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digitalmars.D - Please don't do a DConf 2018, consider alternatives

reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next 
DConf, so I'd like to make sure people are aware that the 
conference format that DConf uses is dying off, as explained here:

https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era

There was a discussion about this in a previous forum thread:

https://forum.dlang.org/post/bnbldtdfeppzjuthxdxa forum.dlang.org

Jonathan and Mike argue in that thread that DConf is great for 
the core team to get together in person and hash things out for D 
with very high-bandwidth interaction, but I pointed out that 
doesn't justify 95%+ of the attendees being there. If there's a 
real need for this, maybe get those 8-15 people together in an 
online video conference or offline retreat, without a bunch of 
hangers-on and talks.

People are now experimenting with what replaces conferences, we 
should be doing that too. I came up with some ideas in that 
thread:

"Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or 
smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not 
much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to get 
those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, both in 
content and presentation, before posting them online."

I volunteer to help presenters do this.

"Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several 
cities [all over the world], where a few livestreamed talks may 
talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time 
producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the 
hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in 
smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries for 
the future."

I can setup an event like this in my city, where AFAIK nobody 
uses D, so most of it would be geared towards introducing them to 
the language.

I estimate that you could do ten times better at raising 
awareness and uptake with this approach than the current DConf 
format, by casting a much wider net, and it would cost about 10X 
less, ie you get two orders of magnitude better bang for the buck.

At the very least, DConf should just be a big hackathon of 
self-organizing groups, rather than wasting any time passively 
imbibing talks next to a hundred other people. I still don't 
think the cost of getting a hundred people in the same room for 
3-4 days would be justified, but at least it would be a step in 
the right direction.
Oct 01 2018
next sibling parent reply bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next 
 DConf, so I'd like to make sure people are aware that the 
 conference format that DConf uses is dying off, as explained 
 here:

 https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era

 There was a discussion about this in a previous forum thread:

 https://forum.dlang.org/post/bnbldtdfeppzjuthxdxa forum.dlang.org

 Jonathan and Mike argue in that thread that DConf is great for 
 the core team to get together in person and hash things out for 
 D with very high-bandwidth interaction, but I pointed out that 
 doesn't justify 95%+ of the attendees being there. If there's a 
 real need for this, maybe get those 8-15 people together in an 
 online video conference or offline retreat, without a bunch of 
 hangers-on and talks.

 People are now experimenting with what replaces conferences, we 
 should be doing that too. I came up with some ideas in that 
 thread:

 "Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or 
 smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not 
 much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to 
 get those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, 
 both in content and presentation, before posting them online."

 I volunteer to help presenters do this.

 "Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several 
 cities [all over the world], where a few livestreamed talks may 
 talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time 
 producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the 
 hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in 
 smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries 
 for the future."

 I can setup an event like this in my city, where AFAIK nobody 
 uses D, so most of it would be geared towards introducing them 
 to the language.

 I estimate that you could do ten times better at raising 
 awareness and uptake with this approach than the current DConf 
 format, by casting a much wider net, and it would cost about 
 10X less, ie you get two orders of magnitude better bang for 
 the buck.

 At the very least, DConf should just be a big hackathon of 
 self-organizing groups, rather than wasting any time passively 
 imbibing talks next to a hundred other people. I still don't 
 think the cost of getting a hundred people in the same room for 
 3-4 days would be justified, but at least it would be a step in 
 the right direction.


I highly disagree with this.

I love conferences and meetups.

It's good socially and a conference is not 100% just about the 
topic it hosts.

Ex. for D conf there is much more than just D. There is also the 
minor escape from reality to new surroundings, like a mini 
vacation etc.

Please do not get rid of D Conf, because next year I can finally 
attend.
Oct 02 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 07:14:54 UTC, bauss wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 [...]


 I highly disagree with this.

 I love conferences and meetups.

 It's good socially and a conference is not 100% just about the 
 topic it hosts.


I think you didn't read what I wrote, as nowhere did I say not to 
gather people in conferences or meetups, but that the traditional 
conference _format_, as exemplified by previous DConfs, is a 
waste of time.


 Ex. for D conf there is much more than just D. There is also 
 the minor escape from reality to new surroundings, like a mini 
 vacation etc.


Thank you for making clear that the real reason you and some 
others like the current format is because you want to have a fun 
"vacation"- as I pointed out in that earlier thread- rather than 
anything to do with D or advancing the ecosystem.
Oct 02 2018
next sibling parent reply Gary Willoughby <dev nomad.uk.net> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 07:32:58 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Thank you for making clear that the real reason you and some 
 others like the current format is because you want to have a 
 fun "vacation"- as I pointed out in that earlier thread- rather 
 than anything to do with D or advancing the ecosystem.


Yes, please let's not have any fun at Dconf this year!!! /s
Oct 02 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 08:08:38 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 07:32:58 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Thank you for making clear that the real reason you and some 
 others like the current format is because you want to have a 
 fun "vacation"- as I pointed out in that earlier thread- 
 rather than anything to do with D or advancing the ecosystem.


 Yes, please let's not have any fun at Dconf this year!!! /s


Then why are you sitting around listening to boring tech talks on 
your "super-fun" vacation? Get W&A and a bunch of other D devs 
and go on a boat tour of the Greek islands! You'll have a lot 
more fun!!! endSarcasm()
Oct 02 2018
parent reply maarten van damme <maartenvd1994 gmail.com> writes:
While I have never attended dconf itself, conferences itself usually aren't
about the talks but about the people you meet and get to interact with.

Op di 2 okt. 2018 om 10:15 schreef Joakim via Digitalmars-d <
digitalmars-d puremagic.com>:


 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 08:08:38 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 07:32:58 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Thank you for making clear that the real reason you and some
 others like the current format is because you want to have a
 fun "vacation"- as I pointed out in that earlier thread-
 rather than anything to do with D or advancing the ecosystem.


 Yes, please let's not have any fun at Dconf this year!!! /s


 Then why are you sitting around listening to boring tech talks on
 your "super-fun" vacation? Get W&A and a bunch of other D devs
 and go on a boat tour of the Greek islands! You'll have a lot
 more fun!!! endSarcasm()
Oct 02 2018
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 08:21:11 UTC, maarten van damme 
wrote:

 While I have never attended dconf itself, conferences itself 
 usually aren't about the talks but about the people you meet 
 and get to interact with.


Since this thread is about replacing the outdated DConf format 
with two possible in-person formats that feature _more_ 
interpersonal interaction, I have no idea why you're making this 
point to me.

On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 08:56:36 UTC, bauss wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 07:32:58 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Ex. for D conf there is much more than just D. There is also 
 the minor escape from reality to new surroundings, like a 
 mini vacation etc.


 Thank you for making clear that the real reason you and some 
 others like the current format is because you want to have a 
 fun "vacation"- as I pointed out in that earlier thread- 
 rather than anything to do with D or advancing the ecosystem.


 Thank you for not reading everything I said and literally only 
 the past 5 words; I said it's also that, but not entirely.


Everything you wrote before that I addressed with a separate 
comment which you didn't cut-n-paste, maybe you missed that too.

As for this justification, the only reason you gave is that it's 
a "escape from reality"/"mini vacation", along with hand-waving 
about "much more." I can't address reasons you never gave.
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling parent bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 07:32:58 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Ex. for D conf there is much more than just D. There is also 
 the minor escape from reality to new surroundings, like a mini 
 vacation etc.


 Thank you for making clear that the real reason you and some 
 others like the current format is because you want to have a 
 fun "vacation"- as I pointed out in that earlier thread- rather 
 than anything to do with D or advancing the ecosystem.


Thank you for not reading everything I said and literally only 
the past 5 words; I said it's also that, but not entirely.
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Adam Wilson <flyboynw gmail.com> writes:
On 10/1/18 11:26 PM, Joakim wrote:

 [snip]


I disagree. There is much more to the conference than just a 4-day 
meetup with talks. The idea that it's just the core 8-15 people with a 
bunch of hangers-on is patently false. It's not about the conversations 
I have with the "core" people. It's Schveighoffer, or Atila, or 
Jonathan, or any of a long list of people who are interested enough in 
coming. Remember these people self-selected to invest non-trivial 
treasure to be there, they  are ALL worthy of conversing with.

Is it a "mini-vaction"? Yea, sure, for my wife. For her it's a four day 
shopping spree in Europe. For me it's four days of wall-to-wall action 
that leaves me drop-dead exhausted at the end of the day.

Every time I see somebody predicting the end of "X" I roll my eyes. I 
have a vivid memory of the rise of Skype and videoconferencing in the 
early 2000's giving way to breathless media reports about how said tools 
would kill the airlines because people could just meet online for a 
trivial fraction of the price. However, it's 2018 and the airlines are 
reaping record profits on the backs of business travelers (ask me how I 
know). Airlines are even now flying planes with NO standard economy 
seats for routes that cater specifically to business travelers (e.g. 
Singapore Airlines A350-900ULR). The order books (and stock prices) of 
both Airbus and Boeing are at historic highs. There are more 
conferences, attendees, and business travelers than there has ever been 
in history, in spite of the great technological leaps in 
videoconferencing technology in the past two decades.

The market has spoken. Reports of the death of business/conference 
travel have been greatly exaggerated.

The reason for this is fundamental to human psychology and, as such, is 
unlikely to change in the future. Humans are social animals, and no 
matter how hard we have tried, nothing has been able to replace the 
face-to-face meeting for getting things done. Be it the conversations we 
have over beers after the talks, or the epic number of PR's that come 
out the hackathon, or even mobbing the speaker after a talk.

Additionally, the conference serves other "soft" purposes. Specifically, 
marketing and education. The conference provides legitimacy to DLang and 
the Foundation both by it's mere existence and as a venue for companies 
using DLang to share their support (via sponsorships) or announce their 
products (as seen by the Weka.io announcement at DConf 2018) which 
further enhances the marketing of both the product being launched and 
DLang itself.

I have spoken to Walter about DConf numerous times. He has nothing 
against, and indeed actively encourages, local meetups. But they do not 
serve the purpose that DConf does. My understanding from my 
conversations with Walter is that the primary purpose of DConf is to 
provide a venue that is open to anyone interested to come together and 
discuss all things D. He specifically does not want something that is 
only limited to the "core" members. As this suggestion runs precisely 
counter to the primary stated purpose of DConf it is unlikely to gain 
significant traction from the D-BDFL.

Yes, it is expensive, but in all the years I've attended, I have not 
once regretted spending the money. And indeed, coming from the west 
coast of the US, I have one of the more expensive (and physically 
taxing) trips to make. I know a number of people who found jobs in D 
through DConf, would that not make the conference worth it to them?

Something is only expensive if you derive less value from it than it 
costs. And for many people here, I understand if the cost-benefit 
analysis does not favor DConf. But calling for an end to DConf simply 
because it doesn't meet someones cost-benefit ratio is inconsiderate to 
the rest of us who do find the benefit. Nobody is making you go, and, 
since you already get everything you want from the YouTube video uploads 
during the conference, why do you care if the rest of us "waste" our 
money on attending the conference? That is our choice. Not yours.

-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
import quiet.dlang.dev;

Note: Limiting anything to "core" members is a guaranteed way to create 
a mono-culture and would inevitably lead to the stagnation of D. Which 
is why anybody can post to all NG's, even the internals NG.
Oct 02 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 09:39:14 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 10/1/18 11:26 PM, Joakim wrote:

 [snip]


 I disagree.


It is not clear what you disagree with, since almost nothing you 
say has any bearing on my original post. To summarize, I suggest 
changing the currently talk-driven DConf format to either

1. a more decentralized collection of meetups all over the world, 
where most of the talks are pre-recorded, and the focus is more 
on introducing new users to the language or

2. at least ditching most of the talks at a DConf still held at a 
central location, maybe keeping only a couple panel discussions 
that benefit from an audience to ask questions, and spending most 
of the time like the hackathon at the last DConf, ie actually 
meeting in person.

