As a conference DevopsDays Edinburgh 2017 was spot on. My thanks to the organisers, speakers, sponsors and other attendees.

Mostly I make notes during talks because I don’t have time to sit through them all again on YouTube/Vimeo. A few people have requested my notes, so I’ve typed them up to a modest standard (there is beer in the pub that is needing drunk). Conferences are interesting because they are a curated, and much like stand-up comedy, and music concerts hearing the ‘standards’ live can be refreshing. Also as the talks and Open Spaces layer up some consensus and unique character comes into being. Hell, you had to be there.

All errors and opinions (and erroneous opinions) should be assumed to be mine – unless you hear it from the person in question. Factual errors and arguments are welcomed. I have augmented various places with my “stream of consciousness” while listening to the talks (so if you think you are mentioned there might be some things you don’t remember saying and if you were in the audience there might be things you don’t remember hearing). Some things might be repeated, like a riff. Some opinions expressed might be stronger than (or even contradict) my beliefs – the Devil’s advocate is abroad. Besides knuckling under and knuckling down and doing your best is a largely what the world of work is about.

Part of the joy of attending conferences is the chance to meet interesting people and bore them silly. Never having been a fan of “socially novel” situations it took me a few conferences to get into the swing of them. It’s an interesting challenge trying to find common ground with strangers, and fascinating to find out their working methods, processes and challenges. Always bubbling away at the back of your mind are questions like “Could that work on the projects I am working on?” “Would I do it like that?” “Is this more trouble than it’s worth?” “I wonder if it is that easy?” “That is so useful, are they selling the shop?”

The right to modify the texts to improve it (mostly) is reserved. Comments can be addressed to david at springsmith dot com