On Tuesday, 25 December 2018 at 11:27:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson
wrote:
On Tuesday, 25 December 2018 at 05:01:43 UTC, Joakim wrote:
On Monday, 24 December 2018 at 22:22:08 UTC, Steven
Schveighoffer wrote:
The 0.1% of the community that attend seem to like it, the
vast majority don't, or at least don't care.
You think we have 200k users? More to the point you neglect the
benefit of development and progress is shared by all users.
I, for one, will not be donating to the foundation as long
as they continue to waste money this way, just as others
have said they won't donate as long as it doesn't put out a
Vision document anymore or otherwise communicate what it's
doing with their money.
I agree this does need to happen, the foundation will be having
a another meeting in Feb to set the vision, which I hope will
be a little more planned and productive than the last one.
Nobody is asking for your money for this conference (unless
you want to attend), and if you feel this way, that's totally
your choice.
I'm not talking about the registration fee, I'm talking about
contributing anything to the foundation, which Walter
indicates above covers some of the expenses for DConf.
Some additional transparency would help, Mike?
I like the results that come from the conferences, I've
been to all of them since 2013, on my dime for 3, and with
assistance for 3. I felt it was 100% worth it for all.
Yet you cannot give a single reason _why_ you felt it was
worth it, or why my suggestions wouldn't make it better.
I'll give my reasons:
I got a job out of it.
I got useful insight into various bits of the compiler.
I got connections for collaboration with stuff that I'm
interested.
If you're making a bad decision, it _should_ be questioned.
Indeed, but none of us think DConf is a bad idea or that the
format doesn't work for us.
Almost nothing that has been decided so far would stop most of
my three suggestions from still being implemented.
You haven't managed to convince us that that would be an
improvement.
As for how they feel about it, I don't care. The reason most
projects and companies fail is because the decision-making
process stops being about putting out a good product but about
"feelings" and various people "saving face," especially when
higher up the hierarchy, ie politics. And don't make up some
nonsense that I'm saying that it's okay if everybody starts
cursing each other out like Linus did: we're talking about
_questioning a decision_. That is the whole point of having a
community.
The day this community starts being more about saving face is
the day I leave it, as that's the beginning of the end, and I
don't want to be around for that end.
I totally agree, but again, you haven't convinced us that it is
an improvement.
Not at all, the whole reason I'm willing to debate is that
other worthwhile perspectives may be out there. I think the
evidence and arguments strongly favor the suggestions I'm
putting forward, but I'm perfectly willing to consider other
arguments.
That is the same stance they should have, but don't appear to.
My problem with this "debate" is that nobody was able to
defend the current DConf format at all.
That reasoning is backwards: in our experience DConf, as done
in the past, works, and it works well. The onus is on you to
convince us that it would work better the way you describe.
Simply repeating over and over again that you're not "convinced"
is not an argument, nor do your own personal reasons above argue
for one format over another.
I asked for a rationale above and got none from Mike and a very
weak, confused one from Walter. It's fairly obvious that there
was never any real deliberation on the DConf format, and that you
guys have dug in and decided to cut off your nose to spite your
face. Fine with me, your loss.
Consider some of Walter's silly arguments above: at one point
he says he wants "successful instantiations of your theories,"
implying that these are all things I'm just talking about and
nobody's doing them, though it's not clear which aspects he
thinks that of since I've presented evidence for much of it.
But at another point, he says that other D meetups are already
doing something I suggest (I pointed out that he's wrong about
that one, but let's assume he believes it), so there's no
reason for DConf to do it. First of all, 95+% of D meetups
appear to follow the DConf format of having a single speaker
lecture to a room, so why isn't that an argument against doing
that yet again at DConf?
What works at one scale doesn't necessarily work at another.
I see, so you're arguing that DConf shouldn't be doing in-person
talks because it's larger than most D meetups? Don't answer that,
scale as a reason makes no sense and there's no way you can make
it.
To do something very different from a "traditional" conference
would be a significant risk when what we have works well.
I see no "risk" whatsoever in change when the status quo is
dying, and what you're already doing isn't having much impact.
As noted previously your opinions would carry more weight if
you had actually attended a past DConf.
Heh, this is the dumbest possible argument anyone can put forth
and you guys repeatedly make it: "I have no arguments so 'Magic!
You had to be there!'"
Look, it's clear that these non-technical decisions, whether for
DConf or other matters, are not a rational process, whether
because of ignorance, incompetence, stubbornness, conservatism,
whatever. Just the fact that you guys cannot even seem to _track_
my arguments makes that clear. I want nothing to do with DConf:
just go on with that outdated nonsense and see where it gets you.