Since both of these alternatives I suggest are much more about 
in-person interaction, which is what you defend, and the only big 
change I propose is ditching the passive in-person talks, which 
you do not write a single word in your long post defending, I'm 
scratching my head about what you got out of my original post.


 There is much more to the conference than just a 4-day meetup 
 with talks. The idea that it's just the core 8-15 people with a 
 bunch of hangers-on is patently false. It's not about the 
 conversations I have with the "core" people. It's 
 Schveighoffer, or Atila, or Jonathan, or any of a long list of 
 people who are interested enough in coming. Remember these 
 people self-selected to invest non-trivial treasure to be 
 there, they  are ALL worthy of conversing with.


Since both my mooted alternatives give _much more_ opportunity 
for such interaction, I'm again scratching my head at your 
reaction.


 Is it a "mini-vaction"? Yea, sure, for my wife. For her it's a 
 four day shopping spree in Europe. For me it's four days of 
 wall-to-wall action that leaves me drop-dead exhausted at the 
 end of the day.


So it's the talks that provide this or the in-person interaction? 
If the latter, why are you arguing against my pushing for more of 
it and ditching the in-person talks?


 Every time I see somebody predicting the end of "X" I roll my 
 eyes. I have a vivid memory of the rise of Skype and 
 videoconferencing in the early 2000's giving way to breathless 
 media reports about how said tools would kill the airlines 
 because people could just meet online for a trivial fraction of 
 the price.


People make stupid predictions all the time. Ignoring all such 
"end of" predictions because many predict badly would be like 
ignoring all new programming languages because 99% are bad. That 
means you'd never look at D.

And yes, some came true: almost nobody programs minicomputers or 
buys standalone mp3 players like the iPod anymore, compared to 
how many used to at their peak.


 However, it's 2018 and the airlines are reaping record profits 
 on the backs of business travelers (ask me how I know). 
 Airlines are even now flying planes with NO standard economy 
 seats for routes that cater specifically to business travelers 
 (e.g. Singapore Airlines A350-900ULR). The order books (and 
 stock prices) of both Airbus and Boeing are at historic highs.


You know what is much higher? Business communication through 
email, video-conferencing, online source control, etc. that 
completely replaced old ways of doing things like business travel 
or sending physical packages. However, business travel might 
still be up- I don't know as I haven't seen the stats, and you 
provide nothing other than anecdotes- because all that virtual 
communication might have enabled much more collaboration and 
trade that also grew business travel somewhat.


 There are more conferences, attendees, and business travelers 
 than there has ever been in history, in spite of the great 
 technological leaps in videoconferencing technology in the past 
 two decades.

 The market has spoken. Reports of the death of 
 business/conference travel have been greatly exaggerated.


You are conflating two completely different markets here, 
business versus conference travel. Regarding conferences, your 
experience contradicts that of the iOS devs in the post I linked 
and the one he links as evidence, where that blogger notes 
several conferences that have shut down. In your field, it is my 
understanding that MS has been paring back and consolidating 
their conferences too, though I don't follow MS almost at all.


 The reason for this is fundamental to human psychology and, as 
 such, is unlikely to change in the future. Humans are social 
 animals, and no matter how hard we have tried, nothing has been 
 able to replace the face-to-face meeting for getting things 
 done. Be it the conversations we have over beers after the 
 talks, or the epic number of PR's that come out the hackathon, 
 or even mobbing the speaker after a talk.


It is funny that you say this on a forum where we're 
communicating despite never having met "face-to-face," discussing 
a language where 99.999% of the work is done online by people who 
don't need any "face-to-face" meetings to get "things done." :)

Also, my suggestions are about enabling more face-to-face time, 
not less, so there's that too.


 Additionally, the conference serves other "soft" purposes. 
 Specifically, marketing and education. The conference provides 
 legitimacy to DLang and the Foundation both by it's mere 
 existence and as a venue for companies using DLang to share 
 their support (via sponsorships) or announce their products (as 
 seen by the Weka.io announcement at DConf 2018) which further 
 enhances the marketing of both the product being launched and 
 DLang itself.


Don't make me laugh: what part of this marketing/legitimization 
couldn't be done at either of the two alternatives I gave?


 I have spoken to Walter about DConf numerous times. He has 
 nothing against, and indeed actively encourages, local meetups. 
 But they do not serve the purpose that DConf does. My 
 understanding from my conversations with Walter is that the 
 primary purpose of DConf is to provide a venue that is open to 
 anyone interested to come together and discuss all things D. He 
 specifically does not want something that is only limited to 
 the "core" members. As this suggestion runs precisely counter 
 to the primary stated purpose of DConf it is unlikely to gain 
 significant traction from the D-BDFL.


Wrong, both of my suggestions fulfil that purpose _better_. What 
they don't do is limit attendance to those who have the passion 
_and_ can afford the time and money to travel 2-20 hours away to 
a single location, just so they can get all the in-person 
benefits you claim.


 Yes, it is expensive, but in all the years I've attended, I 
 have not once regretted spending the money. And indeed, coming 
 from the west coast of the US, I have one of the more expensive 
 (and physically taxing) trips to make. I know a number of 
 people who found jobs in D through DConf, would that not make 
 the conference worth it to them?


How many people got jobs versus how many attended? Would that 
money to get 100 people in the same room seven times have been 
much better spent on other things?  Run the cost-benefit analysis 
and I think it's obvious my two suggestions come out better. At 
best, you can maybe say that wasn't the case at the first DConf 
in 2007, when high-speed internet wasn't as pervasive and Youtube 
was only two years old, but not for every DConf since.


 Something is only expensive if you derive less value from it 
 than it costs. And for many people here, I understand if the 
 cost-benefit analysis does not favor DConf. But calling for an 
 end to DConf simply because it doesn't meet someones 
 cost-benefit ratio is inconsiderate to the rest of us who do 
 find the benefit.


I don't care about your personal cost-benefit ratio. I care about 
the cost-benefit analysis to the language and ecosystem as a 
whole.


 Nobody is making you go, and, since you already get everything 
 you want from the YouTube video uploads during the conference, 
 why do you care if the rest of us "waste" our money on 
 attending the conference? That is our choice. Not yours.


Try reading the older forum thread I originally linked, Jonathan 
and I have already been over all this. D is a collective effort, 
and it's a colossal waste of the community's efforts to spend all 
that time and money on the dying conference format that DConf has 
been using.

It signals to me and many others that D is not a serious effort 
to get used as a language, but simply a bunch of hobbyists who 
want to have "fun" meeting up at an exotic locale once a year, in 
between hacking on an experimental language that they're fine if 
nobody else uses.

If that's D's focus, fine, just own it. Put it on the front page: 
"This is a hobbyist language, please don't bother using it in 
production. We are much more focused on where we can vacation 
together next year than trying to spread awareness and improve 
the language."

Regardless of whether you post that notice or not, that is what 
continuing the current DConf format advertises, given that others 
have already been moving away from it.


 Note: Limiting anything to "core" members is a guaranteed way 
 to create a mono-culture and would inevitably lead to the 
 stagnation of D.


Good, then you agree with me that we should avoid such stagnation 
by broadening DConf to be a bunch of meetups in many more cities?


 Which is why anybody can post to all NG's, even the internals 
 NG.


This is not actually true. There are two newsgroups that seem to 
have that designation, which show up separately as `internals` 
and `dmd` at forum.dlang.org, and the latter doesn't allow me to 
post to it without registering somewhere, unlike the rest of the 
web forums.

Guess what the current DConf format does to most people who don't 
attend too...

I'm done responding to these irrational responses that ignore 
everything I wrote. I'll just link them to this long debunking 
from now on.
Oct 02 2018
parent reply Adam Wilson <flyboynw gmail.com> writes:
On 10/2/18 4:34 AM, Joakim wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 09:39:14 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 10/1/18 11:26 PM, Joakim wrote:

 [snip]


 I disagree.


 
 It is not clear what you disagree with, since almost nothing you say has 
 any bearing on my original post. To summarize, I suggest changing the 
 currently talk-driven DConf format to either
 
 1. a more decentralized collection of meetups all over the world, where 
 most of the talks are pre-recorded, and the focus is more on introducing 
 new users to the language or
 
 2. at least ditching most of the talks at a DConf still held at a 
 central location, maybe keeping only a couple panel discussions that 
 benefit from an audience to ask questions, and spending most of the time 
 like the hackathon at the last DConf, ie actually meeting in person.
 


This point has a subtle flaw. Many of the talks raise points of 
discussion that would otherwise go without discussion, and potentially 
unnoticed, if it were not for the person bringing it up. The talks 
routinely serve as a launchpad for the nightly dinner sessions. Benjamin 
Thauts 2016 talk about shared libraries is one such example. Indeed 
every single year has brought at least one (but usually more) talk that 
opened up some new line of investigation for the dinner discussions.


 Since both of these alternatives I suggest are much more about in-person 
 interaction, which is what you defend, and the only big change I propose 
 is ditching the passive in-person talks, which you do not write a single 
 word in your long post defending, I'm scratching my head about what you 
 got out of my original post.
 

 There is much more to the conference than just a 4-day meetup with 
 talks. The idea that it's just the core 8-15 people with a bunch of 
 hangers-on is patently false. It's not about the conversations I have 
 with the "core" people. It's Schveighoffer, or Atila, or Jonathan, or 
 any of a long list of people who are interested enough in coming. 
 Remember these people self-selected to invest non-trivial treasure to 
 be there, they  are ALL worthy of conversing with.


 
 Since both my mooted alternatives give _much more_ opportunity for such 
 interaction, I'm again scratching my head at your reaction.
 


This is untrue. See responses further down.


 Is it a "mini-vaction"? Yea, sure, for my wife. For her it's a four 
 day shopping spree in Europe. For me it's four days of wall-to-wall 
 action that leaves me drop-dead exhausted at the end of the day.


 
 So it's the talks that provide this or the in-person interaction? If the 
 latter, why are you arguing against my pushing for more of it and 
 ditching the in-person talks?
 


It's everything. The talks, the coding, the talking, the drinking. All 
of it has some social component I find valuable.


 Every time I see somebody predicting the end of "X" I roll my eyes. I 
 have a vivid memory of the rise of Skype and videoconferencing in the 
 early 2000's giving way to breathless media reports about how said 
 tools would kill the airlines because people could just meet online 
 for a trivial fraction of the price.


 
 People make stupid predictions all the time. Ignoring all such "end of" 
 predictions because many predict badly would be like ignoring all new 
 programming languages because 99% are bad. That means you'd never look 
 at D.
 
 And yes, some came true: almost nobody programs minicomputers or buys 
 standalone mp3 players like the iPod anymore, compared to how many used 
 to at their peak.
 


Sure, but the predictions about videoconferencing have yet to come true. 
As told but the data itself. The travel industry is setting new records 
yearly in spite of videoconferencing. That's not conjecture or opinion, 
go look for yourself. As I have previously suggested, the stock prices 
and order-books of Airbus and Boeing are are record highs. Airplanes are 
more packed than ever (called load-factor). For example, Delta's 
system-wide load-factor was 85.6% last year. Which means that 85.6% of 
all available seats for the entire year were occupied. (Source: 
https://www.statista.com/statistics/221085/passenger-load-factor-o
-delta-air-lines/). 
Airlines are delivering entire planes for business travelers.

All of this demonstrates that videoconferencing has done nothing to curb 
travel demand and the current data suggest that it is unlikely too in 
the foreseeable future. That it might at some point in the distant 
future is not relevant to this discussion.


 However, it's 2018 and the airlines are reaping record profits on the 
 backs of business travelers (ask me how I know). Airlines are even now 
 flying planes with NO standard economy seats for routes that cater 
 specifically to business travelers (e.g. Singapore Airlines 
 A350-900ULR). The order books (and stock prices) of both Airbus and 
 Boeing are at historic highs.


