d.construct deconstructed

Posted by Neil Crosby on September 11, 2006 07:45 PM

(Sorry about the title, it had to be done.)

So, last Friday I went to the second annual d.construct conference down in Brighton. The main thrust of the day was that APIs are good, you should definitely be using them internally to allow a well defined process for accessing/altering your data, and you may find a benefit in releasing a public API to allow the public to build on what you’ve done by mashing it up with other people’s services. And, as Jeremy Keith said, we mustn’t forget that RSS is an API. So that’s good.

Outside of the talks themselves, I found d.construct to be a more pleasant experience for me personally than @media. This was, in large part, because I already knew some of the people who were there. As I sat down ready for the opening address Christian Heilmann sat down in front of me, stroked my knee and said ‘mmm, working with yooou’. He then proceeded to implant an image of Norm in a bikini into my head. No amount of brain bleach has managed to remove it.

As well as Christian, I also happened upon Ross Bruniges and Trev Morris again and spent most of the day with them. As well as them, I also spent a fair bit of time with Faruk Ates (I was amused when someone said to him “oh, so you’re Faruk! You look different from your pictures!â€?), Frances Berriman, David Thompson, Olly Hodgson, Aral Balkan, Niqui Merret (‘I flash for a living, and teach people how to flash’), Ben Ward, Steve Marshall and many more whose names escape me at the moment. Oh, and The Internet’s Drew McLellan remembered who I was and came and said hello even though we’d previously only met very briefly at the WSG meeting back in July. Which was nice.

Have I done enough name dropping yet? Why yes, I believe I have!

Overall, I really enjoyed the day, and I’m looking forward to next year’s event. My only complaints (along with plenty of other people it seems) are that there really wasn’t enough leg room available and that there was only tea and coffee available to drink (as well as Yahoo! Branded water from the Yahoo! Answers bus). As a non tea/coffee drinker, some orange juice would have been utterly fantastic.

There’s lots of other stuff I could have talked about (lovely food at Carluccio’s, coming home with a large list of bands I’ve never heard of, my Flickr photos), but I’ll leave it there. Two thumbs and a pair of aching knees up for d.construct 2006!

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