Bristol and Brum .Net Fun
- 2 minsTo round of a season of meetups, I took a trip into the depths of England to enjoy two meetups in .Net world. Both had their charms, and together offered the perfect way to roll into the festive season whilst catching up with old friends and making some new ones.
The trip started with the Bristol outing. After my last visit to this meetup, the allure of Midi Birds proved too much for the team to resist, and I was offered a lightning talk slot. Whilst it was a MASSIVELY truncated version of the session, the game proved a hit. The audience got into it, birds were impersonated, and two lucky attendees even got to play with my balls in between game rounds. Lucky them!
The evening also included three other talks. Whilst Carls walk through of .NET 9 improvements was enlightening, and Richards dive into Mermaid JS were interesting sessions, Aaron’s look at motivation and will power is the one the resulted in the most notes. The core of the message was to embrace the suck. If something is difficult and you don’t want to do it, chances are it’s the exact thing you should be doing. And only through repeated exposure do you get to carve strong neural pathways that make it easy.
Whilst true, I draw the line at eating All Bran!
The following day, the trip continued further up the train line towards Birmingham for an evening with Rendle. This talk offered a light hearted look at the complexities that we introduce into our software development lives. Sometimes they’re warranted. But more often that not, they’re overhead and serve to bolster a developers CV rather than adding value to the project. If ever this session is on the schedule for a conf you’re attending, be sure to catch it.
As a speaker that delivers light hearted sessions, I took a lot away from this talk plus the conversation in the lead up to it. Now that someone has said it, it makes perfect sense that building a skillset in standup comedy would help in delivering this kind of talk. Whilst stand up opportunities are thin on the ground close to home, there’s likely enough resources out there to help develop that skillset, and enough clubs in the wider world to hone it. I suspect this pathway is going to consume a chunk of my Christmas break.
Overall, it was a lovely trip that topped up my .NET knowledge, allowed to meet some new people, all whilst getting to see some new things. I’m already looking forward to my next visit to Birmingham, even if it isn’t going to include a healthy dose of Glühwein.
Prost und frohe Weihnachten.
