| # GopherCon 2014 Wrap Up | |
| 28 May 2014 | |
| Summary: Reporting from GopherCon 2014. | |
| Andrew Gerrand | |
| adg@golang.org | |
| ## | |
| In April this year 700 gophers descended upon Denver to attend [GopherCon](http://www.gophercon.com/), | |
| the world's first large-scale Go conference, organized entirely by the community. | |
| The three day event featured 24 talks and one panel discussion in a single track over two days, | |
| followed by an informal "hack day" full of code, conversation, | |
| and more than 4 hours (!) of lightning talks. | |
| .image gophercon/image02.jpg | |
| A [complete set of video recordings](http://confreaks.com/events/gophercon2014) is now available | |
| (the [slides are here](https://github.com/gophercon/2014-talks)). | |
| Two keynotes framed the conference: | |
| - Rob Pike's opening talk ["Hello, Gophers!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoS7DsT1rdM) ([slides](https://talks.golang.org/2014/hellogophers.slide)) | |
| discusses the history of Go by walking through two of the first Go programs. | |
| - Andrew Gerrand's closing talk ["Go for gophers"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKGmK_Z1Zl0) ([slides](https://talks.golang.org/2014/go4gophers.slide)) explains | |
| the Go design philosophy through the lens of his personal experience learning the language. | |
| One talk that resonated with members of the Go team was Peter Bourgon's | |
| ["Best practices for Production Environments"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1-RLAl7iOI) | |
| ([notes](http://peter.bourgon.org/go-in-production/)). | |
| From deployment to dependency management, | |
| it answers many frequently asked questions about Go use in the real world | |
| and is a must-see for anyone serious about building systems in Go. | |
| But, really, you should just [watch them all](http://confreaks.com/events/gophercon2014). | |
| They're great. | |
| The Go Gopher was everywhere. | |
| Each attendee received one of the new pink and purple gophers, | |
| which now accompany the original blue one: | |
| .image gophercon/image01.jpg | |
| The gopher was also seen wearing a cape on the side of the incredible [CoreOS](https://coreos.com/) bus: | |
| .image gophercon/image00.jpg | |
| Most of the Go team were at the conference, | |
| and we were moved by the passion and dedication of the Go community. | |
| It was a thrill to see the many different ways people are using the language. | |
| It was also great to put faces to many of the names we know well through their contributions to the project. | |
| We would like to extend our thanks and congratulations to the GopherCon | |
| organizers (Brian Ketelsen and Erik St. | |
| Martin), the excellent speakers, and the tireless volunteers that pitched | |
| in to make the event such a success. | |
| We look forward to GopherCon 2015, which promises to be bigger and better still. | |
| But if you really can't wait, we'll see you at [dotGo](http://www.dotgo.eu/) in Paris on the 10th of October! |