"I have had the opportunity in the past to see Damian Conway's Advanced OOP talk but for one reason or another didn't ever make it. Well, it was definitely the highlight of the conference so far for me. Lots of information presented in a way that is easily digestible while remaining rather dense. Definitely the best technical talk I have ever attended if for no other reason than the skill of the speaker."
"Your reviews [for "Practical Parsing" and "Advanced OO Perl"] were incredible. Absolutely incredible. Mindbogglingly so. Not a single element of the "rate this thing from 1 to 5" series had a mean of less than 93%. Unbelievable. I'm still in shock."
"I don't remember ever attending a whole day presentation that would fly by like a breeze, where every minute would feel well spent and I would come back home entirely satisfied, with a new mental framework in place upon which I can mount further knowledge and experience as a I practice what I've been just taught. I've read enthusiastic reviews of Presentation Aikido by Damian Conway before attending this tutorial yesterday...Even though my expectations were therefore already very high, I was still blown away by the quality of Conway's presentation. He has forever influenced how I deliver my presentations..."
"I really enjoyed your OO talk. Your presentation was polished, informative, and lively. And you still stayed in the time allotted. Thank you again for your many solutions which we will make use of in the coming year."
"Fantastic. I thought Damian was amazing and thought that [attending his course] was 2 days very well spent."
"Imagine if someone offered you the chance to see Richard Feynman or Einstein? Well, he's no Stephen Hawking with a robotic exoskeleton and a shotgun, but he surely is *something*!"
"Again, brilliant talks these past two evenings in Seattle. Both were highly enjoyable. I'm not at all an object oriented person, but the multimethods talk really started to make sense."
"Having seen him give this lecture ["Quantum::Superpositions"] last week at the Silicon Valley Perl Mongers meeting, I can't stress how good a lecture it is. It's one of the best I've ever been to. Mind you, does anyone need encouraging to go and see Damian Conway talk?"
"Dr. Damian Conway is an extremely clever, creative, witty, and entertaining lecturer. He has been aptly characterized as a cross between Donald Knuth and Monty Python."
"Why study with Damian? Because he's so smart, such a good teacher, and so knowledgeable about the latest developments in Perl, that you'll learn so much your head will hurt (but in a GOOD way!)"
"Amazing!"
"I was fortunate enough to be able to get my workplace to spring to send some of us to training (Data Munging for myself, OO Perl for some of my more technically evolved co-workers). And Damian did his Extreme Perl talk during the monthly meeting. If you get a chance to catch either of these options (the more serious training, or the more brain-confounding talk), do so. Damian's an entertaining speaker, and his talks further provide great chunks of knowledge."
"Too much fun; should be declared illegal!"
"Need I comment? Damian is obviously a very sick and twisted man to understand Perl to such depths – and thank goodness he is!"
"Damian mucks it up in the corners; he works the fundamentals; he skates hard for all three periods; he comes out with full intensity every game. (These are all good things.) This class ["Advanced OO Perl"] rocks!"
"Damian is the most engaging and motivated instructor I've had the pleasure of seeing. I can't wait to see what he has up his sleeve in the next twenty years!"
"I really can't do justice to Damian's talk. It was too dense, too polished, and too hilarious to be summarized. It was one of those great moments that only the people who directly experienced it will be able to appreciate fully. Damian's talk was part performance art, part intellectual synthesis, part college lecture, and part Perl Wizardry."
"Really, really, really knows it! I really, really, really like the [written course] material."
"Damian's talk was a masterful reflection of all the things we love about Perl: It was clever, complex, elegant, and, most of all, it was fun."
"I attended the OO and parsing classes that he taught. I highly recommend his classes; if you have an opportunity to take any of them, don't balk at the expense."
"Then another guy named Damian Conway got up to speak. Let me say this once and I will stand by this absolutely. This guys lecture alone was worth the price of the conference. I wish to high heaven that I could take any CS class he teaches. He was amazing. If my CS profs were half as awesome as this guy I never would have left. I probably would have stayed to do my Phd. Absolutely unreal! If you ever get a chance to hear him speak do whatever you need to do to make it happen but do make it happen and go see him speak. Never in my entire career in CS have I ever seen a speaker this good. No joke."
"Damian is a fantastic teacher and really knows how to entertain as well as enlighten."
"Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant talk by Damian! Side splitting comedy, new functions that made the entire audience drool. The only time I'd ever seen a standing ovation for a seminar! Have I mentioned already that this talk was brilliant?"
"Very knowledgeable (for obvious reasons) as well as congenial and animated. Made the subject quite fun and very enticing."
"Highest class of instruction I've had since graduate school in the 1970's!"
"Awesome presentation. Instructor has thorough knowledge of subject, obviously. Very good speaker."
"I would tell anyone who could take a course with Damian to take it – hands down."
"There's no better way to hear it than from one of the world's best experts!"
"Thanks again for the excellent job of bringing light to the unenlightened (at least in my case :-). I came away from the three days (and half night) with my brain stuffed as full as it could get. Hopefully not too much fell off the bottom of the stack. I've been working through some of the concepts from the Parsing class and hope to finish that off and put the result into production next week sometime."
"Excellent! Damian knew the material comprehensively and also knows how to teach it effectively."
"Informative and interesting; not boring. Lively speaker; no way to get any sleep in here."
"Intellectual inventiveness – and a wide range of examples."
"Great pace/instruction. Damian is an excellent teacher; very creative and knowledgeable. The humor really made for a great presentation."
