Last weekend, I lead a workshop on game development at the 12th installment of the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE) — a community-run, open-source, free software conference held annually in Los Angeles. SCaLE has grown to 2500 attendees, 100 exhibitors, and 80 sessions and tutorials.
Having attended SCaLE in the past, I had high expectations. This year definitely exceeded them. Being a Linux / general open source conference, SCaLE has a wider variety of technologies and people than most. I met Ubuntu experts from Canonical, engineers from Disney, and even a recruiter at the Apple booth!
Along with breadth of technologies and people, the sessions were incredibly diverse. To illustrate my point, here are some of the sessions I attended:
- Motivational keynote by Lawrence Lessig on corruption in government
- In depth comparison of performance in Linux vs Solaris
- Chef for OpenStack
- Overview of docker.io and Linux containers
- Using Cylon.js to program robots
- Teaching kids to program using KidsRuby
- Being a better human: Check your privilege
- Game development in Ruby (by yours truly)
There were also three great keynotes, which you can watch online:
- Only you can get this, so where are you?
- What Linux can learn from Solaris Performance and Vice Versa
- Why Checking Your Privilege is Good for You
Between the people, the technology, and this eclectic mix of sessions, SCaLE was well worth the trip to L.A. Lots of good information with a diverse crowd; sign me up for next year.
For the curious, here’s a link to the game we build in my workshop using Gamebox:
game sourcecode and slides