Please don't do a DConf 2018, consider alternatives

[Adam Wilson]

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-of-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;