TITLE: I am Going to PLoP 2013.  Yeah!
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 15, 2013 10:25 AM
DESC: 
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On Friday, an e-mail message was sent to a number of mailing lists
inviting people to register for
<A HREF="http://www.hillside.net/plop/2013/index.php">
   the 20th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs</A>,
also known as PLoP 2013.  In part, it said:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 ... this time a lot of old-timers will also participate, among them
 Ward Cunningham, Peter Sommerlad, Kyle Brown, Joshua Kerievsky,
 Eugene Wallingford, Jenny Quillien, Joe Yoder, Ralph Johnson,
 Richard Gabriel, Robert Hanmer, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, Lise Hvatum,
 and Ademar Aguiar.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

When I saw this, I felt as if I were a prop in a game of "One of
these things is not like the others...".  My name will surely raise
a few "Huh?"s in a list that contains Ward Cunningham, Ralph Johnson,
Richard Gabriel, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, and a number of other well-known
book authors.  I am, however, willing to admit that I am now an
old-timer!

Yes, I am going to PLoP again this year.  After attending for ten
straight years, 1996-2005, chairing the 2000 conference, serving on a
number of program committees, and chairing a few ChiliPLoPs, school
duties pulled me away.  Becoming department head ate a lot of my time,
and I found myself writing less.  Also, in 2006, PLoP left
<A HREF="http://allerton.illinois.edu/">
   Allerton Park</A>
and collocated with OOPSLA/SPLASH for a few years.  That made going
to PLoP a bigger time commitment for me than driving a few hours to
the southeast.

This year, PLoP returns to Allerton Park, which is an awesome site
for a conference: remote, relaxing, unusual, and stimulating.  It is
also a great place
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-09.html#e2004-09-16T07_43_33.htm">
   to run</A>
and ride.

I am excited to be going back to Allerton and to PLoP this year.  I
look forward to seeing so many of the old gang.  I also look forward
to making new friends among the software practitioners who are working
hard to document the deep design and implementation knowledge of how
to write programs.  So much of this knowledge is created in the
trenches, after we graduate from school and start making things under
varied constraints.  Fortunately, there are developers out there who
are trying to write that knowledge down -- and write it well.

Sadly, I don't have a paper in a workshop this year.  The writers'
workshop is one of the key innovations brought to the software
world by the patterns community, and I enjoy them.

I will be participating in some of the 20th anniversary events, I'm
sure, as well as helping with a working group on pedagogical patterns.
There has been a lot of interesting work going on in this space over
the last few years, especially in Europe, under the leadership of
<A HREF="http://www.koeppe.nl/">
   Christian K&ouml;ppe</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.iwm-kmrc.de/www/en/mitarbeiter/ma.html?dispname=Christian+Kohls&uid=ckohls">
   Christian Kohls</A>,
and others.  PLoP will give me a chance to meet the people doing
this new work and to work with them.

So, count this patterns old-timer as excited about the chance to
renew friendships with other old-timers and the chance to make new
friendships with the new standard bearers.  And about the chance
to savor again the unique atmosphere of Allerton Park.

First, though, I head to
<A HREF="https://thestrangeloop.com/">
   StrangeLoop 2013</A>
later this week.  I am psyched.
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