Saturday Sessions

This year's PLoP will offer the opportunity to stay over Saturday evening, allowing participants an uninterrupted day (Saturday) to work on any type of project they wish. This can be a chance for pattern writers in a particular area to have some quality time to work on a language, for individuals to write a paper, or for Focus Groups to continue what they started during the main conference.

Saturday will also be a time for special presentations by:

, author of "Project Retropectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews"

Norming: Discovering Our Timeless Way of growing a patterns community.

We've had ten years of PLoP's? Wow! What is it about our patterns culture that has gotten us this far?

Don't casually dismiss this question. To many, what we have accomplished over the last decade seems like magic. Yet, if we don't understand the source of this magic, if we don't understand the foundation of norms that got us this far, we risk losing our way as time, events, interests and membership evolve.

In this session we explore an ancient retrospective technique to preserve our way so we can adapt and grow with the next ten years of challenge and discovery.

A definition from Encarta*:

norm n -- a standard pattern of behavior that is considered normal in a particular society.

A quote for contemplation:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clark, The Lost Worlds of 2001.

* Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation.

, Microsoft Corporation

"OnWard: The next order of magnitude for pattern repositories"

Who is Ward? Many people know him well. He is one of the most respected person in the pattern community. He is also:

• One of the inventors of CRC cards
• One of the pioneers of patterns
• The inventor of Wiki
• Kent Beck said that he learned XP (eXtreme Programming) from Ward
• Special invited speaker to OOPSLA '04

If you are new to PLoP community, you may want to consider taking the Bootcamp.