blog.zgraggen.name  All-day insanity or I have a blog too!

As I promised: here are some pictures from the Oopsla.

The view from our hotelroom in the 9th floor.		The 20 year old Software magazine in which the article “No Silver Bullet” was published.

The three Poster ready for presentation during the welcome reception.		The breakfast buffet. Available every morning.

The “No Silver Bullet” panel. Martin Fowler, Ricardo Lopez, David Thomas, Aki Namioka, Linda Northrop, David Lorge Parnas, Frederick P. Brooks (from right to left) and Steven D. Fraser (taking a picture) (		Martin Fowler as werewolf

Finally in the plane ready for departure…

Of course there is more to show… but this few pictures should give you a brief impression from the Oopsla.

I did not want to believe it before but now I know better!
During a conference many things are going on in addition to the official program. Especially, the corridor discussions are very time consuming but of course worth every minute. This is also the reason why I did not blog as much as I wanted to. But I still hope that you got some impressions from my conference trip. In a few hours it will already be time to say farewell to Montreal. … AND … Switzerland we are coming

After the workshop on Monday the same people held a panel on the same topic. So it was logical that we attended the panel as well. As I assumed it was absolutely amazing again.
During the introduction Martin Fowler went screaming underneath the table to appear as werewolf (big mask on the head). And from then on he very intelligently showed the position of the werewolf during the panel which gave the panel an extra touch of coolness. For those which are unfamiliar with the topic: A “Silver Bullets” kill wWerewolfs and therefore one can kill anything with a silver bullet which means it is a solution for everything.
To quote Brian Foote after the talk: The Oopsla will hate themselves for the next 5 years for not installing a camera to record the panel.

btw: sorry again for no pictures… but they will follow I promise!

For me it is the first time so far away from home. Particulary I have not been overseas before. So no wonder I ran into new stuff as the shower for instance. In Europe you normally have two regulators one for the intensity and one for the temperature. I was quite surprised when I wanted to take a shower and there was only one regulator. I needed some time to figure out that there is only one intensity and the wheel is to start it and also to adjust the temperature

Or better: Not 1 second outside!

Unbelievable! After 24° C and sunshine yesterday it was cold and raining today. As you might know Montreal has about 30 kilometers of underground passages. This system has many advantages such as it is possible to escape the traffic and it is warm and comfortable in cold winters. And of course it is a good reason to escape the weather. This is the reason why we did not leave the building or the passages today (as the subtitle says)

First Worksop
On the first day Emanuel and I (further referred to as we) went to the Eclipse Technology Exchange. This consisted of 15 small lectures with a short discussion session afterwards. Although the topics of the lectures were differing from each other It was not interesting especially because interaction was nearly not existent.

Chinese Restaurant
In the evening we went to a Chinese restaurant together with Peter Sommerlad. In spite of the fact that all three of us did not order much. We received a huge amount of food which we were not able to eat although it tasted really good. Afterwards we directly went to bed because we were tired from the long and exhausting day.

Morning Run
The second day I went for a morning run through the city and the “Mont-Royal” park. I started at six o’clock when it was still dark and therfore it was quite hard to find the way through the park up to the view point. Finally I arrived and I had a great view over the whole city by an absolutely nice morning mood.
During my run I noticed an interesting thing, namlely that at this time in the morning only sportive people (runner, biker) are in this park. Back in the hotel I went to the fitness room for stretching. There I met Erich Gamma so I took the opportunity I took to talk a little to him in Swiss German.

Second Workshop
Through the second day we attended the workshop No Silver Bullet which was way better than the first! Many well known people where in this little room. Martin Fowler, Bill Obdyke, Steven Fraser, Dennis Mancel, Brian Foote, Robert Biddle, Ricardo Lopez to name a few. In totally we were about 15 people and a lot of interaction was going on. To quote Martin Fowler: “This workshop is like a day of corridor conversation”. To explain this to Oopsla unfamiliar people this is what it is all about
Nearly the whole workshop went together to lunch, once again it was Chinese food But this time we had the real experts with us (Steven Fraser).
The second workshop was an absolute success for me. It was an amazing experience to hear all the opinions of all these “important” people!

Pictures will follow soon

After a long flight (eight hours) we finally arrived in Montreal. I will point out one special occurrence during our flight. Every seat had its own entertainment program including a small monitor and tool for navigation. My neighbour had an error message on the screen. This message looked like an old Win 3.1 or Amiga window. (Unfortunately we did not have a digicam ready)

A taxi trip later we arrived at the Hyatt. During the check-in the lady at the reception told us that internet access is included for Oopsla participents. Therefore I would be able to be online all the time :-). So no problem for blogging…

Below is the welcome screen and the remaining time for my internet acces!

Tomorrow at midday I will sit in a plane ready for departure to Montreal, Canada. Finally, the time for the Oopsla has come. Earlier on this blog
I wrote about our three posters but I did not mention the tutorial of our boss, Peter Sommerlad, about Green Bar for C++ - Unit Testing and Refactoring C++ .
Moreover I did not mention our (Emanuel’s and mine) attendance to two workshops. On Sunday to Eclipse Technology Exchange 2007 and on monday to No Silver Bullet - a Retrospective on the Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering.
Of course I will write about them too…

Next blog entry will be from Montreal… if I find some way to access the internet.

This weekend I did a trip to Munich with friends from work.
As you might know the German train driver were on strike last Friday. Only the long-distance traffic was still running. Therefore we made a detour over Stuttgart to get to Munich. This gave us a few extra hours on the train.
On Saturday we went to the Deutsches Museum (aka the technical museum of Munich) of Munich and spent about six hours in there. Exhausted and a little bit tired we searched new energy in the Hofbreuhaus by eating Bavarian veal sausages and beer. Newly empowered we went to the Ostbahnhof to party all night.
On Sunday we walked around the city and had a look at the Munich Marathon before we had to get on the train to go home…

For all those who will visit Munich I really recommend the visit of the Deutsches Museum

Although it took place a few days ago I will now write some lines about Tell which I saw in the movie theatre.
I liked this movie because it is amusing and tells an absolutly new Tell story. In my opinion this movie is much better than the last Swiss movie The Ring Thing
Even though this movie cannot be compared with American movies it is worthwhile watching.
Any differing opinions?