 
 You know what is much higher? Business communication through email, 
 video-conferencing, online source control, etc. that completely replaced 
 old ways of doing things like business travel or sending physical 
 packages. However, business travel might still be up- I don't know as I 
 haven't seen the stats, and you provide nothing other than anecdotes- 
 because all that virtual communication might have enabled much more 
 collaboration and trade that also grew business travel somewhat.
 


The reason I lump business and conference travel together is because 
that is precisely how the travel industry defines it. Primarily due to 
the fact that businesses pay for the overwhelming majority of conference 
travel. You may disagree with that characterization, but that is how 
it's defined. And airlines kitting out entire airplanes for business 
travel isn't an anecdote. It's a simple, and verifiable, fact that you 
too could verify should you so choose. I provided you with all the 
relevant data necessary to verify for yourself.


 There are more conferences, attendees, and business travelers than 
 there has ever been in history, in spite of the great technological 
 leaps in videoconferencing technology in the past two decades.

 The market has spoken. Reports of the death of business/conference 
 travel have been greatly exaggerated.


 
 You are conflating two completely different markets here, business 
 versus conference travel. Regarding conferences, your experience 
 contradicts that of the iOS devs in the post I linked and the one he 
 links as evidence, where that blogger notes several conferences that 
 have shut down. In your field, it is my understanding that MS has been 
 paring back and consolidating their conferences too, though I don't 
 follow MS almost at all.
 


Yes, some conferences shutdown, but many more started up. Your premise 
is that "Popular Conference X was shutdown so all conferences are dead 
forevars!" In reality the attendance to conferences is going to depend 
on the community it serves. For example, IOS has been getting primarily 
cosmetic updates and bugfixes for the past few cycles, but there really 
isn't much truly new tech that needs to be communicated because what IOS 
does hasn't changed significantly in years. In this case, a conference 
being moved to a virtual environment with a limited number of 
presentations my be the most effective course. This is not surprising, 
it is the natural lifecycle of things.

For example, Microsoft killed PDC after 2008, only to bring back a 
different, but related conference (Build) in 2011. Now .NET has it's own 
virtual conference in Sept, but Build still has a lot of .NET related 
content at Build, it's just the Build's broader scope means that a lot 
of good content can't make it in, so yea, virtual-conference for the 
content that didn't make the cut. Microsoft took an incredible amount of 
heat for canceling PDC. So they brought it back with a new name.

But saying that because Apple did it for one of their conferences (note 
that WWDC is still a thing) that all conferences everywhere are dead is 
both prima facie ridiculous and easily disproven.


 The reason for this is fundamental to human psychology and, as such, 
 is unlikely to change in the future. Humans are social animals, and no 
 matter how hard we have tried, nothing has been able to replace the 
 face-to-face meeting for getting things done. Be it the conversations 
 we have over beers after the talks, or the epic number of PR's that 
 come out the hackathon, or even mobbing the speaker after a talk.


 
 It is funny that you say this on a forum where we're communicating 
 despite never having met "face-to-face," discussing a language where 
 99.999% of the work is done online by people who don't need any 
 "face-to-face" meetings to get "things done." :)
 
 Also, my suggestions are about enabling more face-to-face time, not 
 less, so there's that too.
 

 Additionally, the conference serves other "soft" purposes. 
 Specifically, marketing and education. The conference provides 
 legitimacy to DLang and the Foundation both by it's mere existence and 
 as a venue for companies using DLang to share their support (via 
 sponsorships) or announce their products (as seen by the Weka.io 
 announcement at DConf 2018) which further enhances the marketing of 
 both the product being launched and DLang itself.


 
 Don't make me laugh: what part of this marketing/legitimization couldn't 
 be done at either of the two alternatives I gave?
  >> I have spoken to Walter about DConf numerous times. He has nothing

 against, and indeed actively encourages, local meetups. But they do 
 not serve the purpose that DConf does. My understanding from my 
 conversations with Walter is that the primary purpose of DConf is to 
 provide a venue that is open to anyone interested to come together and 
 discuss all things D. He specifically does not want something that is 
 only limited to the "core" members. As this suggestion runs precisely 
 counter to the primary stated purpose of DConf it is unlikely to gain 
 significant traction from the D-BDFL.


 
 Wrong, both of my suggestions fulfil that purpose _better_. What they 
 don't do is limit attendance to those who have the passion _and_ can 
 afford the time and money to travel 2-20 hours away to a single 
 location, just so they can get all the in-person benefits you claim.
 


You misunderstand my point. What you are asking for is the balkanization 
of the community by splitting it up along regional geographic 
boundaries. What you are demanding would mean that we only ever meet the 
people from our specific geographic regions. Not one of the people I 
listed is in my geographic region. Therefore I would NEVER meet them, 
and indeed, I never would have if not for DConf. This demand is 
tribalism at it's worst.

The purpose of DConf is that it is specifically open to any person from 
anywhere in the world who wishs to attend. It is a global meeting point 
for everyone. What you keep propounding is a Meetup. We have those. They 
have not yet been able to replace DConf in terms of cost-benefit 
effectiveness as judged by the attendance of DConf. Balkanizing the 
community will no more produce forward motion than a single conference 
limited to just the "core" people.


 Yes, it is expensive, but in all the years I've attended, I have not 
 once regretted spending the money. And indeed, coming from the west 
 coast of the US, I have one of the more expensive (and physically 
 taxing) trips to make. I know a number of people who found jobs in D 
 through DConf, would that not make the conference worth it to them?


 
 How many people got jobs versus how many attended? Would that money to 
 get 100 people in the same room seven times have been much better spent 
 on other things?  Run the cost-benefit analysis and I think it's obvious 
 my two suggestions come out better. At best, you can maybe say that 
 wasn't the case at the first DConf in 2007, when high-speed internet 
 wasn't as pervasive and Youtube was only two years old, but not for 
 every DConf since.
 


To the one person who did, the collective cost is irrelevant. To them it 
was literally a life-changing event. Is their experience somehow less 
relevant, important, or meaningful?


 Something is only expensive if you derive less value from it than it 
 costs. And for many people here, I understand if the cost-benefit 
 analysis does not favor DConf. But calling for an end to DConf simply 
 because it doesn't meet someones cost-benefit ratio is inconsiderate 
 to the rest of us who do find the benefit.


 
 I don't care about your personal cost-benefit ratio. I care about the 
 cost-benefit analysis to the language and ecosystem as a whole.
 


What, pray tell, is so cost ineffective about the conference if enough 
people choose to attend every year that it does not loose money?


 Nobody is making you go, and, since you already get everything you 
 want from the YouTube video uploads during the conference, why do you 
 care if the rest of us "waste" our money on attending the conference? 
 That is our choice. Not yours.


 
 Try reading the older forum thread I originally linked, Jonathan and I 
 have already been over all this. D is a collective effort, and it's a 
 colossal waste of the community's efforts to spend all that time and 
 money on the dying conference format that DConf has been using.
 
 It signals to me and many others that D is not a serious effort to get 
 used as a language, but simply a bunch of hobbyists who want to have 
 "fun" meeting up at an exotic locale once a year, in between hacking on 
 an experimental language that they're fine if nobody else uses.
 


It may signal that to you, but I have seen no evidence that it signals 
it to others. And I'd hardly call Berlin or Munich "exotic". Now if we 
could get something going in Mallorca, or Sardinia, or Bali... Beam me 
up Scotty!


 If that's D's focus, fine, just own it. Put it on the front page: "This 
 is a hobbyist language, please don't bother using it in production. We 
 are much more focused on where we can vacation together next year than 
 trying to spread awareness and improve the language."
 
 Regardless of whether you post that notice or not, that is what 
 continuing the current DConf format advertises, given that others have 
 already been moving away from it.
 

 Note: Limiting anything to "core" members is a guaranteed way to 
 create a mono-culture and would inevitably lead to the stagnation of D.


 
 Good, then you agree with me that we should avoid such stagnation by 
 broadening DConf to be a bunch of meetups in many more cities?
 

 Which is why anybody can post to all NG's, even the internals NG.


 
 This is not actually true. There are two newsgroups that seem to have 
 that designation, which show up separately as `internals` and `dmd` at 
 forum.dlang.org, and the latter doesn't allow me to post to it without 
 registering somewhere, unlike the rest of the web forums.
 
 Guess what the current DConf format does to most people who don't attend 
 too...
 
 I'm done responding to these irrational responses that ignore everything 
 I wrote. I'll just link them to this long debunking from now on.


In all of your response I get the sense that there is a deeply personal 
motivation behind your crusade. Yet you dance around that motivation 
carefully, you routinely dismiss other peoples experiences as invalid 
either simply because you disagree, or some other conference did 
something different, and you set up strawmen to attack rather than 
directly answering questions.

Please. For the benefit of all of us. Explain your motivation. The level 
of emotion you are bringing to this debate cannot be rationally 
explained on the merits of your argument alone.

-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
import quiet.dlang.dev;
Oct 02 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 01:28:37 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 10/2/18 4:34 AM, Joakim wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 09:39:14 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 10/1/18 11:26 PM, Joakim wrote:

 [snip]


 I disagree.


 
 It is not clear what you disagree with, since almost nothing 
 you say has any bearing on my original post. To summarize, I 
 suggest changing the currently talk-driven DConf format to 
 either
 
 1. a more decentralized collection of meetups all over the 
 world, where most of the talks are pre-recorded, and the focus 
 is more on introducing new users to the language or
 
 2. at least ditching most of the talks at a DConf still held 
 at a central location, maybe keeping only a couple panel 
 discussions that benefit from an audience to ask questions, 
 and spending most of the time like the hackathon at the last 
 DConf, ie actually meeting in person.
 


 This point has a subtle flaw. Many of the talks raise points of 
 discussion that would otherwise go without discussion, and 
 potentially unnoticed, if it were not for the person bringing 
 it up. The talks routinely serve as a launchpad for the nightly 
 dinner sessions. Benjamin Thauts 2016 talk about shared 
 libraries is one such example. Indeed every single year has 
 brought at least one (but usually more) talk that opened up 
 some new line of investigation for the dinner discussions.


I thought it was pretty obvious from my original post, since I 
volunteered to help with the pre-recorded talks, but the idea is 
to have pre-recorded talks no matter whether DConf is held in a 
central location or not.


 Since both of these alternatives I suggest are much more about 
 in-person interaction, which is what you defend, and the only 
 big change I propose is ditching the passive in-person talks, 
 which you do not write a single word in your long post 
 defending, I'm scratching my head about what you got out of my 
 original post.
 

 There is much more to the conference than just a 4-day meetup 
 with talks. The idea that it's just the core 8-15 people with 
 a bunch of hangers-on is patently false. It's not about the 
 conversations I have with the "core" people. It's 
 Schveighoffer, or Atila, or Jonathan, or any of a long list 
 of people who are interested enough in coming. Remember these 
 people self-selected to invest non-trivial treasure to be 
 there, they  are ALL worthy of conversing with.


 
 Since both my mooted alternatives give _much more_ opportunity 
 for such interaction, I'm again scratching my head at your 
 reaction.
 


 This is untrue. See responses further down.


It is true. You merely prefer certain interaction for yourself to 
the overall interaction of the community.


 Is it a "mini-vaction"? Yea, sure, for my wife. For her it's 
 a four day shopping spree in Europe. For me it's four days of 
 wall-to-wall action that leaves me drop-dead exhausted at the 
 end of the day.


 
 So it's the talks that provide this or the in-person 
 interaction? If the latter, why are you arguing against my 
 pushing for more of it and ditching the in-person talks?
 


 It's everything. The talks, the coding, the talking, the 
 drinking. All of it has some social component I find valuable.


Please try to stay on the subject. Nobody's talking about getting 
rid of coding/talking/drinking, in fact, the idea is to have 
_more_ time for those, by ditching the in-person talks.

