Keynote: Love, Limerence, and Programming Languages

They say that a well-used tool takes on the shape of the hand that uses it. But the opposite also holds: the tools we use shape the way we think about and execute things. Often, we aren't even aware how much influence the tool has on us.

This is a personal talk: I want to look back at the languages that changed me as a developer. Why was I attracted to them, why did I use them, and how did I benefit as a result. I also want to look forward, and offer some suggestions: things you might look for in a future coding partner. I even have some suggestions. Whether you swipe right is your choice.

Panel Discussion

Dave will also host a panel discussion which will, per Dave's wishes, be an uninterrupted conversation between Matz, José Valim and himself.

This session will close the conference.

Bio

Dave Thomas (@pragdave) is a cornerstone of the Ruby community, and is personally responsible for many of its innovative directions and initiatives. Dave is a programmer, and now he is an accidental publisher. He wrote The Pragmatic Programmer with Andy Hunt at the end of the '90s, and that experience opened a new world for them. They discovered a love of writing that complemented their love of learning new things. Dave is one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, and he is probably responsible for bringing Ruby to attention of Western developers with the book Programming Ruby. He was one of the first adopters of Rails, and helped spread the word with the book Agile Web Development with Rails. He enjoys speaking at conferences, running public and private training. But most of all, he loves coding. PragDave.com