GSoC, RustReach Day 24 and LC Hackathon

Today was the Post-conference Hackathon.

• There were three options:
  • Haskell
  • PureScript
  • Scala

Of course I chose Haskell :D

• Mike Snoyman ran the workshop (the real one haha). So we were given the option of working on some stack and ghc issues, or pair-programming, or anything like that. Also, if we wanted to, we could have lightning talks. Two people gave lightning talks about stands that they actually were using for their laptops and how it was ideal for conferences.
• I worked with Attila (guy I had met the night before at The Dark Horse; he’s working in Haskell in Chicago) pair-programming, and he helped me get set up on some Haskell katas using Vim :D. I honestly had done the teeniest tiniest Vim stuff before, played around with Emacs, and knew some vi stuff. So this was pretty good, so much so that I bought the book he recommended afterwards. I think it’s a skill worth investing in (and any programmer reading this is saying “duh” right now), because it’s so fast once you get used to it.
• He also mapped my Caps lock as the Ctrl key, so it’s taking me time to get used to that (and just only use Shift for Capitals). Michael said he used to be an Emacs person in college, and someone showed him Vim and he never looked back. He also told me if I change the Caps lock back, he wouldn’t be surprised, because he’s never done any of that stuff with the changing of the keys. I really appreciate how a lot of really highly talented engineers have minimal, stripped down set-up. It often seems like they have just enough to make their workflow fast and efficient, but not with too many bells and whistles.

So…at some point, I had to catch my bus to DIA :(

• I had checked out earlier; my roommate had set an orange on my laptop earlier, as a present as I was sleeping, and we were texting during the day, as she got back to Knoxville.
• As I took my bags to Broadway and Baseline to catch the AB1 (which is the bus you should take, as it’s just one bus that goes directly to DIA and only costs $9), tears just started pouring down my face. I was heartbroken that it was over. I had such a great time and I’ll certainly miss everyone.

So I guess it’s next year

• This is probably the one conference I really enjoy. John joked that someone had made a fake account, something like “Jerk…” (his last name). We were laughing about it. He also said he was going to do more Haskell, which I’m really happy about. And maybe we’ll have some more Lisp languages in the conf in the future and stuff. Either way, I really like the group.
• He was also super nice to help a guy review his (the guy’s) resume, as a working senior engineer. That’s what I like about this community; they’ve helped so many people. I’ve had a leg up being a n00b because of my interaction with the FP community. Sure, we don’t all get along, and sometimes we might leave the wrong impression on social media, but I can pretty much guarantee that in person we’re all a bunch of geeky weirdos with boundless curiosity and a love for functional programming. And if you share that love, too, you’re one of us, and embraced as such.

And that’s about it.

• I’m doing laundry so I can get up in three hours and head to work, and then go drinking in the evening with some scientists.