So the relevant info here would be what you find "social" about 
passively watching a talk in person with 100 other people in the 
same room, which as usual, you don't provide.


 Every time I see somebody predicting the end of "X" I roll my 
 eyes. I have a vivid memory of the rise of Skype and 
 videoconferencing in the early 2000's giving way to 
 breathless media reports about how said tools would kill the 
 airlines because people could just meet online for a trivial 
 fraction of the price.


 
 People make stupid predictions all the time. Ignoring all such 
 "end of" predictions because many predict badly would be like 
 ignoring all new programming languages because 99% are bad. 
 That means you'd never look at D.
 
 And yes, some came true: almost nobody programs minicomputers 
 or buys standalone mp3 players like the iPod anymore, compared 
 to how many used to at their peak.
 


 Sure, but the predictions about videoconferencing have yet to 
 come true. As told but the data itself. The travel industry is 
 setting new records yearly in spite of videoconferencing. 
 That's not conjecture or opinion, go look for yourself. As I 
 have previously suggested, the stock prices and order-books of 
 Airbus and Boeing are are record highs. Airplanes are more 
 packed than ever (called load-factor). For example, Delta's 
 system-wide load-factor was 85.6% last year. Which means that 
 85.6% of all available seats for the entire year were occupied. 
 (Source: 
 https://www.statista.com/statistics/221085/passenger-load-factor-o
-delta-air-lines/). Airlines are delivering entire planes for business
travelers.

 All of this demonstrates that videoconferencing has done 
 nothing to curb travel demand and the current data suggest that 
 it is unlikely too in the foreseeable future. That it might at 
 some point in the distant future is not relevant to this 
 discussion.


Yes, you know what is even more irrelevant to this discussion? 
Your entire unrelated tangent about business travel versus 
video-conferencing, which has essentially nothing to do with the 
topic of this thread, ie what a good format for DConf would be.


 However, it's 2018 and the airlines are reaping record 
 profits on the backs of business travelers (ask me how I 
 know). Airlines are even now flying planes with NO standard 
 economy seats for routes that cater specifically to business 
 travelers (e.g. Singapore Airlines A350-900ULR). The order 
 books (and stock prices) of both Airbus and Boeing are at 
 historic highs.


 
 You know what is much higher? Business communication through 
 email, video-conferencing, online source control, etc. that 
 completely replaced old ways of doing things like business 
 travel or sending physical packages. However, business travel 
 might still be up- I don't know as I haven't seen the stats, 
 and you provide nothing other than anecdotes- because all that 
 virtual communication might have enabled much more 
 collaboration and trade that also grew business travel 
 somewhat.
 


 The reason I lump business and conference travel together is 
 because that is precisely how the travel industry defines it. 
 Primarily due to the fact that businesses pay for the 
 overwhelming majority of conference travel. You may disagree 
 with that characterization, but that is how it's defined.


Again a wholly irrelevant point, as who cares how they define it? 
Maybe if you presented some data on how the combined 
business/conference travel miles has gone up but you have none, 
and even then it would be spurious since we only care about the 
conference portion for this thread.


 And airlines kitting out entire airplanes for business travel 
 isn't an anecdote. It's a simple, and verifiable, fact that you 
 too could verify should you so choose. I provided you with all 
 the relevant data necessary to verify for yourself.


I see no data with which to "verify" it, another one of your 
weird prevarications.


 There are more conferences, attendees, and business travelers 
 than there has ever been in history, in spite of the great 
 technological leaps in videoconferencing technology in the 
 past two decades.

 The market has spoken. Reports of the death of 
 business/conference travel have been greatly exaggerated.


 
 You are conflating two completely different markets here, 
 business versus conference travel. Regarding conferences, your 
 experience contradicts that of the iOS devs in the post I 
 linked and the one he links as evidence, where that blogger 
 notes several conferences that have shut down. In your field, 
 it is my understanding that MS has been paring back and 
 consolidating their conferences too, though I don't follow MS 
 almost at all.
 


 Yes, some conferences shutdown, but many more started up. Your 
 premise is that "Popular Conference X was shutdown so all 
 conferences are dead forevars!"


No, try actually reading the links I mentioned, he lists 10 
Apple-related conferences that have shut down and says nothing 
has replaced them.


 In reality the attendance to conferences is going to depend on 
 the community it serves. For example, IOS has been getting 
 primarily cosmetic updates and bugfixes for the past few 
 cycles, but there really isn't much truly new tech that needs 
 to be communicated because what IOS does hasn't changed 
 significantly in years. In this case, a conference being moved 
 to a virtual environment with a limited number of presentations 
 my be the most effective course. This is not surprising, it is 
 the natural lifecycle of things.


Others report the same for other tech, including one guy in the 
comments there who runs a javascript conference in South Africa.


 For example, Microsoft killed PDC after 2008, only to bring 
 back a different, but related conference (Build) in 2011. Now 
 .NET has it's own virtual conference in Sept, but Build still 
 has a lot of .NET related content at Build, it's just the 
 Build's broader scope means that a lot of good content can't 
 make it in, so yea, virtual-conference for the content that 
 didn't make the cut. Microsoft took an incredible amount of 
 heat for canceling PDC. So they brought it back with a new name.


The point is that the MS ecosystem has been cutting back on 
conferences also, just as I said.


 But saying that because Apple did it for one of their 
 conferences (note that WWDC is still a thing) that all 
 conferences everywhere are dead is both prima facie ridiculous 
 and easily disproven.


No, what's easily disproven is that _nobody said it was only one 
conference that shut down_.


 The reason for this is fundamental to human psychology and, 
 as such, is unlikely to change in the future. Humans are 
 social animals, and no matter how hard we have tried, nothing 
 has been able to replace the face-to-face meeting for getting 
 things done. Be it the conversations we have over beers after 
 the talks, or the epic number of PR's that come out the 
 hackathon, or even mobbing the speaker after a talk.


 
 It is funny that you say this on a forum where we're 
 communicating despite never having met "face-to-face," 
 discussing a language where 99.999% of the work is done online 
 by people who don't need any "face-to-face" meetings to get 
 "things done." :)
 
 Also, my suggestions are about enabling more face-to-face 
 time, not less, so there's that too.
 

 Additionally, the conference serves other "soft" purposes. 
 Specifically, marketing and education. The conference 
 provides legitimacy to DLang and the Foundation both by it's 
 mere existence and as a venue for companies using DLang to 
 share their support (via sponsorships) or announce their 
 products (as seen by the Weka.io announcement at DConf 2018) 
 which further enhances the marketing of both the product 
 being launched and DLang itself.


 
 Don't make me laugh: what part of this 
 marketing/legitimization couldn't be done at either of the two 
 alternatives I gave?
  >> I have spoken to Walter about DConf numerous times. He has 
 nothing

 against, and indeed actively encourages, local meetups. But 
 they do not serve the purpose that DConf does. My 
 understanding from my conversations with Walter is that the 
 primary purpose of DConf is to provide a venue that is open 
 to anyone interested to come together and discuss all things 
 D. He specifically does not want something that is only 
 limited to the "core" members. As this suggestion runs 
 precisely counter to the primary stated purpose of DConf it 
 is unlikely to gain significant traction from the D-BDFL.


 
 Wrong, both of my suggestions fulfil that purpose _better_. 
 What they don't do is limit attendance to those who have the 
 passion _and_ can afford the time and money to travel 2-20 
 hours away to a single location, just so they can get all the 
 in-person benefits you claim.
 


 You misunderstand my point. What you are asking for is the 
 balkanization of the community by splitting it up along 
 regional geographic boundaries. What you are demanding would 
 mean that we only ever meet the people from our specific 
 geographic regions. Not one of the people I listed is in my 
 geographic region. Therefore I would NEVER meet them, and 
 indeed, I never would have if not for DConf. This demand is 
 tribalism at it's worst.


First off, I never "demanded" anything. I have presented reasons 
why the current format should be changed and said it makes a lot 
of sense to change, so much so that not doing so would signal 
negligence.

If you want to meet someone from a DConf location that's farther 
away, nobody's forcing you to go to the local DConf: you can 
always fly across the country to see Andrei and Steven in Boston. 
Yes, you won't get to see all of the core team if they're not all 
there, but I don't see why you're so obsessed with that. You 
contribute almost nothing to the dlang organization on github, 
what do you want to fly across the world to see them for anyway?

https://github.com/search?utf8=✓&q=user%3Adlang+author%3Alightbender&type=Issues

I see six merged pulls, none in the last four years, most of them 
trivial C declarations.

Your balkanization/tribalism claims are really ridiculous, 
suggesting you don't even know what those words mean. Tribalism 
refers to trying to keep everybody in your tribe together, 
usually by attacking a common enemy, yet you simultaneously 
accuse me of balkanization, ie splitting up the community by 
decentralizing DConf. So which is it: am I trying to keep the 
tribe together or split it up? Don't answer that, I know whatever 
you say won't make any sense either.

The truth is that you're the one here suffering from tribalism, 
because you'd rather keep the traditional DConf-going tribe 
together than open the community up with many more DConf 
locations. That only causes "balkanization" if you're forced to 
go to the local DConf, but since you have the interest and can 
afford to fly to any far-away location anyway, clearly that's not 
a problem for you.


 The purpose of DConf is that it is specifically open to any 
 person from anywhere in the world who wishs to attend. It is a 
 global meeting point for everyone. What you keep propounding is 
 a Meetup. We have those. They have not yet been able to replace 
 DConf in terms of cost-benefit effectiveness as judged by the 
 attendance of DConf. Balkanizing the community will no more 
 produce forward motion than a single conference limited to just 
 the "core" people.


What is the use of having a single "global meeting point" that 
99.5+% of the community doesn't attend? Yes, a decentralized 
DConf has some similarities to meetups, but it's not the same. 
For one, these would be all-day events, not one-off talks like 
meetups.

I have no idea how you determine the "cost-benefit effectiveness" 
of meetups versus DConf, considering an order of magnitude or two 
more people attend the meetups than DConf. Andrei's talk in 
Munich last year alone had more people attending than DConf:

https://www.meetup.com/Munich-D-Programmers/events/243402617/


 Yes, it is expensive, but in all the years I've attended, I 
 have not once regretted spending the money. And indeed, 
 coming from the west coast of the US, I have one of the more 
 expensive (and physically taxing) trips to make. I know a 
 number of people who found jobs in D through DConf, would 
 that not make the conference worth it to them?


 
 How many people got jobs versus how many attended? Would that 
 money to get 100 people in the same room seven times have been 
 much better spent on other things?  Run the cost-benefit 
 analysis and I think it's obvious my two suggestions come out 
 better. At best, you can maybe say that wasn't the case at the 
 first DConf in 2007, when high-speed internet wasn't as 
 pervasive and Youtube was only two years old, but not for 
 every DConf since.
 


 To the one person who did, the collective cost is irrelevant. 
 To them it was literally a life-changing event. Is their 
 experience somehow less relevant, important, or meaningful?


You don't make organizational plans for the D community based on 
emotional pleas about a single "life-changing event," especially 
since no reason has been given why that event wouldn't happen 
anyway if the DConf format changed.

Rather, the goal should be to enable the growth of the D 
community as a whole, not finding a few people within the 
community jobs that supposedly "change their life."


 Something is only expensive if you derive less value from it 
 than it costs. And for many people here, I understand if the 
 cost-benefit analysis does not favor DConf. But calling for 
 an end to DConf simply because it doesn't meet someones 
 cost-benefit ratio is inconsiderate to the rest of us who do 
 find the benefit.


 
 I don't care about your personal cost-benefit ratio. I care 
 about the cost-benefit analysis to the language and ecosystem 
 as a whole.
 


 What, pray tell, is so cost ineffective about the conference if 
 enough people choose to attend every year that it does not 
 loose money?


Just because DConf currently covers its costs has essentially no 
bearing on whether it is the best possible use of that money.

