DConf 2019: Shepherd's Pie Edition

[Walter Bright]

On 12/22/2018 10:20 PM, Joakim wrote:
> Honestly, yours are routinely the worst presentations at DConf. Your strength as 
> a presenter is when you dig deeply into a bunch of technical detail or present 
> some new technical paradigm, similar to Andrei. Yet, your DConf keynotes usually 
> go the exact opposite route and go very lightly over not very much at all.

Eh, I went pretty far into the DIP 1000 material.


> 1) Ditch in-person presentations for pre-recorded talks that people watch on 
> their own time. Getting everybody in the same room in London to silently watch 
> talks together is a horrible waste, that only made sense before we all had 
> high-speed internet-connected TVs and smartphones with good cameras. Do a 
> four-day hackathon instead, ie mostly collaboration, not passive viewing.

It's very different listening to a presentation live rather than pre-recorded. 
There are the before and after interactions they inspire.


> 2) Rather than doing a central DConf that most cannot justify attending, do 
> several locations, eg in the cities the core team already lives in, like Boston, 
> Seattle, San Jose, Hong Kong, etc. This makes it cost-effective for many more 
> people to attend, and since you'll have ditched the in-person tech talks, spend 
> the time introducing the many more attendees to the language or have those who 
> already know it work on the language/libraries, ie something like the current 
> DConf hackathon.

London is the most cost-effective destination for most D team members. For 
distributed meetings, there have been several D meetups that do what you 
suggest. While fun and valuable, they're not a replacement for DConf.


> 3) Get the core team together as a separate event, either as an offline retreat 
> or online video conference or both. I know you guys need to meet once in awhile, 
> but it makes no sense to spend most of that in-person time at DConf staring at 
> talks that could be viewed online later.

If you ever came to one, you might see it differently.


> While I find it questionable to say that they couldn't easily find and recruit 
> those people online, given that D is primarly an online project where most 
> everything and everyone is easily available online, I see no reason why any of 
> the changes above would stop that.

There's a very clear connection between DConf and successful collaborations with 
industry and D developers. Why mess with success?


> It seems clear to me that you, at the very least, have not engaged with the 
> links and ideas I've been providing about why the current DConf format is broken.

Your opinions would have more weight if (1) you've ever attended a DConf and (2) 
can point to successful instantiations of your theories.


> My fundamental point is that the current DConf conference format is an outdated 
> relic, that made sense decades ago when getting everybody together in a room in 
> Berlin was a fantastic way to get everybody connected. With the ready 
> availability of high-speed internet and video displays to everybody who can 
> afford to pay the registration fee and go to London, that hoary conference 
> format needs to be rethought for the internet age.
> 
> I have no problem with anybody disagreeing with my suggestions or the reasoning 
> behind them, but I find it flabbergasting for anyone to suggest, as Mike has 
> above, that the old conference format still makes sense, especially given the 
> documented evidence of it declining.

People *like* conferences. You can buy a Led Zeppelin CD or spend $$$$ to see 
them live and enjoy it with the crowd. Maybe you'll go backstage and meet & 
greet. Which would you rather do?

BTW, another point for the presentations is that we cover the air fare and hotel 
expenses for the presenters. Quite a lot of people have been able to attend 
because of this. It's our way of giving a little bit back to strong contributors.