Strata Chalup @ Women in Open Source Mini-Conference
Strata Chalup gave a talk titled "The Secret of Programming" at the Women in Open Source Mini-Conference. Strata's talk was impressive in two ways. It wasn't a prepared talk. She just opened up the floor to questions – questions about anything related to open source. (Although now that I think about it, I don't think she limited it to open source.) The two things that struck me were:
- One, people asked questions. Questions that I think in most settings they might have been afraid of being judged as "stupid questions." I don't know if it was the fact that the audience was almost all women, or if it was the fact that Strata was a woman or if was the way she asked the question and polled the audience. But people asked questions from how does html really work to RSS Feeds to Wine. (Wine as in the Windows on Linux program, not the stuff you drink!)
- The second impressive thing was that Strata answered all of the questions in a very clear way. Even when she was corrected by the audience (by two of the very few men in the room!) she corrected her answer and proceeded to explain how the new model worked. I was impressed.
Strata and I also exchanged "pretty cards" as she put it. It was the first time I had run across anyone else with Moo cards.
