Eric Lefevre-Ardant on Java & Agile

Last year, at CITCON Amsterdam 2008, a few of us stayed late into the night, drinking beer and discussing the state of the world.

And what to do when you have 21 geeks with time on their hands? Why, predictions, of course! (I want to do it again this year, check out the Google Moderator page I’ve started)

We decided to come up with a number of predictions (and bet on them), some serious, some not, that would be verified at CITCON Europe 2009, the price being beer points. And, the losers will be named and shamed, while the winners will be glorified (at least until new predictions are made, and for no more than a year, whichever is earliest).

Here are the predictions, and the actual outcome (a couple of them were settled by votes at the closing session):

So, out of 14 predictions, we got 11 right, 1 wrong, and 2 undecided.
Now, you may think that the answers were straightforward. But you need to realize that, for each one of them, someone was willing to bet a beer against the consensus. In other words, at the time when the predictions were made, it was not clear cut.

In the interest of the bets, I shall now reveal the names.
Winners (Glory to Them All!)

• Andrew Parker (8 rights, 1 wrong)
• Eric Lefevre (that’s me) (10 rights, 2 wrongs)
• Guillaume Tardif (6 rights, no wrongs)
• Jean-Michel Bea (8 rights, 2 wrongs)
• Pekka Pietikäinen (7 rights, 2 wrongs)

Losers (Boo to Them All!)

• Julian Simpson (3 rights, 4 wrongs)
• Jeffrey Fredrick (3 rights, 6 wrongs)
• Paul Julius (5 rights, 2 wrongs) — PJ is still a loser, ‘cos he has been right on bets with small payoffs
• Tom Sulston (4 rights, 4 wrongs)

I have started a new series of predictions for CITCON Europe 2010. There are two steps:

1. suggest predictions & vote for the best ones
2. when predictions have been selected, vote

To actually win your beers, you’ll have to come to CITCON Europe 2010 (still unannounced).
Please check out the Google Moderator page to propose your own predictions.

If you want to the gritty details, I have a picture of the full spreadsheet.

As I write this, 3 days after the closing, I have still not fully recovered from CITCON Paris 2009. I have been very much involved in organizing this edition, so I would like to indulge in a bit of personal retrospective, mostly on the organization of the conference. This is basically self-reflexion; if that’s not your thing, you can leave. You won’t miss much.

Here goes.

What worked at the conference:

• we had more than 120 participants, which is in line with CITCON’s goals and the highest number ever in all 11 events. Also, it is very close to the number we had estimated ourselves.
• all the people in the waiting list have eventually been invited to join the main registration list; no one was left behind
• costs were well under control, especially thanks to the free use of ISEP’s classrooms
• we got significant money from sponsors; in fact, combined with the well-contained expenses, this event contributed hugely to settle debts from the past events
• quality of food was alright (especially for a free event)
• there were a number of well-known people, helping make this event special for other participants
• twittering was big; according to my feed on Google Reader, there were more than 300 tweets. Including quite a few from people regretting not to have come.

What could have worked better:

• there was not enough food. I think this is partly because the caterer is not a real professional. Even though we had given good estimates for the number of participants, I think that, as the person in charge of the student foyer, he was used mostly to students eating on a budget. If we use such a semi-professional in the future (likely, since we want to use more free venues such as universities), we would be wise to over-estimate the number of participants as far as food is concerned. Just in case.
• Even though we did arrange the chairs in the main room in circles, we left the other rooms as they were, theater-style. This didn’t help having involved discussions (as opposed to presentations).
• I’m wondering if we have not reached the maximum possible number of participants. One of the things that I really enjoyed last year was the late night drinks with the few that dared stay. This year, we were 30 or 40 at the end. Groups started to split up. Guillaume and I led a few to the Ti Jos bar and to the Caveau des Oubliettes. Although nice, it was a bit sad, as there wasn’t really a “closing the closing session” moment. We didn’t even get to do new predictions! (and settle last year’s bets, BTW).
• Some rooms were lacking a video projector. I wonder if it would be good investment for the Open Information Foundation to buy one of those small and inexpensive projectors that have appeared recently on the market

On a more personal note, the conference passed a bit like a blur for me. Despite using OpenSpace Technology, I still ended up as the contact person for many participants, suppliers and sponsors, which was distracting. Also, helping my brother with the filming didn’t help. I even managed to miss out on the (now traditional) “Is Scrum Evil?” session, which had been a favorite of mine last year.

I still had a great time. Met Antony Marcano and Andy Palmer from Pair With Us (they are hoping to join us at the Paris Coding Dojo sometime — looking forward to it) as well as Gojko Adzic, whose copies of book was given away to some lucky participants, and Jason Sankey and Daniel Ostermeier from Zutubi… Reconnected with many former colleagues and friends, too. I also attended a few sessions ;-)

Oh, and last but not least, I’m one of the winners from last year’s bets! What do I win? Well, beer, in theory. But, even better, I get to call PJ, Jeffrey, Tom, Julian and Yegor LOSERS for a year. Priceless.

Check out

• all my pictures from the conference (pictures by others there)
• all the blog posts by participants
• my notes on the session on Mock Objects
• my notes on the session on Faster Tests
• all the notes on the sessions

See you next year, in one of the five cities in our short list (Zürich, Copenhagen, Belgrade, Dublin, and Prague).

Finding a venue for CITCON is always a rather stressful and last minute event. So I am happy to report that we already have found one for CITCON Amsterdam, 3 & 4 October. IBM has been kind enough to let us use their premises, South-West of Amsterdam Center. Thanks!

I already have my train ticket. Now, if I could just find a cheap hotel, all will be good.

The Conference on Continuous Integration & Testing, Asia edition, is tomorrow! I wish I could be there, but the plane ticket is unhelpfully expensive :-(

Well, I’ll have to make up by going to CITCON Amsterdam in October! Who’s joining me?