When I was with Dries at OOPSLA last year, we presented a poster during the opening reception. The reception had a decent share of food, good food too, as far as I can recall, and plenty of it. There were quite a lot of people and I did not regret making the poster, even though it took quite some time to make.
Had I made one this year, I would have thought the time spent was a waste. Not only did the number of posters this year drop significantly (I know, a dangerous word to use, given my emphasis on decent analysis), the number of people wandering seemed a lot less too, as did the quality of the works that were presented. Of course, the latter might be a subjective statement, but I did (for once) force myself to actually look up closely at most of them, and what I saw did not seem very novel, advanced, or otherwise hot in any way.
Some posters described a way to redefine the syntax to improve readability, but had no real conclusion, as it was ongoing work. Others presented the work done in some workshops today and yesterday, and well, I think that most of the computer scientists I know might have come up with the same stuff without having to think too hard. It all seemed quite obvious, even to me, and I am certainly no expert in that field. On the other hand, I was told my work was obvious to by a member of my PhD. jury, while the other jury members argued back that this assuredly was not the case – it was not, trust me, although in hindsight … Anyhow, I did not find much I thought worthwhile, and given the fact that the crowd was starting to slip out around 7 p.m. – half an hour before the end of the reception – other people felt the same way.
Of less professional importance, but quite important reception-wise, was the fact that most of the food on the platters was ingested by 6:15 p.m. I tried the warm food as well, but the girl heating my chicken (a good thing it had been baked thoroughly prior to heating) did not do a good job, as most of the pieces were still cold. No decent selection of beers: they served Heineken and some others that were probably as bad. No coca-cola, but bloody pepsi. If you are going to give people a sugar shock, at least use the right tools available for it, I’d say. No orange juice, only (cold) water. And wine. I did not dare try those. So, I walked out with to drink tickets left in my pocket, the desire to share them with some poor sod hooked on Heineken had drained somehow.
All in all, a disappointing hour spent. I hope the conference proves to be better, but I suspect the number of participants will be lower than last year. I also checked out the hall where I am going to talk on Thursday, and the gear is going down a notch every year. In 2004, I spoke in the main hall, where two large screens projected my slides and myself (they filmed the whole thing), last year they had a decent screen in the middle of the room. This year, the screen (at least today) was standing on the right side of the room, and had once more decreased in size, along with the room where the research papers are to be presented. Sadness.