DConf 2019: Shepherd's Pie Edition

[Joakim]

On Saturday, 22 December 2018 at 16:35:27 UTC, Johannes Loher 
wrote:
> On Saturday, 22 December 2018 at 15:11:10 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> On Saturday, 22 December 2018 at 14:26:29 UTC, Atila Neves 
>> wrote:
>>> On Saturday, 22 December 2018 at 13:46:39 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>>> On Saturday, 22 December 2018 at 12:18:25 UTC, Mike Parker 
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The egregious waste of time and resources of this DConf 
>>>> format strongly signals that D is not a serious effort to 
>>>> build a used language,
>>>
>>> It's the same signal being emitted by all of these "failures" 
>>> as well:
>>>
>>> Go: https://twitter.com/dgryski/status/1034939523736600576
>>> Rust: https://rustconf.com/
>>> Clojure: https://clojure.org/community/events
>>> Haskell: https://wiki.haskell.org/Conferences
>>> C++: https://cppcon.org/ https://cpponsea.uk/ 
>>> http://cppnow.org/ https://meetingcpp.com/
>>>
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> To me it's obvious from that short list that took me less 
>>> than 5min to come up with that conferences aren't a dying 
>>> format. I gave up on C++ conferences after the 4th link, 
>>> there are just too many.
>>
>> The fact that a short list of conferences still exists at all 
>> somehow makes it "obvious" to you that they're not dying? Did 
>> you even look at my second link that actually tallies some 
>> numbers for a particular tech market?
>>
>> It is true that a few conferences are still being done, even 
>> my second link above never said they're _all_ gone. But simply 
>> saying some are still following this outdated ritual is not an 
>> argument for continuing it, nor does it contradict anything I 
>> said about the number of conferences going down.
>>
>>> If you don't like conferences you don't have to go.
>>
>> This has nothing do me: I've never been to DConf or most any 
>> other tech conference and likely never will. This is about 
>> whether the D team should be wasting time with this dying 
>> format.
>>
>>> I for one am excited about being in London in May. Please 
>>> don't sour it for other who think/feel like I do.
>>
>> Heh, so that's your two big arguments for why the conference 
>> format should continue: other languages are doing it and you 
>> want to visit London in May? You are exemplifying the mindset 
>> that I'm pointing out with these flimsy arguments, everything 
>> that is wrong with D and DConf.
>
> We talked a great deal about this in your thread 
> (https://forum.dlang.org/thread/ogrdeyojqzosvjnthpsi@forum.dlang.org). I believe the main takeaway from that discussion was that many of us disagree with your opinion to at least some degree.

As I recall, you largely agreed with me:

"I totally agree with you on your first point, i.e. making DConf 
more interactive."

"I disagree with your second point, i.e. decentralising DConf... 
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."
https://forum.dlang.org/post/omsxuayxkaqbxeoberzb@forum.dlang.org

> I know that you are very convinced about your idea of how we 
> should do DConf being superior and that is OK. Maybe you are 
> just ahead of time in this case, I don't know. But it is also  
> a fact that many people stated that they actually enjoy the 
> current DConf format very much and believe it is not a waste of 
> time and money at all. So to me, it is no surprise at all that 
> it was decided to to stick with the current format.

I really don't care how many people agree or disagree. All I care 
about is the reasoning presented. As I see it, I gave lots of 
good reasons, and like Atila here, they gave none: only "I 
enjoyed myself." That's not a worthwhile reason, if the goal is 
to further the D language and community.

> Also I don't think this is the right place for this discussion. 
> If you feel that we indeed need to rediscuss this issue, I 
> think it should be done in a separate thread.

I'm not trying to discuss it with you or the community. I'm 
asking the D team who're making this decision why it's being 
made, despite all the reasoning in that thread, and reiterating 
that it's a bad move. I suspect they're not thinking this 
through, but they can speak for themselves.