Kevin Cully has been blogging about it, threatening to do it, and is finally announcing he is officially putting on the Fox Forward conference in Hot-lanta in September. This will be a “code camp” weekend type of conference from the information I read on the Web site.
Sounds like Craig Berntson is skeptical/negative/grumpy before all the details are flushed out, but I have taken part of “code camp” style of conferences and they work. In fact, they work well. I don’t see this as substitute for a great Fox regional conference like Southwest Fox (or what Essential Fox, DevTeach, or the old GLGDW was), but it can be a great supplemental way to expand your knowledge.
I see this as an experiment in the Fox Community. It will be interesting to watch to see how things develop, to see the topics bubble up, and how the loose details are tightened down.
I am disappointed on the timing of the conference because it means there are four conferences in a ten week period (Advisor, Fox Forward, Southwest Fox, and German DevCon – and possibly a fifth with OzFox). I expressed this to Kevin in an email this evening. I wish the conference organizers could get together and spread these out through the year. Maybe it will be better in 2007. I know it is tough, but this schedule makes it difficult for development shops to send some of their people to all the conferences when the money is being spent all at once.
So what conference are you going this year?
Rick, Whilst I agree with you that Code Camp meetings can be useful, I don’t see any useful purpose in adding one to the already crowded Autumn calendar this year. This sort of fragmentation of effort is counter-productive for the community and does nothing to help those who try to put on regular conferences. It is bad enough when the [expletive deleted] folk at Advisor try to sabotage SW Fox – we don’t need Fox people doing it too.
I agree the timing is horrible Andy. I wish Kevin had picked something in the summer because Southwest Fox is already the best conference held in the US in the fall (or any time of the year for that manner).