"The tutorial was fun and entertaining. It presented OO Perl in ways I had never thought of before. Even though this was advanced Perl OO, it had a good, quick description of OO basics. The best part was that I felt I learned a lot, even though I have read Perl books."
"Damian is just in another league. An academic and prolific columnist who has hit the speaking circuit, this guy takes onstage intellect, wit and delivery to a whole new level. I wish I'd had a lecturer this good when I was a student (I may have attended more lectures, for starters!). His delivery of an analysis of web usability from the perspective of a real user was just superb."
"I was very fortunate at Euro Oscon to spend an hour or two with Damian Conway, a master of the art of public speaking. The time I spent with Damian had a dramatic impact on me, how I approached the art of speaking and the information I presented. If you ever have the chance to hear Damian speak I would recommend it wholeheartedly, he is an outstandingly gifted. If you ever get the chance to spend time with Damian, then grab it."
"It was one incredible mind stretcher! I've learned far more about Perl Objects than I ever expected existed."
"Following your [Presentation Skills] class, I worked hard to apply your suggestions to my next couple of presentations, and I have been delighted with the results. My performance has improved by an order of magnitude, both in my slides and my delivery."
"Instructor is GREAT speaker and very captivating. Great information and real world application examples."
"Brain bending (I was thinking of new things at every break)."
"Damian Conway has phenomenal command of the material and exceptional communication skills."
I wish I could summarize Damian's presentations here but there's no way I can do it justice. If you ever, ever, ever have a chance to see a presentation by Damian Conway, or take a class from him in Australia or anywhere else, do it. He is by far the most dynamic and talented public speaker I've ever had the pleasure to witness.
"The very detailed and advanced information. Almost every topic taught me something I didn't know. This class expanded and twisted my mind like very few things had done before in the field of Perl programming."
"The thing I liked most was the range of examples and the degree to which Damian's work embodies the spirit of Perl."
"Very entertaining! Kept whole audience in a stitches. Very clever use of puns, words, and ideas. Very quick on questions. Extraordinary knowledge."
"A mental note for future conferences: If the session you're in sucks, and Conway is speaking, it doesn't matter what he's talking about, just go to that one."
"Damian Conway's 'Perl Best Practices' class was a godsend. It's a good conference when the first tutorial on the first day pays for itself."
"I had heard about this talk before but actually experiencing it was quite another matter. It was, to understate my response, excellent. And, at the moment, I'm uncertain as to how or where to even begin describing it. Simply stating that he used quantum finite state automata, written in Klingon, to demonstrate Maxwell's demon doesn't begin to do it justice. No, it really doesn't."
"Exceptionally confident, uncommonly knowledgable, wickedly witty."
"You really had to be there to understand how weirdly cool this was. Truly mind blowing, as I have come to expect from Damian's talks."
"Damian is a truly world-class speaker."
"Damian's keynote at YOW! 2011 was superb. His goal was simple: take developers in the audience outside of their comfort zones by wrapping programming ideas and techniques in quantum mechanical clothing--a truly brilliant idea delivered to perfection"
"Damian is a witty, engaging and experienced speaker and it shows in his delivery style and the quality of his talk and slides. He makes the whole process of presenting look effortless. Of course, if you had attended his class on presentations you would know that he had already practiced his talk at least three times in the week before. That was an important lesson and it does help as it makes you confident and knowledgable about the flow of your talk. There were several other tricks that Damian gave in that presentation and if you get a chance to attend, I recommend you take it."
"But, Damian. Once again, his talk was pure madness and brilliance. His talks have given me more inspiration and motivation to write code – and good code at that – than I have had in a long time. Depending upon one's projects, one's environment, and any number of other factors, writing code can become drudgery. It had become drudgery for me. I can't be certain that this motivation will remain, but I have thought about and written more code in the past week than I have in quite some time – and enjoyed it. Writing code had stopped being fun. I could still do it, yes, and I did, but the zeal and desire were gone. Since Damian's talks, however, the passion has returned. Yes, even when writing Java – but then I've always had a bit of a ascetic and masochistic streak to me. Thank you, Damian Conway."
"As usual, Damian's talk was fantastic. He's a dynamic speaker, using funny voices, humor/sarcasm (directed both at himself and the audience), and materials effectively. But mostly his talks are great because he's very insightful."
"Speaking of the undisputed master of short stories O. Henry, Henry James Forman said this "It is idle to compare O. Henry with anybody. The combination of technical excellence with whimsical sparkling wit, abundant humor, and fertile invention is so rare that the reader is content without comparisons." Except for the different medium those words ring true for the inimitable talent of Damian Conway as a speaker."
"Tuesday is where my mind exploded for the first time. I had herd of Damian Conway before and [my friend] even mentioned that he was a great speaker but nothing could have prepared me for his keynote. If you are EVER presented the opportunity of attending one of his lectures or presentations DO NOT MISS IT!"
"Damian Conway is by far The Man at all things programming related. He is also the best presenter I have ever seen. I cannot even give it justice, it is just something you have to see in person to truely understand. My boss told me that one of the sessions I signed up for would be a life changing experience. As one could guess, Mr. Conway was the speaker."
"A Conway talk is always interesting, you normally spend it either sitting in awe of his achievement, his presentation style or just his raw energy, if you aren't frantically trying to write down every word he says..."
"Not only was his material excellent, but also his ability to speak. Dr. Conway is a true pleasure to listen to. He has a real flair for getting complex thoughts across."
"Damian is a top-notch instructor. I was extremely pleased. It's good to be taught by leaders in the field!"
"I can easily say this is the best lecture in computing I’ve attended in my life, including my entire three years at Imperial College."