I had the pleasure of attending devLink this past weekend in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  Honestly, I almost blew this conference off.  The sessions really didn’t appeal to me, and it was a bit of a hike to get to.  But then Amanda Laucher announced the DevLink Bus. And I started to waver…  Then I heard that Alan Stevens would be organizing Open Spaces during the conference. I was sold.

Wednesday evening around 7:30, my wife dropped me off at Sadukie’s house. Brandon Joyce was already there, watching Family Guy.  After Sadukie finished gathering up her wares, we piled into her Durango and headed off to pick up Corey Haines. A quick trip across town and we were on our way to Toledo to catch the bus.

Well, more accurately we were on our way to Toledo to wait for the bus.  The bus apparently went to the wrong side of town and it had to turn around to pick us up.  This wasn’t entirely bad.  It gave us enough time to pick up beer and for Corey to have an impromptu parking lot concert. And what’s better then beer and music?

Eventually the bus arrived and we REALLY began our journey.  A journey of corny movies and lack of sleep.  After much tossing and turning and cursing of lack of leg room, we arrived in Tennessee about 9am.  At which point I collapsed in my hotel room and passed out. Waking up in the evening, I followed my instinct to the local hotel bar/restaurant. Later on, I ended up making my way to Alan’s room where a party was going down.  Guitars, Cigars, and Beers were being passed around with abandon until hotel security came to the door and asked us nicely to stop.

The rest of the time in Tennessee is really a blur.  I wish I could give a detailed synopsis of each day, replete with details and names.  But honestly, the days meld into one another, linked only by great conversations, new experiences, and wonderful people.  I can’t stress enough the amount of knowledge I gained, and the success of the Open Space format that was put into place.

Alas, it was over much too soon.  By Saturday night it was time to board the bus once again, and make the long, movie filled trip back to Ohio… Who knows, maybe this time I could get some sleep? I cuddled up to the window and slowly drifted…

“THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!”  Okay, so sleep wasn’t going to happen.

A blown tire. Great, James Avery’s ribbing about “Everyone was screaming… except Cliff” went through my head.  It didn’t help that we passed a sign commemorating a 1988 bus tragedy (no joke). The bus slowly inched along, until we pulled into a gas station in English, Kentucky.  Our faces aglow in the soft light of nearby Waffle House.  We waited.  And Waited.  Cooter showed up, and proceeded to sheer three bolts off the wheel.  So we continued to wait.  But while we waited, a remarkable thing happened.  Incredible conversations took place.  On Comments, on SRP, and any number of things.  The Open Spaces continued into the most open space possible, the world beyond the conference. Then the acetylene torch came out.

So we waited a bit more.  Marriages came and went we waited so long. Eventually a new tire was on and we were off.  By 1pm I was home holding my daughter and reflecting on a fantastic conference.  I was thankful I ended up going, though some images will be seared into my brain, forever.

I’ll at least be able to say I shared a tour bus with a member of Ratt.

The best part is that the conversation continues at the Heartland Open Spaces Wiki. Be sure to stop by and join in!

Next, I’ll be at Agile Summer Camp, and then I’m home until CodeMash in January 2009.  To all my new friends, old friends, and friends to be, I hope to see you there!

Michael Eaton started it, and others took off and ran with it.  Now it’s a certified meme. So I guess I might as well join in the fray and relate the beginnings of my geekdom.

A Long, Long Time Ago…

How old were you when you started programming?

I was about 7ish when I first started. Read on for more details…

How did you you get started in programming?

When I was around 7, my uncle had an Atari 400.  I initially just played games on it, but one day I noticed a stack of Byte magazines in the corner.  Inside this magazine was source code, it said it was “BASIC” and needed to be typed in… hmm.. there’s this Atari-BASIC cartridge, and there’s a keyboard.  A light went off, I can make this machine /do/ something?  So I typed in the program, saved it to the cassette drive, and then tweaked it.

Next thing I know I’m begging my parent’s for a computer.  For my 8th birthday I got an Atari 65XE and a couple of BASIC games books, and I’ve been totally hooked ever since.  Time passed, and eventually I got into things like QBASIC, DOS Batch, and C/C++ (via an old copy of TurboC a friend loaned me).  Then in high school someone gave me a Linux CD and having a whole slew of development tools really helped.

I just kept hacking away…

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?

Staying awake for 48 hours straight and hacking an ANSI art viewer in C with Jim Balcomb.  We were probably 15 and 16 at the time and just didn’t need to rest when programming was to be had.  I think it’d kill me today.  Oh yeah, and then I delivered papers in the morning after being jacked up on coffee and Jolt and my father was convinced I was on speed…

Googoo gah gah?

What was your first language?

Well it was BASIC obviously, from Atari-BASIC, to BASICA, to QBasic, eventually to QuickBasic…

What was the first real program you wrote?

One that really stands out was a grading program I wrote in high school for the Learning department at the school.  It was all done in QBasic and had menus that were keyboard driven, grid data entry, and a printing subsystem.  I wish I still had that code…

What languages have you used since you started programming?

Define use? Here are all the languages I have written something of some complexity in:

• AutoIT (don’t ask…)
• Bash Shell
• BASIC (variations there of)
• C/C++
• C#
• DOS Batch
• JavaScript
• PHP
• Ruby
• TSQL (don’t ask)

..and [Insert Deity Here] knows what else…

Get a good job with more pay and you’re okay.

What was your first programming gig?

I’ve always loved programming, and have been doing it has a hobbyist since as far back as I can remember.  However, without experience (and never having finished college) I was never able to really get a foot in the door.  I worked in support at Harley-Davidson Dealer Systems for 6 years and had a chance to do some development work (I had written a number of utilities for support including SetPrinter) I jumped at the opportunity.  I actually took a “demotion” from Team Lead to Developer for the chance.

After a couple years of doing development work there I had pretty much tapped out all I could do and was stuck, that’s when I was introduced to PreEmptive Solutions and am currently doing development there.  My work at PreEmptive is much more like a “real” development job then HDDS.  At HDDS I was pretty much a cowboy left on my own.  Here I’m working with a true development team.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

Oh hell yes, I truly believe I was born to be a computer programmer, I can imagine doing nothing else.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

RTFM.

Thanks Mike!

A big thank you to Mike Eaton for getting the ball rolling on this, it’s fascinating to see how my fellow tweeps and hackers got started.  I’m not going to “tag” anyone, because that’s silly, but I do encourage anyone who reads this post to do the same and link back to mike’s blog, he’s keeping a list of people responding!