Here’s a simple redirect in nginx:
server {
listen 80;
server_name tibidat.com;
return 303 $scheme://blog.tibidat.com$request_uri;
}Minimalistic and very readable. Note the usage of a 303; this means
I don’t have to worry about clients with cached 301s should I decide
to change the redirect target at a later time.
TLDR: Scalar Conf was amazing!
The Warszawa-Berlin-Express will take just over 5.5hrs to get me back to my home-country, plenty of time to review Scalar Conf!
Scalar Conf started early, really early. Registration opened at 8 and when I arrived at 7:45 there were already a number of people lined up. Registration itself was quick and uncomplicated. After joining the circle of people with name tags, I got to enjoy some free breakfast, compliments of the sponsors. Initially I was a little insecure, seeing as everyone seemed to already know each other and I didn’t find any groups speaking English.
The conference took place at the Bibliotek Narodowa and the sessions were held inside its auditorium, which I estimate to hold about 200-250 people. The seats were actually really comfortable! There was free WiFi from the beginning, but once the place filled up, connection speeds dropped drastically. I was actually unable to maintain my VPN session and so only went online to fire off the occasional tweet.
At 8:50 the sessions started. The first session by @stefanzeiger, an introduction to slick, was great start and set a high bar for the remainder of the conference.
The morning sessions were a blur of awesome:
By lunch, I felt as though I could spend the rest of the month just reading up on the projects/topics presented.
Lunch was a little messy. But then, having 200+ people converge on a cafeteria made for 50 is always going to be a challenge. The organizers handled it really well, and even though the lunch break had to be extended, the impact on the schedule was negligible. Lunch itself was simply amazing. I had no idea that cafeteria food could be so good (and cheap). Huge kudos to the cafeteria staff!
After lunch, the sessions resumed at the high level I had come to expect - with just one exception where one of the examples was inappropriate and of rather bad taste.
I especially enjoyed @ktosopl’s session on akka-persistance, the tour of Scala’s dark side with @tnurkiewicz and the talk on macro based type providers by @xeno_by and @travisbrown (who in my book would also get the award for best speaker).
The real highlights of the afternoon sessions were the comparison of lambdas in Java 8 and Scala by @gkossakowski and @lkuczera’s talk on scalaz.
Once the sessions finished, the majority of people headed off to join the after-party, which was held at a really nice bar/restaurant nearby: Time for more talking, really strong polish beer (9.8% alc!) and awesome grilled food.
When it was eventually time for me to head back to my hostel, I did so with the certainty that I had attended an amazing event and met some really cool people. I can only hope that there will be another Scalar Conf next year.
Even if it should loose some of its lustre in the aftermath of Java 8, Scala has an amazing community and that alone should be worth checking it out.
Lastly, Warsaw was a really nice location for a conference (although not quite as accessible as some other European metropoles) and is well worth sparing a day for sightseeing.