In March 2020 I attended the Southern California Linux Expo in Pasadena, California not knowing that I would not be physically present at a computer conference for over two years later. When a good part of you job involves speaking at or attending conferences, it is a big shock to suddenly stop. I did participate in many virtual events but there are things about live events that can not be duplicated over Zoom or the dozens of other similar environments.
The Silicon Valley PostgreSQL conference was my first time in twenty five months since I had been physically at a show. Many of the other attendees had had similar gaps. Some of us joked that we worried that our previous ninja-level travel skills were rusty and voiced concerns that they may have forgotten to pack essentials after being a home for a very long time.
The big impact that everyone recognized was the 'hallway track'. This is where you see a familiar face or meet a new acquaintance and talk. Simply talk? Well, yes. Other cases it is a serendipitous exploration of something new. For example there was a discussion on that get written to the logs during a transaction but before a commit that would survive a system crash. PostgreSQL internals are not my forte but it was interesting to have a major code committer walk through the various steps of how the various components work within a transaction. The analog is a homeowner learning how the plumbing in their house functions. These things may be mundane to many but I find joy in exploring new things.
The other big impact is meeting co-workers face-to-face. I am very new in my new position at Percona and had the opportunity to meet a handful of colleagues. We humans are a social bunch and I do not think video meetings provide the full experience of interacting with others. I knew my co-workers were an impressive bunch and that idea was more than reinforced at the conference.
Many virtual conferences had limited ability to ask speakers questions during or after a session. It was enjoyable to be able to ask speakers questions during a lunch break or while getting coffee. Presenting to a screen provides minimal feedback to a speaker and having a live audience brings a needed vitality. Sometimes clarity on a point is needed or a tangent needs to touched. You don't get that from a pre-recorded presentation from either side of the presentation.
I was able to learn a great deal about PostgreSQL and the community at the conference. After being in the MySQL sphere, there a lot of things that are different and so many things that are similar. Meeting people passionate about an open source software project is energizing. PostgreSQL is an impressive database rich with features and is supported by an energetic group of hard working people who are striving to make improvements.
My next event is Percona Live next May in Austin. This is an open source database show that is not specific to a single database technology. Hopefully I can meet up with you there.
