Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 08:51:56 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 08:27:30 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 14:52:45 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:13:09 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: [...] So do people in US and Europe, the vast majority of whom watching the livestream or online videos didn't attend DConf. On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:30:49 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: [...] First off, I question there's much benefit to even the key devs beyond communicating through email and video conferencing to iron things out, as Andrei indicates he does with Walter. And Jonathan only mentioned the key devs, so that does exclude. As for everybody else, see below. [...] Then spend all your time doing those things: why waste the majority of conference time sitting through talks that you don't bother defending? Here's what a "conference" in Asia or Europe or wherever should probably look like in this day and age: - Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to get those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, both in content and presentation, before posting them online. - Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several cities in the region, such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangalore, where a few livestreamed talks may talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries for the future. This is just off the top of my head; I'm sure I'm missing some small details here and there, as I was coming up with parts of this as I wrote it, but I estimate it'd be an order of magnitude more productive than the current conference format while being vastly cheaper in total cost to all involved. Since D is not exactly drowning in money, it makes no sense to waste it on the antiquated conference format. Some American D devs may complain that they no longer essentially get to go on a vacation to Berlin or Munich- a paid vacation if their company compensates for such tech conferences- but that's not our problem. Thanks for further clarification. But there is still some limitation may exist, e.g., as you may note that the latest Linaro Connect that held in Hong Kong add a new special "China Access" for sharing their conference resources like below: http://connect.linaro.org/hkg18/resources/#1506759202543-a2113613-2111 I noted it because I am very interested in programming on ARM, so I hope LDC (https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc) could add the support for AARCH64 as soon as possible:). Check out the ltsmaster branch of LDC from git and try it out, most tests passed for me on Ubuntu/AArch64 16.04: https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc/issues/2153#issuecomment-384264048 The few remaining exceptions are some math-related modules would need to be patched to support 128-bit floating-point real numbers, such as CustomFloat from std.numeric, std.internal.math.gammafunction, or the floating-point parser from std.conv (but only if you really need that extra precision, most of that code still works at 80-bit accuracy), though all the tests from std.math now pass. The other big issue is core.stdc.stdarg needs to be adapted for AArch64 varargs, which is what's holding back building the latest LDC 1.10 natively. Good News! Hope official AArch64 support will be included in their upcoming releases.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 08:27:30 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 14:52:45 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:13:09 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: [...] So do people in US and Europe, the vast majority of whom watching the livestream or online videos didn't attend DConf. On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:30:49 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: [...] First off, I question there's much benefit to even the key devs beyond communicating through email and video conferencing to iron things out, as Andrei indicates he does with Walter. And Jonathan only mentioned the key devs, so that does exclude. As for everybody else, see below. [...] Then spend all your time doing those things: why waste the majority of conference time sitting through talks that you don't bother defending? Here's what a "conference" in Asia or Europe or wherever should probably look like in this day and age: - Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to get those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, both in content and presentation, before posting them online. - Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several cities in the region, such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangalore, where a few livestreamed talks may talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries for the future. This is just off the top of my head; I'm sure I'm missing some small details here and there, as I was coming up with parts of this as I wrote it, but I estimate it'd be an order of magnitude more productive than the current conference format while being vastly cheaper in total cost to all involved. Since D is not exactly drowning in money, it makes no sense to waste it on the antiquated conference format. Some American D devs may complain that they no longer essentially get to go on a vacation to Berlin or Munich- a paid vacation if their company compensates for such tech conferences- but that's not our problem. Thanks for further clarification. But there is still some limitation may exist, e.g., as you may note that the latest Linaro Connect that held in Hong Kong add a new special "China Access" for sharing their conference resources like below: http://connect.linaro.org/hkg18/resources/#1506759202543-a2113613-2111 I noted it because I am very interested in programming on ARM, so I hope LDC (https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc) could add the support for AARCH64 as soon as possible:). Check out the ltsmaster branch of LDC from git and try it out, most tests passed for me on Ubuntu/AArch64 16.04: https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc/issues/2153#issuecomment-384264048 The few remaining exceptions are some math-related modules would need to be patched to support 128-bit floating-point real numbers, such as CustomFloat from std.numeric, std.internal.math.gammafunction, or the floating-point parser from std.conv (but only if you really need that extra precision, most of that code still works at 80-bit accuracy), though all the tests from std.math now pass. The other big issue is core.stdc.stdarg needs to be adapted for AArch64 varargs, which is what's holding back building the latest LDC 1.10 natively.