Elixir and Étouffée, name a better duo.

Last month I was in New Orleans giving a talk on Erlang's lexer and parser libraries: leex and yecc. Essentially I was hoping to show that given a bit of creativity and the right tools hard problems can be solved with very few resources.

Which is not too far off with what we're doing at Fission. Working to give developers the tools and primitives to make the hard problem of user owned data easier.

After coming home I have to say to those of you who haven't been to a programming conference, GO! and to those who have, GO AGAIN!

These events are always such a pleasure to attend. It's a space where crazy ideas are shared and reveled in. At times sheerly for the absurdity of it. Corey O'Daniels Todo List made entirely out of Kubernetes comes to mind.

And what better backdrop for this type of experimentation than New Orleans. With its food, architecture and of course its late night music scene. The Big Elixir really knows how to set a progressive programming conference and I'm already looking forward to next year.

It's worth noting that passionate meetups like these are important. Without those who make them possible, Organizers and attendees alike, new ideas would never get momentum and our industry would never see progression. I believe we owe a lot to what gets started in these small collections of experts. Often they can be the first ripple in what becomes a large wave. If nothing else, that's exciting.

If you're interested in learning more about my talk you can find my full slide deck on Notist and a complete tutorial on my personal site.

Finally big thanks to the Drift Engineering team for the awesome shot and helping spread the word!