Apple could have just kept coming out with new iPods for years 
and been very profitable, rather than coming out with a different 
product like the iPhone in 2007. But the fact that they made that 
leap into the smartphone market is what makes them the largest 
and most profitable company in the world today, even though they 
knew and discussed the fact that it would cannibalize their 
existing iPod business.

Similarly, the D leadership's goal shouldn't be to maintain a 
profitable but antiquated DConf format, but to grow the community 
much more.


 Nobody is making you go, and, since you already get 
 everything you want from the YouTube video uploads during the 
 conference, why do you care if the rest of us "waste" our 
 money on attending the conference? That is our choice. Not 
 yours.


 
 Try reading the older forum thread I originally linked, 
 Jonathan and I have already been over all this. D is a 
 collective effort, and it's a colossal waste of the 
 community's efforts to spend all that time and money on the 
 dying conference format that DConf has been using.
 
 It signals to me and many others that D is not a serious 
 effort to get used as a language, but simply a bunch of 
 hobbyists who want to have "fun" meeting up at an exotic 
 locale once a year, in between hacking on an experimental 
 language that they're fine if nobody else uses.
 


 It may signal that to you, but I have seen no evidence that it 
 signals it to others.


Until recently, nobody strongly made this case for changing the 
format. But now that I have and the market shows that format 
declining, I think that will be the signal sent by keeping the 
status quo.


 And I'd hardly call Berlin or Munich "exotic". Now if we could 
 get something going in Mallorca, or Sardinia, or Bali... Beam 
 me up Scotty!


For most engineers not living in Germany or Palo Alto, those 
locales are exotic enough. That there are bigger party locations 
is neither here nor there.


 If that's D's focus, fine, just own it. Put it on the front 
 page: "This is a hobbyist language, please don't bother using 
 it in production. We are much more focused on where we can 
 vacation together next year than trying to spread awareness 
 and improve the language."
 
 Regardless of whether you post that notice or not, that is 
 what continuing the current DConf format advertises, given 
 that others have already been moving away from it.
 

 Note: Limiting anything to "core" members is a guaranteed way 
 to create a mono-culture and would inevitably lead to the 
 stagnation of D.


 
 Good, then you agree with me that we should avoid such 
 stagnation by broadening DConf to be a bunch of meetups in 
 many more cities?
 

 Which is why anybody can post to all NG's, even the internals 
 NG.


 
 This is not actually true. There are two newsgroups that seem 
 to have that designation, which show up separately as 
 `internals` and `dmd` at forum.dlang.org, and the latter 
 doesn't allow me to post to it without registering somewhere, 
 unlike the rest of the web forums.
 
 Guess what the current DConf format does to most people who 
 don't attend too...
 
 I'm done responding to these irrational responses that ignore 
 everything I wrote. I'll just link them to this long debunking 
 from now on.


 In all of your response I get the sense that there is a deeply 
 personal motivation behind your crusade. Yet you dance around 
 that motivation carefully


That's funny, because that's precisely the sense I get from you, 
given your wildly incoherent responses so far that cannot even 
get the facts straight, like how many conferences were shown to 
be closing.

There is nothing "deeply personal," nor is it a "crusade." I 
don't know how I can dance around a motivation that until now 
nobody other than you has even mentioned.


 you routinely dismiss other peoples experiences as invalid 
 either simply because you disagree,


Please point to a single instance where I dismissed someone's 
"experiences," you will find none in this entire thread. Nobody 
has even talked about their experiences, and I'm not sure how you 
even "disagree" with an experience. One can disagree with the 
conclusions they draw from that experience, but not the 
experience itself.


 or some other conference did something different


I have literally not presented _any_ other conference as 
precedent. I think this may now pass more than a dozen times you 
simply make up stuff you think I said. That's a stunning record 
for just two posts.


 and you set up strawmen to attack


Please point to a single strawman I created. I have pointed out 
more than a dozen you made up.


 rather than directly answering questions.


Heh, I have obsessively answered all your questions, while you 
just ignore mine.


 Please. For the benefit of all of us. Explain your motivation.


It is very simple. Unlike you, I'm presenting ideas to advance 
the D language and community. I'm not making arguments from the 
point of "I'd like to have fun in Berlin for 3-4 days and then 
ignore D again for the next four years."


 The level of emotion you are bringing to this debate cannot be 
 rationally explained on the merits of your argument alone.


There is no emotion in the vast majority of what I wrote, merely 
dispassionate arguments. I have gotten somewhat frustrated with 
how you repeatedly make up stuff and attribute it to me or 
strangely talk about how we're "social animals" when I was 
pushing for more in-person interaction in the first place, but 
the only time I got angry was when you mirrored Jonathan's 
argument from the previous thread, basically saying, "We enjoy 
flying across the world for the current DConf format, why should 
we listen to anything you say?" I then pointed out that exhibited 
a very narrow mindset, ie that your personal enjoyment was more 
important than what actually advanced the D ecosystem.

Anyway, it's clear that you're incapable of contributing to a 
debate on the DConf format, considering all the factual errors 
you've made so far and that you finally stooped to the level of 
questioning my motivations, so I'll stop responding to you now.
Oct 03 2018
parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 16:17:48 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 01:28:37 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 10/2/18 4:34 AM, Joakim wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 09:39:14 UTC, Adam Wilson wrote:

 On 10/1/18 11:26 PM, Joakim wrote:

 [snip]


 I disagree.


 
 It is not clear what you disagree with, since almost nothing 
 you say has any bearing on my original post. To summarize, I 
 suggest changing the currently talk-driven DConf format to 
 either
 
 1. a more decentralized collection of meetups all over the 
 world, where most of the talks are pre-recorded, and the 
 focus is more on introducing new users to the language or
 
 2. at least ditching most of the talks at a DConf still held 
 at a central location, maybe keeping only a couple panel 
 discussions that benefit from an audience to ask questions, 
 and spending most of the time like the hackathon at the last 
 DConf, ie actually meeting in person.
 


 This point has a subtle flaw. Many of the talks raise points 
 of discussion that would otherwise go without discussion, and 
 potentially unnoticed, if it were not for the person bringing 
 it up. The talks routinely serve as a launchpad for the 
 nightly dinner sessions. Benjamin Thauts 2016 talk about 
 shared libraries is one such example. Indeed every single year 
 has brought at least one (but usually more) talk that opened 
 up some new line of investigation for the dinner discussions.


 I thought it was pretty obvious from my original post, since I 
 volunteered to help with the pre-recorded talks, but the idea 
 is to have pre-recorded talks no matter whether DConf is held 
 in a central location or not.


I went to a conference once where they had mixed live talks and 
prerecorded talks - questions where taken at the end to the 
speaker of the prerecorded talk via a sip call.

The organisers at the end admitted that the prerecorded talks 
experiment failed. No one really paid attention to any of the 
content in it.
Oct 04 2018
parent rikki cattermole <rikki cattermole.co.nz> writes:
On 04/10/2018 8:53 PM, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 I went to a conference once where they had mixed live talks and 
 prerecorded talks - questions where taken at the end to the speaker of 
 the prerecorded talk via a sip call.
 
 The organisers at the end admitted that the prerecorded talks experiment 
 failed. No one really paid attention to any of the content in it.


There are a lot of social cues that a speaker can take note of and use 
to determine the pace of the talk or what to put emphasis on. So that 
result doesn't really surprise me.
Oct 04 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next 
 DConf, so I'd like to make sure people are aware that the 
 conference format that DConf uses is dying off, as explained 
 here:

 https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era

 There was a discussion about this in a previous forum thread:

 https://forum.dlang.org/post/bnbldtdfeppzjuthxdxa forum.dlang.org

 Jonathan and Mike argue in that thread that DConf is great for 
 the core team to get together in person and hash things out for 
 D with very high-bandwidth interaction, but I pointed out that 
 doesn't justify 95%+ of the attendees being there. If there's a 
 real need for this, maybe get those 8-15 people together in an 
 online video conference or offline retreat, without a bunch of 
 hangers-on and talks.

 People are now experimenting with what replaces conferences, we 
 should be doing that too. I came up with some ideas in that 
 thread:

 "Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or 
 smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not 
 much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to 
 get those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, 
 both in content and presentation, before posting them online."

 I volunteer to help presenters do this.

 "Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several 
 cities [all over the world], where a few livestreamed talks may 
 talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time 
 producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the 
 hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in 
 smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries 
 for the future."

 I can setup an event like this in my city, where AFAIK nobody 
 uses D, so most of it would be geared towards introducing them 
 to the language.

 I estimate that you could do ten times better at raising 
 awareness and uptake with this approach than the current DConf 
 format, by casting a much wider net, and it would cost about 
 10X less, ie you get two orders of magnitude better bang for 
 the buck.

 At the very least, DConf should just be a big hackathon of 
 self-organizing groups, rather than wasting any time passively 
 imbibing talks next to a hundred other people. I still don't 
 think the cost of getting a hundred people in the same room for 
 3-4 days would be justified, but at least it would be a step in 
 the right direction.


As I'm sure has been said before, if it were just the talks it 
probably wouldn't be worth it. But conferences are sooooooooooo 
much more than just the talks. Its the conversations over 
breakfast/lunch/dinner/ between talks and long into the night 
(sometimes too long). Its the networking, the hacking, the face 
to face. The talks are usually pretty good too.

The conference is definitely not dead, I'm going to one in San 
José in 2 weeks, sure the talks look really interesting but the 
main reason is to talk to other people to get stuff done.
Oct 02 2018
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 10:37:44 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 [...]


 As I'm sure has been said before, if it were just the talks it 
 probably wouldn't be worth it. But conferences are sooooooooooo 
 much more than just the talks. Its the conversations over 
 breakfast/lunch/dinner/ between talks and long into the night 
 (sometimes too long). Its the networking, the hacking, the face 
 to face. The talks are usually pretty good too.

 The conference is definitely not dead, I'm going to one in San 
 José in 2 weeks, sure the talks look really interesting but the 
 main reason is to talk to other people to get stuff done.


Then I'm not sure why you're saying any of this to me, as almost 
nothing you write contradicts anything I wrote.

If you're still not sure what I mean, read this long post I just 
wrote fisking Adam's similar post:

https://forum.dlang.org/post/eoygemytghynpogvljwb forum.dlang.org
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:

[snip]


Also you're out by a year :)
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent ShadoLight <ettienne.gilbert gmail.com> writes:
[snip]

However constructive your alternate proposals are, I suspect 
people are misreading your title (and it is easy to assume, just 
from the OP title, that you actually want to get 'get rid of' 
DConf, rather than just 'modify' and 'improve' DConf.

Personally I feel there is a cognitive dissonance between your 
title and what you actually wrote. Maybe, since the people who so 
far responded seem really vested in the benefits of DConf.. there 
might be a bit of knee jerking going on here.
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:


 "Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several 
 cities [all over the world], where a few livestreamed talks may 
 talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time 
 producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the 
 hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in 
 smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries 
 for the future."

 I can setup an event like this in my city, where AFAIK nobody 
 uses D, so most of it would be geared towards introducing them 
 to the language.

 I estimate that you could do ten times better at raising 
 awareness and uptake with this approach than the current DConf 
 format, by casting a much wider net, and it would cost about 
 10X less, ie you get two orders of magnitude better bang for 
 the buck.


I think this is something that could be done *in addition to* 
DConf. I honestly don't think DConf is very effective at 
promoting D, except perhaps to a small sliver of the overall 
population of programmers, due to the content of most of the 
presentations. {This is not intended to be a criticism or a 
statement that anything about DConf should be changed.}

I believe it would be a mistake to drop DConf. If we did that, 
the story that would be told is "D couldn't even support its own 
conference. Use Rust or Go or Julia instead." Our view would be 
"we're on the cutting edge" but everyone else's view would be 
"the language is dying".
Oct 02 2018
next sibling parent reply Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 14:49:31 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 I believe it would be a mistake to drop DConf.


