My colleague & me were on the Socrates un-conference in Soltau, Germany.

This was our 2nd Socrates, as we were both at the UK version last year.

Comparison with the UK conference is not very interesting: There were more people than in the UK (this is usually the biggest Socrates by far) and the hotel was new, built specifically for conferences & gatherings. Other than that the venue type was similar and the people were as smart, as kind & as inviting as in the UK.

Comparison with other conferences and life experiences in general is close to impossible. The German Socrates is as radical as the UK Socrates in more than one aspect.

🔪 Aspects

Socrates is a complex endeavour and describing it is difficult. Hence I will do the engineering thing and analyse it. This means chopping it up into pieces (calling them “aspects” to sound like I know what I’m doing) so I can better understand it.

🛠️ Professional

I met a bunch of very very very smart people! These people know a lot & love to talk and to teach about various software crafting and other skills. Their accessibility is the most radical thing. You just ask someone to show you something or talk to you about something and they’ll eagerly accommodate you.

For example, I was on a session describing a mad form of TDD (MAD-TDD) and that evening I realise that the way we do BDD at my current project has some resemblances. At lunch the next day I ask the speaker would he pair with me on an idea related to mad TDD. At dinner that day we pair on a small experiment and I am now ready to explore MAD-BDD!

Everyone’s schedule is full and everyone wants to get to the next session or play a board game, but they’ll all make room in their schedule for you and go out of their way to teach (and with that, to learn) about anything you ask.

There is more patience accumulated at Socrates than at 7 kindergarten-teacher conferences. 🍼

👫 Social

Some issues can’t be explained by Clean Code or any other technical book. A lot of sessions and conversations were about agility. Put differently, they were about the social systems which are created to build software. These systems are complex and seldom optimal. Agility as a term is warily used nowadays (walking on eggshells 🐣) however there is an understanding that the original idea was OK. Some attendees are extremely experienced in navigating those systems and gave the rest of us very valuable advice.

Also, managers are apparently not evil. 🤷

🌍 Worldly

The world is being eaten by software. This is old news. We can’t do anything about it but we can try to ensure the software systems we create do not enforce injustice. Or can we?

Is it inevitable that companies grow to treat their employees like resources?

Is there any viable alternative to the already established techno-feudalism of the ultra-rich?

Now, that’s heavy subject matter. So heavy in fact that I skipped one of those sessions to listen to escape room 🔒 building skills – metaphorically and literally escaping, heh heh.

However, I did attend a couple of those sessions, the last one having dark but towards the end also some lighter notes which left a tiny spark of optimism in me. 🌈

🍭 Playful

Socrates would not be Socrates without some serious silliness. Most of us there are engineers after all.

Among these unconventional activities (ha! as if others were conventional) there were

• billiards 🎱
• board games 🎲
• volleyball 🏐
• table-top roleplaying games 🧙 (only one but that was awesome)
• programming robots 🤖
• intentionally destroying a codebase by refactoring 🧨
• and petting a very nice dog called Luca 🐕

Sober or not 🍺, long conversations about wildly amusing & diverse topics were to be found in every corridor.

I went to sleep late every night, reluctant to leave the conversations. But I wanted to get some sleep for the next day. However, lying in bed I couldn’t fall asleep because my mind was excitedly racing through the events of the day. After I finally fell asleep I would awake the next morning 1.5 hours before the alarm clock, my body still tired but my mind yelling: “Come on, lets go on the ride again, and again, and again!” 🎢

Now at home, after I finally got a night or two of decent sleep I fall into the daily routine again. While going about regular tasks I smile when a memory from the past couple of days pops up and waves to me in passing.

🥳 In closing

Socrates was (again) a warm and inspiring experience. I felt at home with people whom I (mostly) met for the first time in my life. This is what every conference should look like. This is how people should communicate, learn and teach, always.

While waiting for the next year’s Socrates I will not be idle. I will try to spread the experience by organising monthly meetups in Zagreb and any other close-by city that will take me.

What meetups? These meetups: https://www.meetup.com/zagreb-software-crafters/

To wrap this up, I would like to thank:

• Conference organisers, the most selfless beings on the planet: Accept a big 💋 from me!
• All the other attendees: Stay as kind & inclusive as you’ve been at Soltau! I hope to see you all next year!