So this year I went to Baruco and it was a blast; apart from a few things that well I did not like it that much. So without further ado here is my summary.

The goods

Seems last year when I went to Rubyconf I decided to go to one conference per year. I was planning to go to the same conference again but I wanted to try something different and that’s how I decided to go to Barcelona and also Baruco.

I had the same feeling as when I first tested a single malted whisky; I just love single track conferences; is like you never miss a thing. I wasn’t too much into some of the talks at first but after been there they were engaging and informative as I could never imagine. Too be honest in my head at first I just wanted to see Evan Phoenix’s talk and I did and it was good but there were so many talks teaching something more than just technical stuffs; like the one from Leo Gersing or Jose Albornoz these people show more than just technical knowledge they manage to show us courage and also passion in a very new and deep level.

But in the technical front there were a lot of new things to experiment with like refactoring Ruby code with Monads from Tom Stuart even his lighting talk was also cool. The technical surprise for me was the talk about the standard library from Piotr Szotrowski which gave me a lot of things to play back at where I was staying. I know I’ve just been to two conferences but this is definitely better than Rubyconf.

The bad

Well I’m still into laptop decoration and I always want more stickers; Baruco had none. I don’t know if the sponsors just wanted to be remember because they provides us with a good place for the conference but I really prefer to remember then watching at my own way of art expression through my laptop top. So please next time give more stickers.

The ugly

Programmers had to eat and even this was one of the best points of the entire venue; there was one restaurant that was bad as hell. My friends and I made the mistake of getting into that particular place because the first day was full of people for the conference; but in fact they made the location wise mistake because the food and the service was awful. So I guess what I’m asking for is just to see some reviews and even have a test drive for the places you guys will be offering food from. After a morning of a lot of brain activity we developers will like to have good food.

Conclusion

Love Baruco, love Barcelona and probably will come back next year to enjoy the free drinks, great parties, talks but above all the new and fun Ruby community the one that not just have a high level of technical knowledge but still show a lot of passion about whatever they are doing. Kudos to the organizers of this amazing conference and see you probably next year ;-)