YAPC::Europe 2012 has been a fine conference and great fun as well. Here follow some casual comments from the perspective both of an attendee and of an YAPC (Pisa 2010) organizer.
- Climate: it was very hot in Frankfurt, much hotter (because of humidity) than in Italy where I live. The venue had some conditioning system but it wasn't that efficient with all those people... well, we survived and it went well anyway.
- Talks: as usual, there were many high quality talks around. And, of course, it's always fun to chat a bit in the hallways with other folks.
- Internet: WiFi at the venue worked nicely for the most, but sometimes it's was impossible to connect. This is actually normal, it wouldn't even be a conference without some Internet service disruption.
- Coffee breaks/lunch: there was no included lunch, but coffee breaks featured a lot of tasty stuff so lunch was not really needed (even though there were a lot of eateries around the venue, I never had lunch as I was always too full to).
- Pre-conference (and Booking.Com drinks): this was a nice event, and the place had pretty decent burgers too (not to mention some good local brews). The main problem was getting the drinks, as the service was kind of disappointing; but, after all, we managed without too much hassle. We went to the same place two days after as well, where Booking.Com nice girls organized a much appreciated round of free beer.
- Dinner: social dinner was buffet-style, in a big and nicely decorated restaurant near Sudbanhof. Food was (of course) German-style and I actually liked most of it. Best of all, the place had his own brews (including an exceptional dunkel, sort of porter beer): the quality of the beers was so good that it spawned a discussion between some of us regarding brewing at home, etc...
- After dinner: I, gbjk, mst, nine and others managed to wander around the city downing a few drinks until 4 AM. The area North of Lokalbanhof is particurarly interesting in that regards, as it features many nice bars and pubs. Waking up the following day was another matter.
- Books: I was aware this year Josette@O'Reilly wasn't coming to the YAPC, as in Germany they have an agent or sort of. This agent brought quite a few books, unfortunately most of them were in German. It's indeed nice to see many Perl books translated, but since YAPC is an international conference an additional selection in English would have been appreciated.
- Murder: that's a thing which actually happened to me and is not related to the conference. The first morning of the conference I woke up at my hostel, looked through the window and noticed that the road was closed and scientific police in white suits and masks was marking evidence on the ground: a murder (a girl, apparently) had just been committed a few meters from the hostel door; the place is in the red light district, which is a bit sleazy but was supposed to be safe...
As always, the greatest conference in Europe!