SuperHappyDevHouse 24
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March 31st, 2008
On Saturday I attended my first ever SuperHappyDevHouse (SHDH). So you are probably wondering, what is the SuperHappyDevHouse? Well, that is hard to explain; in fact, I’m not sure I completely understand yet. This is the description from the SuperHappyDevHouse website:
SuperHappyDevHouse has become the Bay Area’s premier monthly hackathon event that combines serious and not-so-serious productivity with a fun and exciting party atmosphere. Come to the DevHouse to have fun and get things done!
We’re about rapid development, ad-hoc collaboration, and cross pollination. Whether you’re a l33t hax0r, hardcore coder, or passionate designer, if you enjoy software and technology development, SuperHappyDevHouse was made for you.
DevHouse is not a marketing event. It’s a non-exclusive event intended for passionate and creative technical people that want to have some fun, learn new things, and meet new people. In this way, we’re trying to resurrect the spirit of the Homebrew Computer Club. We also draw inspiration from the demoscene as one of the only intentional getting-things-done computer events in the world.
Basically, someone opens up their mansion and provides free food and hundreds of techies gather together with their laptops and other tech toys. It is a very friendly, relaxed atmosphere with a combination of people who only want to talk and people who are really focused at their computers working on projects. And not just basic web development projects either. It was a pretty diverse group of people with a wide range of interests; I met or heard about people working on robots, mobile gaming, Ruby on Rails, and wikis just to name a few.
SHDH is a good chance to meet some fellow developers in the area. This is the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley after all — the heart of the internet/tech industry. You can write code from anywhere, but one of the benefits of living in this area is the proximity of so many other talented programmers. I think I’ll go back again. Although next time I probably won’t show up alone and I’ll have a better idea of what to expect.
