I am really delighted to have attended the ECOOP conference this year in Rome. While this was my first time at ECOOP, I have attended other PL conferences before (POPL, ICFP), which made this experience a bit different, as I begin a new stage in my life as a researcher. While there is less novelty on attending a conference, I was now able to enjoy different aspects of my time on that basement of the Pontifical Gregorian University. By now I know people in the field, so the conference becomes an opportunity to reunite and talk to people I haven’t seen in a while: Fellow students I’ve met at PLMW and at the Oregon Summer School, and researchers from around the globe.

Of all the amazing events of the week, I focused my time on four: The STOP workshop, Curry On!, the Summer School and the main Research Track of ECOOP.

The lively discussions during the STOP workshop were amazing. This year the workshop was organized by my supervisor (Ronald Garcia), and the topics were all close to my research, so it made for a great start, even while I was trying my best to deal with jet lag.

Curry On! was my first experience of a more industry-oriented conference. It had a particular energy that was very uplifting. My favourite talk was Crista Lopes’ “Exercises in Programming Style”. I also enjoyed all of the keynotes, especially Dave Herman’s.

In retrospective, the Summer School became the overarching event of the week for myself. Every lecture I attended was excellent, and I sadly had to miss some of them due to Student Volunteering shifts. Particularly great for me were the breakfasts: the opportunity to share with three senior mentors in a more relaxed environment was unique. In my case, I was able to talk to Phillipp Haller, Tobias Wrigstad and Matthias Felleisen. I got very nice advice from each, and really appreciated their taking time for this event. I also had the opportunity to mentor two great Italian students, and I’ll fondly remember our conversations during the ECOOP Banquet.

I had to do most of my volunteering during the ECOOP research track, and I look forward to dive into some of the papers I saw there. My favourite two research talks were Fennell’s talk on Gradual Security Types and Jones’ talk on Object Inheritance for Grace (or, more precisely, for “Graceless”). I also really enjoyed James Noble’s talk: A lot happens in half a life in software. I am now looking forward to see what happens to my own half life in the future, and to see what place does ECOOP take in my personal research journey.