We’re here, we’re excited and Naxos greeted us with sweltering temperatures and beautiful sunshine on Saturday. Being the oldest Greek settlement in Sicily, founded before Syracuse, around 735 BC, Naxos has a lot to offer. The Atahotel Naxos venue, where the user meeting is taking place, is situated right on the coast with a fantastic view to the impressive Mount Etna – by far the largest of Europe’s active volcanos.

After some people arriving without luggage, due to huge thunderstorms in Rome both Friday and Saturday, we’re now settled and the luggage issues have been sorted. Today, the weather changed to overcast, thunder and light rain and a more bearable temperature. Which was just as well, as Sunday is WORKSHOP day.

You will find more detailed blog posts from a couple of today’s workshops:

• Morten Kromberg’s Parallel Programing with Futures and Isolates
• Brian Becker’s Building a Web Application with MiServer 3.0

Another noticeable workshop today was Dan Baronet’s Recent Language Features in Practice, covering the recently added operators Rank (⍥) and Key (⌸).

Tomorrow the user meeting sessions kick off, and we’re anticipating some hugely interesting and engaging days. This year, the Viking challenge has been swapped for an excursion to Mount Etna, which is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Sensible walking shoes recommended. We are looking forward to loads a pictures with ‘thumbs up’ when we get to the top!