Oh man, StirTrek was awesome this year! There were a ton of people there – I think around 1200, total. It did, at times, make me a little claustrophobic, which I have never had a problem with before, so that was new :)
Let’s get straight to the details….
Registration was a snap – quick and easy, no problems.
I loved the badges they gave us – awesome Star Trek image on it, a place for your name, and, my favorite – the schedule for the day on the back. You could simply flip it over to see where you were going next. It was a great idea!
Breakfast consisted of donuts, bagels, coffee and water. I’m not much of a breakfast eater, so it worked out perfectly for me.
After some mingling, it was off to the first session of the day!
Session 01 – Javascript Spaghetti – Jared Faris
I had a strong desire this year to hit all Javascript-based talks, so this has nothing to do with the fact that Jared is my boss :) Anyway, this was a great talk. Jared did a wonderful job of incorporating some humorous aspects into his talk, while still making it relevant and interesting. I learned a few things, and had a great time, what more could you ask?
Session 02 – Understanding Prototypal Inheritance – Guy Royse
Guy is another one of those fantastic speakers that you should definitely try and catch any chance you get. The topic of this talk is a difficult one to give, and while I came away still a little confused, Guy made it fun and enjoyable.
LUNCH!
Jimmy John’s. Served in whatever theatre you were already in. Awesome. And Yummy. ‘Nuff said.
Session 03 – Custom Graphics for your Web Application: The HTML5 Canvas and Kinetic.js – Jason Follas
I went to this talk to learn more about Kinetic.js than the Canvas itself, and I was glad to see a nice portion of the talk dedicated to it. I had not heard of Kinetic.js prior to this talk, and man, it’s amazing! The features seem to be pretty robust, and Jason has even contributed back a few features himself to extend it even further. Jason did a great job presenting this – he was extremely clear, concise, and just an all around great speaker. This is the first time I had seen him speak, and I’ll definitely be seeking out his sessions in the future.
Session 04 – JavaScript: Pretty cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything – Evan Booth
Well, I guess there has to be a bad apple in every bag. This talk was poor, at best. Evan tried to scatter some humor in his talk, and while it was entertaining at first, it quickly got old. He seemed to be reading this slides as he went, talked quickly, rarely made eye contact with the audience, and went completely off-topic into CSS as part of his presentation. I didn’t go to hear about CSS – I went to hear about Javascript. After it was over, he began showing videos of himself making weapons from items bought beyond the TSA security checkpoints at airports. He seemed to believe he was doing a good deed by doing these things, and commented that he does give the info to the TSA. My thoughts? Wrong location to be showing that stuff, bub. While it was mildy entertaining at first, it quickly got old, and honestly seemed to make some people a little irritated that he would be showing that kind of information to the general public. Not a good idea. Fail.
Session 05 – I Didn’t Know JavaScript Could Do That! – David Hoerster
I had kind of forgotten what this session was about until after David actually began, but I’m glad I went! David seemed to be a little nervous at first, not sure if this was his first time presenting or not – and he even mentioned being nervous at one point. But, David, you did an awesome job. I enjoyed your talk very much. You got the audience participating with questions (most of which I got wrong, by the way), had humor woven into the talk, used Prezi (bonus points for that :) ), and you taught me stuff! I walked away from your talk with a better understanding of prototypal inheritance, which I had been trying to understand for some time. Nice job, David.
Overall, Stir Trek was bloody awesome, and I can’t wait to go next year. I would change a few things, but they are mainly minor. For instance, having a difficulty level on the talks so we can gauge better about attending. Evan’s talk would have been Beginner, while Guy’s would have been Advanced. I would also like to see televisions scattered around monitoring the Stir Trek hashtag from Twitter. They had this at CodePaLOUsa, and I loved reading the comments while moving around. Oh, perhaps even do it on the big screens between sessions :) Honestly, that’s it. That’s all I would change. See? Told you in was minor stuff.
See you at Stir Trek 2014!
This post, "StirTrek 2013 Review", first appeared on https://www.codingwithcalvin.net/stirtrek-2013-review/