Today I got back from three days in London, where I attended this year's Dev8D. Dev8D is quite a remarkable conference (or more accurately perhaps, a conference, unconference and workshops all in one). It is aimed at developers in Higher Education, but open to anyone interested. It offers a great opportunity to learn new skills, get a feel for what is being discussed and important in certain areas, and meet people with the same interests as you.

I went last year for the first time (it has been running for four years now), and I was very happy to go back. The format of the event seems to have changed slightly every year, but what remains constant is the focus on hands-on-learning, and the informal atmosphere.

As there was so much going on at once, I can only write about a fraction of the sessions from first-hand experience, but for anybody interested in the event I would recommend reading the relevant DevCSI blog posts (there's lots of videos and interviews in there). Read more…
 

For various reasons the start of this year was not that easy for me, and something I wanted to become a tradition already got left behind: To write down what I had done each year, and make plans for the new one. After postponing it a lot, I have decided now is a good time for plans, as I am between projects, and I start to see a little more clearly where I might be going.

2010 + five months of 2011: How did it go?

2010 was a good year overall. New possibilities opened up, I met inspiring people and learned a lot. And it became really clear that web development was what I wanted to continue doing.