Two weeks ago I visited the BarCamp RheinMain 2012 in Wiesbaden for a day with some colleagues from work. My intentions to visit were to see what’s going on outside the corporate world, to reconnect with the web development scene and hear about new stuff.

I attended 5 sessions:

1) „Wir brauchen einen neuen Workflow“ – Key thesis: We need a new workflow for project work in the web development/design/etc. areas. Well. That’s not news. The challenge of translating ideas of designers and/or clients into real world software has been a challenge 5 years ago as well. Photoshop dominating the thinking and processes of designers and other creative people and the frustrating browser-specifics it requires to implement it 100% have just gotten a little more complex with new devices such as smartphones and tablets. Finally, the death of fixed-width designs. I hope.

2) Twitternde Raketen… – ESA communications guy talking about social media in this organisation. Compared to NASA, it sucks. In particular, the use of spectacular space images is much more complex from a legal perspective compared to the „Big Brother“ in the US where all images are published under a CC licence. In Europe, the scientist creating the image has the right to decided whether he would like to share his image or not.

3) Techie stuff – Hard-core java script performance optimization by Ex-Zynga game engine developer. Great to see someone really knowing his subject and the technology. Bit to technical to be really relevant for me. But inspiring.

4) Gadgeteer – Hardware prototyping made easy. Session on how to set up simple Gadgeteer prototypes and what to do with them.

5) Live Game Development – Pong in 45 minutes? Almost 😉 Guy from session 3 demonstrated his java script framework for game development in a live programming session with almost no attendee with a computer. He did all the work and in the end, paddles and ball were moving on the screen. No rocket science.

For more info on the sessions please check out the official BarCamp website!

The organisation of the BarCamp was excellent in general. Great breakfast! Free lunch, even if it was eaten up pretty fast. Delicious cakes in the afternoon break. Plenty of space to sit and discuss. Only the coffee supply in the morning was not optimal.

Will I do it again? Probably!