What about we design a DConf that focuses on interactive 
collaboration instead of sitting passively in a room watching 
someone talk over a slideshow?



When Joakim talked about this the last time, I was just getting 
home from a work trip that got 30 people from the company - who 
usually work online - together in person. We had very few talks 
in the style of old DConf, and instead we would do a group 
introduction thing, then usually break off into smaller 
(randomized) work groups to progress a solution to the problem 
presented in the talk, then get back together as a whole to 
discuss it. (Etc.; there were a few different styles we tried, 
but most of them basically followed this basic idea.)

BTW another thing we did is the whole agenda was set up ahead of 
time, and there were some pre-reading we could do on the flights 
there, so we arrive already familiar with the ideas and might 
have some thoughts in mind already. This is analogous to putting 
the talks on Youtube first, then talking about it/working on it 
in person.


That also happens to be what most people say they like most about 
DConf... but at DConf, it happens after-hours, since the main 
event is all one talker presenting a powerpoint while everyone 
else <strike>surfs the internet</strike> listens intently. At my 
work meeting, the whole thing was designed around this in-person 
interaction.

That is what Joakim is talking about - changing the main event to 
be more like the after-hours stuff everyone loves so much, to 
actually use all the time to maximize the potential of in-person 
time.
Oct 02 2018
next sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 15:03:45 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 That is what Joakim is talking about - changing the main event 
 to be more like the after-hours stuff everyone loves so much, 
 to actually use all the time to maximize the potential of 
 in-person time.


I'm talking about growing two different qualities much more, with 
my two suggested alternatives to the DConf format.

1. Ditch the talks, focus on in-person interaction. That's why I 
suggest having almost no talks, whether at a central DConf or 
not. You clearly agree with this.

2. Decentralize the DConf location, casting a much wider net over 
many more cities. Walter and Adam could rent a room and setup a 
Seattle DConf location, Andrei and Steven in Boston, Ali and 
Shammah in the bay area, and so on (only illustrative, I'm not 
imposing this on any of these people). Some of the money that 
went to renting out a large conference room in Munich can instead 
be spent on these much smaller rooms in each city.

Charge some minimal fee for entrance in some locations, if that 
means they can spend time with W&A and to cover costs. I wouldn't 
charge anything more than $2 in my city for my event, as event 
organizers here have found that that's low enough to keep anyone 
who's really interested while discouraging fake RSVPs, ie those 
who have no intent of ever showing up but strangely sign up 
anyway (I know an organizer who says he had 150 people RSVP for a 
Meetup here and only 15 showed up).

By keeping travel and ticket costs much lower, you invite much 
more participation.

Obviously my second alternative to DConf listed above wouldn't be 
decentralized at all, only enabling in-person interaction at a 
still-central DConf.

Mix and match as you see fit.
Oct 02 2018
parent reply Johannes Loher <johannes.loher fg4f.de> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 15:42:20 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 15:03:45 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 That is what Joakim is talking about - changing the main event 
 to be more like the after-hours stuff everyone loves so much, 
 to actually use all the time to maximize the potential of 
 in-person time.


 I'm talking about growing two different qualities much more, 
 with my two suggested alternatives to the DConf format.

 1. Ditch the talks, focus on in-person interaction. That's why 
 I suggest having almost no talks, whether at a central DConf or 
 not. You clearly agree with this.

 2. Decentralize the DConf location, casting a much wider net 
 over many more cities. Walter and Adam could rent a room and 
 setup a Seattle DConf location, Andrei and Steven in Boston, 
 Ali and Shammah in the bay area, and so on (only illustrative, 
 I'm not imposing this on any of these people). Some of the 
 money that went to renting out a large conference room in 
 Munich can instead be spent on these much smaller rooms in each 
 city.

 Charge some minimal fee for entrance in some locations, if that 
 means they can spend time with W&A and to cover costs. I 
 wouldn't charge anything more than $2 in my city for my event, 
 as event organizers here have found that that's low enough to 
 keep anyone who's really interested while discouraging fake 
 RSVPs, ie those who have no intent of ever showing up but 
 strangely sign up anyway (I know an organizer who says he had 
 150 people RSVP for a Meetup here and only 15 showed up).

 By keeping travel and ticket costs much lower, you invite much 
 more participation.

 Obviously my second alternative to DConf listed above wouldn't 
 be decentralized at all, only enabling in-person interaction at 
 a still-central DConf.

 Mix and match as you see fit.


I totally agree with you on your first point, i.e. making DConf 
more interactive. I have had very good experiences with formats 
like open space or barcamp. However, these formats only work if 
people are actually willing to participate and bring in their own 
ideas. Not having anything prepared can in rare cases lead to the 
situation where there is a lack of things to talk about (I doubt 
this would be the case for the D community, but it is something 
to keep in mind).

However, I must say I disagree with your second point, i.e. 
decentralising DConf. As many people here have already mentioned, 
DConf is about talking to people. And to me it is especially 
important to talk to lots of different people whom I otherwise 
don’t get the chance to talk to in person. By decentralising the 
conference, we would limit the number of different people you can 
get in touch with directly by a huge amount.

Just to use myself as an example, last Docnf I was able to talk 
to Andrei, Walter, Mike, Ali, Jonathan, Kai and lots of others 
and exchange ideas with them. This would not have been possible 
with a decentralised event (except for the off chance that all 
those people by chance attend the same local „meetup“).

On the other hand, I have to admit that decentralising the event 
would open it up for a much bigger audience, which definitely is 
a good idea. However, I would much prefer to have something like 
a main DConf and if there are enough interested people in an area 
who will not go to the main event, they can host their own mini 
conference and watch streams, make their own small workshops etc. 
This is what happens a lot at the Chaos Communication Congress 
and it seems to work really well (granted, in this case it might 
also be related to the limited number of tickets).
Oct 02 2018
next sibling parent bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 16:10:20 UTC, Johannes Loher wrote:

 Just to use myself as an example, last Docnf I was able to talk 
 to Andrei, Walter, Mike, Ali, Jonathan, Kai and lots of others 
 and exchange ideas with them. This would not have been possible 
 with a decentralised event (except for the off chance that all 
 those people by chance attend the same local „meetup“).


And local decentralized meetups already existing. In fact I'm 
co-organizing one here in Denmark.

Similarily there are a lot other local meetups other places 
around the world.

DConf is a great way to centralize all those meetups so you get 
to meet people from different cultures with different views on 
things, because whether you're aware of it or not then 
programming is done different in every country, because each 
country has their own technological needs, culture etc. and it 
shapes very much around that.

Ex. a banking system in America is not the same as a banking 
system in Germany.
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 16:10:20 UTC, Johannes Loher wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 15:42:20 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 15:03:45 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe 
 wrote:

 That is what Joakim is talking about - changing the main 
 event to be more like the after-hours stuff everyone loves so 
 much, to actually use all the time to maximize the potential 
 of in-person time.


 I'm talking about growing two different qualities much more, 
 with my two suggested alternatives to the DConf format.

 1. Ditch the talks, focus on in-person interaction. That's why 
 I suggest having almost no talks, whether at a central DConf 
 or not. You clearly agree with this.

 2. Decentralize the DConf location, casting a much wider net 
 over many more cities. Walter and Adam could rent a room and 
 setup a Seattle DConf location, Andrei and Steven in Boston, 
 Ali and Shammah in the bay area, and so on (only illustrative, 
 I'm not imposing this on any of these people). Some of the 
 money that went to renting out a large conference room in 
 Munich can instead be spent on these much smaller rooms in 
 each city.

 Charge some minimal fee for entrance in some locations, if 
 that means they can spend time with W&A and to cover costs. I 
 wouldn't charge anything more than $2 in my city for my event, 
 as event organizers here have found that that's low enough to 
 keep anyone who's really interested while discouraging fake 
 RSVPs, ie those who have no intent of ever showing up but 
 strangely sign up anyway (I know an organizer who says he had 
 150 people RSVP for a Meetup here and only 15 showed up).

 By keeping travel and ticket costs much lower, you invite much 
 more participation.

 Obviously my second alternative to DConf listed above wouldn't 
 be decentralized at all, only enabling in-person interaction 
 at a still-central DConf.

 Mix and match as you see fit.


 I totally agree with you on your first point, i.e. making DConf 
 more interactive. I have had very good experiences with formats 
 like open space or barcamp. However, these formats only work if 
 people are actually willing to participate and bring in their 
 own ideas. Not having anything prepared can in rare cases lead 
 to the situation where there is a lack of things to talk about 
 (I doubt this would be the case for the D community, but it is 
 something to keep in mind).


As long as you plan ahead and compile an online list of stuff to 
work on or discuss in the weeks preceding, I don't see this being 
a problem.


 However, I must say I disagree with your second point, i.e. 
 decentralising DConf. As many people here have already 
 mentioned, DConf is about talking to people. And to me it is 
 especially important to talk to lots of different people whom I 
 otherwise don’t get the chance to talk to in person. By 
 decentralising the conference, we would limit the number of 
 different people you can get in touch with directly by a huge 
 amount.


I doubt that, it would just be different people you're talking 
to. There are probably three types of current and potential D 
users worth talking about. There's the core team, power users, 
and everybody else, ie casual or prospective users.

A central DConf caters to the first two, almost nobody from the 
largest camp, ie casual/prospective users, is flying out or 
paying $400 to attend. A decentralized DConf tries to get much 
more casual/prospective users and power users who couldn't 
justify traveling so far before, but it has two potential costs:

1. The core team may be spread out and not mostly gathered in one 
spot anymore. That is why I have suggested having them meet 
separately from DConf or at one of the DConf locations earlier in 
this thread.

2. A power user who might have paid to travel to Berlin before 
doesn't get access to the entire core team at once, someone like 
you I'm guessing. I think there's some value there, but I suspect 
it's much less than the value gained from a decentralized DConf.


 Just to use myself as an example, last Docnf I was able to talk 
 to Andrei, Walter, Mike, Ali, Jonathan, Kai and lots of others 
 and exchange ideas with them. This would not have been possible 
 with a decentralised event (except for the off chance that all 
 those people by chance attend the same local „meetup“).


Yes, but what did the D ecosystem concretely get out of it? Is it 
worth not having the hundreds of people who might have met them 
at decentralized DConf locations at Boston/SV/Seattle/Berlin not 
meeting them last year?

That's the kind of tough-minded calculation that needs to be made.


 On the other hand, I have to admit that decentralising the 
 event would open it up for a much bigger audience, which 
 definitely is a good idea. However, I would much prefer to have 
 something like a main DConf and if there are enough interested 
 people in an area who will not go to the main event, they can 
 host their own mini conference and watch streams, make their 
 own small workshops etc. This is what happens a lot at the 
 Chaos Communication Congress and it seems to work really well 
 (granted, in this case it might also be related to the limited 
 number of tickets).


Like I said in the post you're responding to, there's ways to mix 
and match the qualities I mention to various degrees.

On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 17:47:35 UTC, bauss wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 16:10:20 UTC, Johannes Loher 
 wrote:

 Just to use myself as an example, last Docnf I was able to 
 talk to Andrei, Walter, Mike, Ali, Jonathan, Kai and lots of 
 others and exchange ideas with them. This would not have been 
 possible with a decentralised event (except for the off chance 
 that all those people by chance attend the same local 
 „meetup“).


 And local decentralized meetups already existing. In fact I'm 
 co-organizing one here in Denmark.

 Similarily there are a lot other local meetups other places 
 around the world.


That's great, but the idea here is to turn DConf itself into a 
decentralized event.


 DConf is a great way to centralize all those meetups so you get 
 to meet people from different cultures with different views on 
 things, because whether you're aware of it or not then 
 programming is done different in every country, because each 
 country has their own technological needs, culture etc. and it 
 shapes very much around that.

 Ex. a banking system in America is not the same as a banking 
 system in Germany.


