There are very few things cooler to me than listening to people talk about something they’re really passionate about. The only way it gets any better is when I happen to be really passionate about the same thing. Then it’s super-rad.

NodePDX 2013 started today and being as tickets were a measley $50 there was basically no way I was not going to attend. It’s also my first tech conference in general so that was pretty exciting.

Things got off to a good start with solid talks about PubSub (and ZenIRCBot) and various messaging systems. A lot of informative and practical information to digest. The highlight of the day for me, however, was the music-themed section where more experimental and mad sciency projects were featured.

One talk that was slightly less “techy” but definitely stuck with me beyond the time that I left, moreso perhaps than most, was jden’s talk about Programming With a Purpose. It’s really easy to get lost in implementation details and forget that ultimately, as developers, we have hold a lot of power. Maybe we should stop ourselves every now and then and think about how we’re using it. Hard to summarize, but worth checking out.

I found myself leaving a bit earlier than perhaps I should have, right before the hackathon that I’m pretty certain I was ill-equipped for participating in. But also before the open bar meet-and-greet section. Seems I still have some anti-social tendencies that I’m not past. I’ve committed to staying for tomorrow’s happy hour regardless of how uncomfortable I may be. There are certainly plenty of interesting people in the room, perhaps I could get to know a couple of them!

NodePDX 2013 Videos are slowly becoming available