So today I spoke at the Italian Code Jam in Ferrara. My colleague Dan and I flew into Bologna yesterday where one of the conference organisers met us and drove us to our hotel in Ferrara. Then in the evening all of the organisers and speakers went off to a local restaurant for dinner. There were five (or was it six) courses. All of them very good.
Then this morning we were driven to the university where the talk was taking place. I was on second (following Randal Schwartz talking about Perl testing) and I gave high level introduction to the Template Toolkit. Other talks followed on various topics. Some were in English, some Italian. There was at least one where the talk was in Italian but the slides were in English.
And in the evening there was another dinner. This one also had far too many wonderful courses. And at the end of the evening, the organisers presented all of the speakers with a signed copy of a book about the city of Ferrara.
This was certainly one of the nicest conferences I’ve ever been to. The organisers were all very friendly and eager to please. And I’ve never eaten so well at a conference. The organisers are hoping to do it all again next year and, if they do, I certainly plan to join them.