OSCON is just around the corner. I’ve spent the past few weeks lining up the final details of the program. I’m really happy with it. We’ve got a good mix of talks from the big open source projects and languages, some hot web technologies, and a few surprises. One of the fun aspects of organizing a conference like this is the chance to throw some real gems into the mix. Here are a couple of talks I’m particularly looking forward to that you might miss if you’re not looking closely:
Web Heresies: The Seaside Framework by Avi Bryant – Seaside is an open source web framework written in Smalltalk. Everyone looks up to Rails as an innovative, easy-to-use, rapid-development framework, but the Rails developers look up to Seaside. It’s worth listening to the interview with Avi on the Ruby on Rails Podcast from late last year.
Programming the Kernel for Web 2.0 by Audrey Tang – we talk about Web 2.0 as an “operating system”, but most of the development energy in Web 2.0 goes into the “desktop applications” for the platform. Audrey has taken some of the best ideas from Rails, Seaside, Springs, and a handful of other frameworks and pushed them to the next level. It’s a taste of what we’re likely to see more and more of in the coming years as the Web 2.0 “kernel” matures.