If each country is different, what do you gain from knowing how 
they do it, when your needs are different? Is much time really 
spent at DConf discussing: "In New Zealand, we write D this way, 
...", "Oh yeah, in Germany we write D this way, ..."? I seriously 
doubt it, and the internet is already a giant centralizing force 
in many ways.

Anyway, the question isn't how to centralize or decentralize D 
itself or how its used, which strikes me as nonsensical, but how 
can we introduce as many people to the language as cheaply as 
possible, by avoiding the high travel costs associated with a 
central DConf.

On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 20:29:33 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:

 On 10/02/2018 02:26 AM, Joakim wrote:

 I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next 
 DConf, so I'd like to make sure people are aware that the 
 conference format that DConf uses is dying off, as explained 
 here:
 
 https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era
 
 People are now experimenting with what replaces conferences, 
 we should be doing that too. I came up with some ideas in that 
 thread:
 


 Yes, let's be a bunch of trend-chasing hipsters. Maybe we can 
 even get Portlandia to do a biopic on us.


Do you just cut-n-paste these responses from some troll website? 
;) It doesn't even make sense, there is no "trend" anybody's 
talking about chasing here. Conferences are dying and I present 
my own ideas on what we should replace them with.

Nobody has even talked about a trend we should jump on, so like 
many of the responses in this thread, it's almost as though you 
didn't even read the link or what I wrote. Oh wait, that's 
exactly what happened.
Oct 03 2018
prev sibling parent Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Tue, 2018-10-02 at 15:03 +0000, Adam D. Ruppe via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 14:49:31 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 I believe it would be a mistake to drop DConf.


=20
 What about we design a DConf that focuses on interactive=20
 collaboration instead of sitting passively in a room watching=20
 someone talk over a slideshow?


I will be heading off the the annual GStreamer conference later this
month =E2=80=93 it's in Edinburgh, so, currently at least, in the UK. Two d=
ays
of traditional conference with lightning talks, and two days of
"hackfest". A very interesting format. I'll let you know if it works
after.

Python conferences always have at least one sprints day after a
conference.

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Oct 03 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 14:49:31 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:


 "Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several 
 cities [all over the world], where a few livestreamed talks 
 may talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time 
 producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the 
 hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in 
 smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries 
 for the future."

 I can setup an event like this in my city, where AFAIK nobody 
 uses D, so most of it would be geared towards introducing them 
 to the language.

 I estimate that you could do ten times better at raising 
 awareness and uptake with this approach than the current DConf 
 format, by casting a much wider net, and it would cost about 
 10X less, ie you get two orders of magnitude better bang for 
 the buck.


 I think this is something that could be done *in addition to* 
 DConf.


It depends what you mean by that. If DConf keeps running as it 
has, as you suggest below, but you simply add some satellite 
meetups around it in other cities watching the livestreamed talks 
from the main DConf, then you have addressed some of these 
concerns, but not very much.

If you go the decentralized approach I suggested, but maybe pick 
one of those locations as the one the core team goes to and don't 
do almost any in-person talks anywhere, that would address much 
more.


 I honestly don't think DConf is very effective at promoting D, 
 except perhaps to a small sliver of the overall population of 
 programmers, due to the content of most of the presentations.


I agree. I'll go farther and say that it's a small sliver of 
existing D programmers too who get much value out of it.


 {This is not intended to be a criticism or a statement that 
 anything about DConf should be changed.}


Heh, of course it's a criticism and of course it should be 
changed. :)


 I believe it would be a mistake to drop DConf. If we did that, 
 the story that would be told is "D couldn't even support its 
 own conference. Use Rust or Go or Julia instead." Our view 
 would be "we're on the cutting edge" but everyone else's view 
 would be "the language is dying".


Great. Everybody thought Apple was nuts when they released a $500 
iPhone in 2007, now Ballmer wishes he'd come up with the idea:

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/07/former-microsoft-ceo-steve-ballmer-wrong-iphone/

As long as you communicate that you're replacing one DConf 
location with several and why you're doing it, I don't see why we 
should care how they end up interpreting it. Our goal is to get 
users and adoption, not to look good to other 
programming-language developers.
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Tue, 2018-10-02 at 14:49 +0000, bachmeier via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 [=E2=80=A6]
=20
 I think this is something that could be done *in addition to*=20
 DConf. I honestly don't think DConf is very effective at=20
 promoting D, except perhaps to a small sliver of the overall=20
 population of programmers, due to the content of most of the=20
 presentations. {This is not intended to be a criticism or a=20
 statement that anything about DConf should be changed.}


A programming language without a language specific conference or ten,
is not a language to be taken seriously in the modern age it seems.
Also language specific local user groups and meetings.

However=E2=80=A6 language specific conferences are places to support tribal=
ism
and confirmation bias as well as progressing the language and knowledge
of it.

ACCUConf may have started as a C and C++ conference, but is now a
conference about programming. The ACCU members do not want a conference
solely about C and C++, they want a conference about programming where
different language come to be marketed, compared analysed. This is a
two-way street: the feedback on a language from people currently using
other languages is as important as finding out about another language.=20


 I believe it would be a mistake to drop DConf. If we did that,=20
 the story that would be told is "D couldn't even support its own=20
 conference. Use Rust or Go or Julia instead." Our view would be=20
 "we're on the cutting edge" but everyone else's view would be=20
 "the language is dying".


Clearly there is currently an obsession for language specific events
throughout the programming community. And yes, if there is no language
specific conference at all the language is deemed incapable of
supporting an active community. This alone militates in favour of
DConf.

But these language are inward looking, not outward looking. They are
about preserving the tribe, not about making programming better.

Last year some Rust folk came in numbers to ACCU and it worked. I am
hoping it will happen again this year. My attempts to get the Go folk
to ACCU seem to be failing, they appear to be too self-involved as a
community. No outreach.

I have moaned before about the lack of outward looking approach from
the D community, D is not alone in this, as the Go community have
proven.=20

How about DConf continues, as it should, and people submit sessions to
ACCU as part of the outreach programme. The call for sessions opens at
the end of this week and lasts three weeks.=20
 =20
--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Oct 02 2018
parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 06:40:28 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 How about DConf continues, as it should, and people submit 
 sessions to
 ACCU as part of the outreach programme. The call for sessions 
 opens at
 the end of this week and lasts three weeks.


Ow, that does not give me a lot of time, as I'm going to the US 
for a conference in the mean time.
Oct 03 2018
parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Wed, 2018-10-03 at 07:03 +0000, Nicholas Wilson via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 06:40:28 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 How about DConf continues, as it should, and people submit=20
 sessions to
 ACCU as part of the outreach programme. The call for sessions=20
 opens at
 the end of this week and lasts three weeks.


=20
 Ow, that does not give me a lot of time, as I'm going to the US=20
 for a conference in the mean time.


I have been muttering about this a while. :-)

Being at another conference clearly makes things a bit more difficult,
but having registered, logged in to the Web application, a submission
just requires a title, blurb and presenter bio. This might hopefully be
feasible for you, albeit less than ideal.

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Oct 03 2018
parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 07:33:44 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 I have been muttering about this a while. :-)


I know, but this conference was sorta last minute realisation 
that it would be very beneficial to attend and I've been rather 
busy with it.


 Being at another conference clearly makes things a bit more 
 difficult, but having registered, logged in to the Web 
 application, a submission just requires a title, blurb and 
 presenter bio. This might hopefully be feasible for you, albeit 
 less than ideal.


Good, although I can't guarantee that the blurb will match the 
final presentation because I'm sure a lot will happen in the mean 
time, but oh well.
Oct 03 2018
prev sibling parent rjframe <dlang ryanjframe.com> writes:
On Tue, 02 Oct 2018 14:49:31 +0000, bachmeier wrote:


 I think this is something that could be done *in addition to* DConf. I
 honestly don't think DConf is very effective at promoting D, except
 perhaps to a small sliver of the overall population of programmers, due
 to the content of most of the presentations. {This is not intended to be
 a criticism or a statement that anything about DConf should be changed.}


I'm within 20 minutes of two universities, a private college, and a 
community college; with another university 50 minutes away. At least four 
have CS departments (I don't know about the community college). With some 
sort of big event, I bet I could get space at one of them and get decent 
involvement from each school. I'm not in an area where regular meetups 
work well, but a one-time/annual large-ish event may get a good response.

If outreach is a current priority, then some sort of decentralized/global 
conference in addition to DConf might not be a bad idea.
Oct 04 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 10/02/2018 02:26 AM, Joakim wrote:

 I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next DConf, so 
 I'd like to make sure people are aware that the conference format that 
 DConf uses is dying off, as explained here:
 
 https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era
 
 People are now experimenting with what replaces conferences, we should 
 be doing that too. I came up with some ideas in that thread:
 


Yes, let's be a bunch of trend-chasing hipsters. Maybe we can even get 
Portlandia to do a biopic on us.
Oct 02 2018
prev sibling parent reply Dejan Lekic <dejan.lekic gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next 
 DConf, so I'd like to make sure people are aware that the 
 conference format that DConf uses is dying off, as explained 
 here:

 https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era


It is a matter of personal preference, and a view of a modern-day 
geek, in my humble opinion... I _highly disagree_. People go to 
conferences for different reasons. You know, even though we 
"computer people" tend to be branded as antisocial, there are 
still many of us who prefer to see someone in person, talk to 
him/her, meet new people, speak to them too, build the network, 
exchange phone numbers, etc...

As usual with conferences not all people are happy - you will 
ALWAYS have people who prefer more technical stuff, and people 
who prefer more business side - people who try to promote their 
products and services. - Conferences are brilliant places for 
them.

Another group of people interested in conferences and meetups are 
recruiters. My company found few new colleagues this way...

Yet another group are people who also want to see the town where 
the conference is held - it is a form of tourism if you like.

Yes, you can have all that interaction with some 
internet-conferencing software, but not at the level when people 
interact with each other directly!
Oct 03 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 11:48:06 UTC, Dejan Lekic wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 06:26:30 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I'm sure some thought and planning is now going into the next 
 DConf, so I'd like to make sure people are aware that the 
 conference format that DConf uses is dying off, as explained 
 here:

 https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era


 It is a matter of personal preference, and a view of a 
 modern-day geek, in my humble opinion... I _highly disagree_. 
 People go to conferences for different reasons. You know, even 
 though we "computer people" tend to be branded as antisocial, 
 there are still many of us who prefer to see someone in person, 
 talk to him/her, meet new people, speak to them too, build the 
 network, exchange phone numbers, etc...

 As usual with conferences not all people are happy - you will 
 ALWAYS have people who prefer more technical stuff, and people 
 who prefer more business side - people who try to promote their 
 products and services. - Conferences are brilliant places for 
 them.

 Another group of people interested in conferences and meetups 
 are recruiters. My company found few new colleagues this way...

 Yet another group are people who also want to see the town 
 where the conference is held - it is a form of tourism if you 
 like.

 Yes, you can have all that interaction with some 
 internet-conferencing software, but not at the level when 
 people interact with each other directly!


Like most of the responses in this thread, I have no idea why 
you're stumping for in-person interaction, when all my 
suggestions were geared around having _more in-person 
interaction_.

If you're still not sure what I mean, read this long post I wrote 
fisking Adam's similar post:

https://forum.dlang.org/post/eoygemytghynpogvljwb forum.dlang.org
Oct 03 2018
parent reply Dejan Lekic <dejan.lekic gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 16:21:45 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Like most of the responses in this thread, I have no idea why 
 you're stumping for in-person interaction, when all my 
 suggestions were geared around having _more in-person 
 interaction_.

 If you're still not sure what I mean, read this long post I 
 wrote fisking Adam's similar post:

 https://forum.dlang.org/post/eoygemytghynpogvljwb forum.dlang.org


Perhaps you did not get my point?

- I have nothing against core D team having web-conferences as 
much as they please. It is up to them (and they may already have 
them?) how they want to communicate.

