, and I do kick myself for not having thought to run more since. Still, I've started again, and will absolutely maybe do it again in the new year.

Last time I ran the event in conjunction with Richard Laidler, who's now retired from the DE world. So it was (mostly) all my own work. I'm not the greatest of organisers, but it wasn't that complicated to arrange. Choosing my birth town of Bristol eliminated a few practical issues, and a bit of time putting together a website, and promoting it largely through the Ffenics forum gained enough interest to make it worthwhile.

The great thing about workshops and conference gatherings and the like is you get to spend a day or two, immersing yourself in the subject. I imagine for most of us, our development time is a solitary one, with little opportunity to explore with a single colleague, let alone several people, the things we are trying to solve, and find the other person enthused in the process.

The benefit is not simply that you learn new techniques and solve or confirm old problems. I think we are addressing one of those higher levels in Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- esteem. No doubt we all may from time to time feel buffeted by the gales of change that forever blow through the world of IT, and wonder whether our trusty boat The Good Ship Ffenics is up to the job of navigating these windy seas. I'd like to think that our two days this week gave a good confidence boost to attendees, not just because of my incredible words of wisdom and demo apps, but to engage with the others there, and see their apps rocking in action. Hey, even my brother, whose a C++/PhP type of developer, was impressed with Ffenics!

Anyway, enough of this for the moment. I hope to get to grips with extracting some usable video footage from the small pile of DVDs in front of me, if I can ever get over the embarrassment of watching myself gesticulating like a windmill on acid!

Thanks to Graham Smith at PLM Consulting in the USA, who gave a Webex/Skype presentation to the group on styling and code reuse, and to delegate John Baldwin, who agreed to kick off a debate about some of the difficulties he's had in moving from DOS to Ffenics. To the other delegates for making the journey over to Bristol ... and to my brother Neill, who videoed and gopher’ed for me.