DConf and outreach, e.g. ACCU [was Please don't do a DConf 2018, consider alternatives]

[Russel Winder]

On Tue, 2018-10-02 at 14:49 +0000, bachmeier via Digitalmars-d 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.}

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… language specific conferences are places to support tribalism
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. 

> 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".

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. 

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. 
  
-- 
Russel.
===========================================
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

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