What I argued about was that, just because some antisocial geek 
argues that conferences are "dead" because we have 
web-conferencing and similar means of communication does not mean 
we all share that opinion... Everyone can record a "talk" with 
slides and put it on some video streaming site like Vimeo or 
YouTube, but I personally see that as ANOTHER way to reach the 
community, certainly NOT an alternative to a well-organised 
conference!

Do not get me wrong, I have nothing against the proposal - I 
think D community can have both good, annual conference, AND what 
web-conferencing between core D devs, and people who would record 
talks in their rooms or offices and make them public...
Oct 03 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 17:13:51 UTC, Dejan Lekic wrote:

 On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 16:21:45 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Like most of the responses in this thread, I have no idea why 
 you're stumping for in-person interaction, when all my 
 suggestions were geared around having _more in-person 
 interaction_.

 If you're still not sure what I mean, read this long post I 
 wrote fisking Adam's similar post:

 https://forum.dlang.org/post/eoygemytghynpogvljwb forum.dlang.org


 Perhaps you did not get my point?


No, I got it, you didn't get mine.


 - I have nothing against core D team having web-conferences as 
 much as they please. It is up to them (and they may already 
 have them?) how they want to communicate.

 What I argued about was that, just because some antisocial geek 
 argues that conferences are "dead" because we have 
 web-conferencing and similar means of communication does not 
 mean we all share that opinion... Everyone can record a "talk" 
 with slides and put it on some video streaming site like Vimeo 
 or YouTube, but I personally see that as ANOTHER way to reach 
 the community, certainly NOT an alternative to a well-organised 
 conference!

 Do not get me wrong, I have nothing against the proposal - I 
 think D community can have both good, annual conference, AND 
 what web-conferencing between core D devs, and people who would 
 record talks in their rooms or offices and make them public...


While my OP did mention some of those things, it only did so as a 
way to have _more in-person interaction_ at the two DConf 
alternative formats I suggested, neither of which was primarily 
about any of the stuff you mention.

At least look at the first two bullet points in my post 
responding to Adam, because you're missing the entire point of my 
suggestions, which is that certain things like talks are better 
suited to online whereas conferences are more suited for 
in-person interaction.
Oct 03 2018
parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Wed, 2018-10-03 at 17:26 +0000, Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[=E2=80=A6]

 At least look at the first two bullet points in my post=20
 responding to Adam, because you're missing the entire point of my=20
 suggestions, which is that certain things like talks are better=20
 suited to online whereas conferences are more suited for=20
 in-person interaction.


In your opinion. In my opinion, online material is a waste of time, I never
watch YouTube videos, for me it is a waste of my time. But that is the poin=
t,
different people have a different view. This doesn't mean I am right or wro=
ng,
it means different people have different ways of dealing with material.

I like a live presentation that I can then ignore *or* take up with a gusto
with the presenter, or other people, after the session. Conferences allow
this. Presentations are an introduction to interaction with others. For me.
Others prefer to consume videos and have no interactions about the material=
.
Personal differences.

Since there is a population of people who like online stuff, then online st=
uff
there must be. As there are people who like a live presentation and post
session discussion, this must also happen. The two are not in conflict.=20

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Oct 03 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 17:51:00 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 On Wed, 2018-10-03 at 17:26 +0000, Joakim via Digitalmars-d 
 wrote: […]

 At least look at the first two bullet points in my post 
 responding to Adam, because you're missing the entire point of 
 my suggestions, which is that certain things like talks are 
 better suited to online whereas conferences are more suited 
 for in-person interaction.


 In your opinion. In my opinion, online material is a waste of 
 time, I never watch YouTube videos, for me it is a waste of my 
 time. But that is the point, different people have a different 
 view. This doesn't mean I am right or wrong, it means different 
 people have different ways of dealing with material.

 I like a live presentation that I can then ignore *or* take up 
 with a gusto with the presenter, or other people, after the 
 session. Conferences allow this. Presentations are an 
 introduction to interaction with others. For me. Others prefer 
 to consume videos and have no interactions about the material. 
 Personal differences.


Except that you can also view the videos at home, then discuss 
them later at a conference, which is the actual suggestion here.


 Since there is a population of people who like online stuff, 
 then online stuff there must be. As there are people who like a 
 live presentation and post session discussion, this must also 
 happen. The two are not in conflict.


They are in conflict because the cost of doing it live is much, 
much higher. DConf organizers' goal should be to enable the 
widest reach at the lowest cost, not catering to off-the-wall 
requests from a select few like yourself.

I don't doubt that some are like you and prefer viewing live, but 
given how conferences keep dying off and online tech talks are 
booming, you're in an extreme minority that prefers that 
high-cost live version. That means the market inevitably stops 
catering to you, which is why the talk-driven conference format 
is dying off.
Oct 03 2018
next sibling parent jmh530 <john.michael.hall gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 18:46:02 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 

 Except that you can also view the videos at home, then discuss 
 them later at a conference, which is the actual suggestion here.


Maybe that would work better with a smaller group? I imagine some 
people are too busy to do that beforehand. Another thing that 
might work would be to have everybody read through the 
presentations beforehand and then just have questions. That 
doesn't work so well when there are live code examples though.
Oct 03 2018
prev sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Wed, 2018-10-03 at 18:46 +0000, Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 [=E2=80=A6]
=20
 I don't doubt that some are like you and prefer viewing live, but=20
 given how conferences keep dying off and online tech talks are=20
 booming, you're in an extreme minority that prefers that=20
 high-cost live version. That means the market inevitably stops=20
 catering to you, which is why the talk-driven conference format=20
 is dying off.


And new conferences keep being started and being successful. And many just
keep on going, often getting more and more successful.

Your personal view of conferences cannot be stated as global truth, since i=
t
patently is not fact, and evidence indicates not true, it is just your
opinion.

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Oct 04 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 07:12:03 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 On Wed, 2018-10-03 at 18:46 +0000, Joakim via Digitalmars-d 
 wrote:

 […]
 
 I don't doubt that some are like you and prefer viewing live, 
 but given how conferences keep dying off and online tech talks 
 are booming, you're in an extreme minority that prefers that 
 high-cost live version. That means the market inevitably stops 
 catering to you, which is why the talk-driven conference 
 format is dying off.


 And new conferences keep being started and being successful. 
 And many just keep on going, often getting more and more 
 successful.

 Your personal view of conferences cannot be stated as global 
 truth, since it patently is not fact, and evidence indicates 
 not true, it is just your opinion.


The link in my OP links to a guy who maintained a spreadsheet of 
Apple-related conferences as evidence. He lists several that went 
away and says nothing replaced them. If you don't even examine 
the evidence provided, I'm not sure why we should care about your 
opinions.

On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 07:53:54 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 16:17:48 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Wednesday, 3 October 2018 at 01:28:37 UTC, Adam Wilson 
 wrote:

 On 10/2/18 4:34 AM, Joakim wrote:

 On Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 09:39:14 UTC, Adam Wilson 
 wrote:

 [...]


 
 It is not clear what you disagree with, since almost nothing 
 you say has any bearing on my original post. To summarize, I 
 suggest changing the currently talk-driven DConf format to 
 either
 
 1. a more decentralized collection of meetups all over the 
 world, where most of the talks are pre-recorded, and the 
 focus is more on introducing new users to the language or
 
 2. at least ditching most of the talks at a DConf still held 
 at a central location, maybe keeping only a couple panel 
 discussions that benefit from an audience to ask questions, 
 and spending most of the time like the hackathon at the last 
 DConf, ie actually meeting in person.
 


 This point has a subtle flaw. Many of the talks raise points 
 of discussion that would otherwise go without discussion, and 
 potentially unnoticed, if it were not for the person bringing 
 it up. The talks routinely serve as a launchpad for the 
 nightly dinner sessions. Benjamin Thauts 2016 talk about 
 shared libraries is one such example. Indeed every single 
 year has brought at least one (but usually more) talk that 
 opened up some new line of investigation for the dinner 
 discussions.


 I thought it was pretty obvious from my original post, since I 
 volunteered to help with the pre-recorded talks, but the idea 
 is to have pre-recorded talks no matter whether DConf is held 
 in a central location or not.


 I went to a conference once where they had mixed live talks and 
 prerecorded talks - questions where taken at the end to the 
 speaker of the prerecorded talk via a sip call.

 The organisers at the end admitted that the prerecorded talks 
 experiment failed. No one really paid attention to any of the 
 content in it.


Did anybody pay attention to the live talks either? ;) That's the 
real comparison.

Anyway, the reason I'm giving to prerecord talks is so you can 
watch them on your own time before the conference. Watching 
prerecorded talks with everybody else at a conference is layering 
stupid on top of stupid. :D
Oct 04 2018
next sibling parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 08:06:24 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 07:53:54 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 I went to a conference once where they had mixed live talks 
 and prerecorded talks - questions where taken at the end to 
 the speaker of the prerecorded talk via a sip call.

 The organisers at the end admitted that the prerecorded talks 
 experiment failed. No one really paid attention to any of the 
 content in it.


 Did anybody pay attention to the live talks either? ;) That's 
 the real comparison.

 Anyway, the reason I'm giving to prerecord talks is so you can 
 watch them on your own time before the conference. Watching 
 prerecorded talks with everybody else at a conference is 
 layering stupid on top of stupid. :D


Sure, but you really think it's an appropriate use of my free 
time spending 22 hours (which may as well be half a month) 
watching prerecorded talks instead of contributing?
Oct 04 2018
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 08:54:29 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 08:06:24 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 07:53:54 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 [...]


 Did anybody pay attention to the live talks either? ;) That's 
 the real comparison.

 Anyway, the reason I'm giving to prerecord talks is so you can 
 watch them on your own time before the conference. Watching 
 prerecorded talks with everybody else at a conference is 
 layering stupid on top of stupid. :D


 Sure, but you really think it's an appropriate use of my free 
 time spending 22 hours (which may as well be half a month) 
 watching prerecorded talks instead of contributing?


That's a strange question: do you prefer being forced to sit 
through all 22 hours live at DConf? At least with pre-recorded 
talks, you have a choice of which ones to watch.
Oct 04 2018
prev sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Thu, 2018-10-04 at 08:06 +0000, Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 [=E2=80=A6]
=20
 The link in my OP links to a guy who maintained a spreadsheet of=20
 Apple-related conferences as evidence. He lists several that went=20
 away and says nothing replaced them. If you don't even examine=20
 the evidence provided, I'm not sure why we should care about your=20
 opinions.


So Apple conferences are a dead end.

Python, C++, Go, Rust, all these languages have thriving conferences. You j=
ust
have to look at the world-wide increase in the number of such conferences f=
or
the data required.

But then my opinion, and indeed my data, doesn't seem matter to you so we
might as well just stop communicating since you are never going to change y=
ou
mind about this issue, even though you are actually wrong.

<ends/>

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Oct 04 2018
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 10:02:28 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 On Thu, 2018-10-04 at 08:06 +0000, Joakim via Digitalmars-d 
 wrote:

 […]
 
 The link in my OP links to a guy who maintained a spreadsheet 
 of Apple-related conferences as evidence. He lists several 
 that went away and says nothing replaced them. If you don't 
 even examine the evidence provided, I'm not sure why we should 
 care about your opinions.


 So Apple conferences are a dead end.


Remember though that this is the top developer ecosystem on the 
planet right now, as iOS apps bring in more revenue than Android 
still.


 Python, C++, Go, Rust, all these languages have thriving 
 conferences. You just have to look at the world-wide increase 
 in the number of such conferences for the data required.

 But then my opinion, and indeed my data, doesn't seem matter to 
 you so we might as well just stop communicating since you are 
 never going to change you mind about this issue, even though 
 you are actually wrong.


I've presented evidence in a handy link, you give none.

I could be wrong about anything, including that the Earth is 
round and I'm not in the Matrix. But to convince me that I am, 
I'll need evidence, same as I've presented to you.
Oct 04 2018