L-P Huberdeau

To anyone who attend it, there is no doubt about it. CUSEC is the best conference to attend to. Not only for the sessions, but for the people. For the organizers, the event began on Wednesday night to welcome some of the speakers and ended Saturday night, or call it Sunday morning, to close it with the last few remaining. Each day waking up early to prepare the day, but before that, there were months of work and I am certain some of them did cut on sleep a few times. This is the kind of devotion that makes CUSEC the best conference around.

Of course, parties are not enough to get students from 16 universities across Canada to gather in Montreal. High quality presentations is the rule. These were my favorite presentations (no particular order):

• Fear of Flying by Dave Thomas: Dave was standing on the stage. No powerpoints, no gadgets. There was nothing technical to learn from the presentation, but I think most went out of the room changed.
• Software Engineering: Do you want fries with that? by Pete McBreen. Pete’s session started slow. Not many got his British humour during the session and it was slow to start, but by the end, his deep experience broke the barrier.
• Practices of an Agile Developer by Dr. Venkat Subramanian. I missed the beginning of this presentation, but the part I saw was amazing. There was so much energy in the speech, so much enthusiasm. I certainly am looking forward to reading his book. Sadly, due to technical problems, the session was not recorded.
• Bits of Change by Michelle Levesque. The room was packed. At least 10 people were standing up in the back, me inclusive as I usually am late to sessions after running around with the organizers. Did you know programmers made political decisions? I assure you, many of them now do and will keep an eye on it.
• Energy Forecasting with High Performing Databases by Geoff Guenther. This was just one of the best context where to apply Software Engineering I have seen. Critical systems with terrific financial impacts. Measurable objectives. Terabytes of data to manage. Wow!
• Soft Skills by Greg Brill. This was basically a sales speech for his company, but it was done in a subversive way. Still, Greg is one big show on a stage. It was so entertaining. I guess there was still something to learn out of it.
• From Teleoperation to Teleimmersion: Design Challenges for Distributed Interaction by Dr. Jeremy Cooperstock. This was mostly research related. Honestly, sending HD quality videos uncompressed to reduce latency is not realistic.

Even with all those great session, the real value of CUSEC is with the attendees. It’s always fun to meet students from other universities and discuss. It’s not so often you get the occasion to speak to so many students who care about software engineering.

I can’t wait for next year. Hopefully, I will be able to help more this time.

By the way, pictures of the event are available.