CLA Summits

[swatts]

Tomorrow the CLA Summit in Austin starts and I really wish I was there. Ah well I'll have fun in Roma.

So just to bring everyone up to speed.....

CLA = Certified LabVIEW Architect <--- highest LabVIEW certification.

Every year there are 2 CLA summits, one in Austin and one in Europe. A subject is picked (which I usually studiously ignore for my presentation), and 2 days of presentations and a day of round table discussions follow.

It's full on! and I have to admit I begin to flag after day 2 and while I'm in confession I'll also admit that sometimes the discussions go right over my head, but that's actually a really good thing. I want to be challenged by the discussions, it's brilliant. For me the main education I now get is from the community.

The software process is coming to the fore and currently there's a focus on Agile, LabVIEW fits very nicely with the Agile Manifesto. In fact Kent Beck would explode with joy if he saw the inclusive way most LabVIEW projects are developed. The only thing I would like, is for us to push our own manifesto, I strongly believe that LabVIEW is sufficiently different and rapid that it bends standard processes somewhat.

The focus in Europe seems to be more at looking into architectural issues and pulling them apart. Also 6 of the presenters come from our user group CSLUG, it's something of which I'm pretty proud.

I'll also doff my cap to the new CLD summits, I attended the latter part of the inaugural summit in Newbury and it was excellent.

Austin in March smells nice to my European nose, is it the Cedar?

I'm enjoying preparing my presentation this year, it's something a bit different again, hopefully it will sit in the back of peoples mind and niggle away at them. It's been a long time in gestation and explores some thoughts I've been mulling for years now. The start of formalising the concepts started here and in the LabVIEW Rocks section of our book. I really want to get a handle on why I found LabVIEW to be different to the other languages I've used.

So if you need an excuse to get certified, it's hard to get and easy to keep and you get to meet up with clever people in nice places, as a bonus you get your brain filled up with ideas.

So for everyone who is attending travel carefully and enjoy!

Lots of Love

Steve