Dreamsongs Wiki

CareerBuildingAtOopsla

I think quite a few people have built careers at OOPSLA and then branched out with their own little (or not so little) community. Kent Beck with XP and the Gang of Four come to mind. OOPSLA served as a starting point, platform and launching pad. Another example is Gregor Kiczales and AOP, IMO. (Gregor, maybe you want to comment? Did OOPSLA help? How was it relevant?) A future example might be James Noble and Postmodernism (if we only added a leaflet to the OOPSLA program handouts that explained what postmodernism is). --DirkRiehle

Umm, I don't know if postmodernism is a career (the book publishers haven't got back to me yet). And I don't think I have a community of worshipers like Kent, Gregor, or the GOF (although of course I'd like one). DaveUngar has a bunch of SelfAppointed devotees of course (and I'm one of them); I seem to remember lots of UML stuff happening at OOPSLA (back when it was, well, a design notation); lots of the Java Genericity work happened through OOPSLA (or at least appeared in the technical programme) etc

JamesNoble

Hmm, I don't know if postmodernism could be explained in a pamphlet

(but I hope the book publishers are willing to try). But career

building is beside the point: it's the forum for ideas that is

important. Oopsla has served as a place to drive new ideas into town

and take them around the pubs and let people look in their mouths and

poke their hooves, and then let them stampede snorting and bleating

through the streets, trampling older and weaker ideas into the mud,

leaving a trail of filthy stinking waste and riches, later leaving the

town empty, and as the wind whistles through the streets, blowing

around crumpled conference badges soiled ribbons and boarding passes,

so that all that remains is the mucous memory of noise and that

distant smudge, black and bleeding, on the horizon: black, as is my need; bleeding, as is my heart.

RobertBiddle

Biddle -rpg