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 14:52:45 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:13:09 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:50:52 UTC, Joakim wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. It seems that people in different countries of Asia may live in different timezone. So do people in US and Europe, the vast majority of whom watching the livestream or online videos didn't attend DConf. On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:30:49 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:54:48 UTC, Joakim wrote: I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Except it doesn't exclude anyone -- it's not just the key developers. First off, I question there's much benefit to even the key devs beyond communicating through email and video conferencing to iron things out, as Andrei indicates he does with Walter. And Jonathan only mentioned the key devs, so that does exclude. As for everybody else, see below. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes. There are huge benefits to being there in person that extend beyond the time spent listening to the talks. People congregate in the lobby after hours, have three meals a day together, exchange ideas, make new contacts that lead to collaborations down the line... I wouldn't trade the time I've spent at the four DConfs I've attended for anything and very much regret missing the two I couldn't attend. Then spend all your time doing those things: why waste the majority of conference time sitting through talks that you don't bother defending? Here's what a "conference" in Asia or Europe or wherever should probably look like in this day and age: - Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to get those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, both in content and presentation, before posting them online. - Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several cities in the region, such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangalore, where a few livestreamed talks may talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries for the future. This is just off the top of my head; I'm sure I'm missing some small details here and there, as I was coming up with parts of this as I wrote it, but I estimate it'd be an order of magnitude more productive than the current conference format while being vastly cheaper in total cost to all involved. Since D is not exactly drowning in money, it makes no sense to waste it on the antiquated conference format. Some American D devs may complain that they no longer essentially get to go on a vacation to Berlin or Munich- a paid vacation if their company compensates for such tech conferences- but that's not our problem. Thanks for further clarification. But there is still some limitation may exist, e.g., as you may note that the latest Linaro Connect that held in Hong Kong add a new special "China Access" for sharing their conference resources like below: http://connect.linaro.org/hkg18/resources/#1506759202543-a2113613-2111 I noted it because I am very interested in programming on ARM, so I hope LDC (https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc) could add the support for AARCH64 as soon as possible:).
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 17:53:07 UTC, Ali Çehreli wrote: On 06/29/2018 02:20 AM, Joakim wrote: However, Ali notes significant interest in his D book in China and Russia (also see updated stats later in that thread): https://forum.dlang.org/post/oarr8l$19rh$1...@digitalmars.com Random stats of the day: LocationPages HitsBandwidth - United States 34,237 42,6081.34 GB China 28,616 29,040 543.10 MB Turkey 16,121 46,814 929.62 MB Russian Federation 10,205 12,616 525.24 MB Netherlands 8,559 8,747 148.16 MB Norway 7,247 7,324 79.20 MB Thailand 7,045 7,052 78.29 MB Germany 6,172 7,734 495.69 MB Brazil 5,272 5,604 128.59 MB [...] Ali Yes:), I think many Chinese developers show their interests in D language and related resource like Ali's D book!
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 07:56:28 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 18:54:40 UTC, bauss wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 17:04:46 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:54:48 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days where they can talk in person. It "pre-supposes" nothing, points like yours are specifically addressed: "But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, networking, and simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes despite) the conference formula." Some communities (e.g. the BSD community) even have developer meetings connected to conferences where they specifically put a bunch of developers in a room together to discuss stuff. The talks are valuable, but in some ways, those face-to-face interactions are worth far more than the talks. So, while there's certainly value in finding ways to get more talks online, I think that it would be a huge mistake to try and push for online stuff to replace physical conferences where developers actually interact with each other in person. I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes. Actually the network speed in China is not satisfied in some extent, and that of Korea and Japan are much better. What about Hong Kong? Actually Taiwan is preferred when compare with Hong Kong:). Because IT industry is well developed in Taiwan.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 18:54:40 UTC, bauss wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 17:04:46 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:54:48 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days where they can talk in person. It "pre-supposes" nothing, points like yours are specifically addressed: "But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, networking, and simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes despite) the conference formula." Some communities (e.g. the BSD community) even have developer meetings connected to conferences where they specifically put a bunch of developers in a room together to discuss stuff. The talks are valuable, but in some ways, those face-to-face interactions are worth far more than the talks. So, while there's certainly value in finding ways to get more talks online, I think that it would be a huge mistake to try and push for online stuff to replace physical conferences where developers actually interact with each other in person. I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes. Actually the network speed in China is not satisfied in some extent, and that of Korea and Japan are much better. What about Hong Kong? Actually Taiwan is preferred when compare with Hong Kong:).
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 05:36:52 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Saturday, June 30, 2018 02:34:00 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 02:23:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: > [...] That's nice, but since you present no arguments other than simply stating that it's "valuable" or "a very good idea" that's "gone up"- why? who knows? That would require actually supplying an argument- the 99.9% of D users who've never attended Dconf are unlikely to be persuaded that it's ever worth attending DConf or wasting any more time with a language that is more focused on blowing time and money on that outdated conference format than getting work done on the language. As I stated previously, having people meet in person can be a game changer. It gives you a different perspective on people and allows for much more efficient communication in many cases. Some stuff does work best when communicated online, but a lot of stuff works better when you have people in the same place discussing things. It could certainly be argued that we should do more with less traditional stuff like birds of a feather sessions or other activities that are geared specifically towards folks interacting, but the talks convey lots of useful information and ideas, and there's a lot of discussions that go on about the talks and other topics during the time that talks aren't happening. It would be a real loss to the D community if we lost that. As I stated previously and Adam reiterates, then do the actual in-person stuff that you find worthwhile and cut out the stuff that's "best when communicated online." I completely disagree that talks are in the former category and not the latter, particularly when a large majority of the scheduled time is spent on them.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, June 30, 2018 02:34:00 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 02:23:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: > > On Saturday, June 30, 2018 02:08:08 Joakim via Digitalmars-d > > > > wrote: > >> [...] > > > > The response is that those of us who have gone to dconf have > > found it to be valuable. It's not just that we're doing what > > others have done or that we think that it might be a good idea. > > It's actually been valuable in practice. > > > > Honestly, this is this first time that I've ever seen anyone > > try to argue that conferences like this are a bad idea. My > > experience has been that it has been a very good idea, and > > there are plenty of people out there who attend conferences > > regularly and try to get others to go because of how much value > > they see in it (and not just for dconf). If anything, the > > number of conferences that I've been hearing about has gone up, > > not down, and plenty of new conferences have started up in > > recent years (e.g. BSD Taiwan started up last year, the OpenZFS > > guys have started up a at least a couple of related conferences > > in the last few years, and RustConf is quite new). If you think > > that it's a bad sign that we have dconf, then that's certainly > > your choice, but the arguments that you've presented are > > unlikely to be persuasive to those of us who have actually > > attended dconf. > > That's nice, but since you present no arguments other than simply > stating that it's "valuable" or "a very good idea" that's "gone > up"- why? who knows? That would require actually supplying an > argument- the 99.9% of D users who've never attended Dconf are > unlikely to be persuaded that it's ever worth attending DConf or > wasting any more time with a language that is more focused on > blowing time and money on that outdated conference format than > getting work done on the language. As I stated previously, having people meet in person can be a game changer. It gives you a different perspective on people and allows for much more efficient communication in many cases. Some stuff does work best when communicated online, but a lot of stuff works better when you have people in the same place discussing things. It could certainly be argued that we should do more with less traditional stuff like birds of a feather sessions or other activities that are geared specifically towards folks interacting, but the talks convey lots of useful information and ideas, and there's a lot of discussions that go on about the talks and other topics during the time that talks aren't happening. It would be a real loss to the D community if we lost that. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 02:23:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: Honestly, this is this first time that I've ever seen anyone try to argue that conferences like this are a bad idea. I argued it (though I don't remember how vigorously) back when the kickstarter was done. I still think there's far more useful things we could have spent that money on. So, I literally just got home - as in about 20 minutes ago - from a work trip, an organization-wide retreat that consumed this whole week (and btw a LOT of money). I'll grant there was some value in the powerpoint presentations, but they were a tiny minority of the time. The "talks" of this week were frequently intercut with questions, comments, arguments. The plan included various break-out sessions that mixed people across teams that don't usually mix in order to share more and see the other perspectives. And, of course, before 9 and after 5, were the parts that most people felt were most valuable, just kinda hanging out and yes, even doing a little bit of work. Overall, I'm actually still not sure it was worth the time and money that went into it... but there's a good case to be made that it was, even limiting it to just the 9-5 parts. But there were a few people saying they think it would have been more worth it if we cut out even more of the structure, to make the 9-5 more resemble the 5-9. So when we criticize dconf, it is because the official time is devoted almost entirely to the most useless part of a meeting - the powerpoint presentations. (Like you could have just emailed that to me.) And the powerpoints themselves btw are frequently trash. Really, the point of a talk like this is to market something - get people interested enough to read your book or use your project or whatever. Reading text or code off a slide is really pretty pointless, again, you could have just emailed that to me. But anyway, if we are going to get people together, why not focus on the together aspects? Instead of having a traditional talk, try doing 5 minutes of talk to market interest in the idea, followed by 20 minutes of break-out interactive groups to collaboratively explore it, followed by conference share-outs and questions from those groups to the whole. And mix up the groups too. We did a fair amount of this at my work thing this week and I actually thought it worked fairly well. I actually rarely even had my computer out all week - we can youtube and email and IRC some other time, while in person, let's in person stuff. Instead of having another talk immediately follow, just have some... together time. Make the lunch break 3 hours long instead of 1, so people have more of a chance to mingle and organically collaborate. You say the best part is what happens after the conference... so let's try to bring that after-conference stuff TO the conference itself! If we're going to spend the money, let's not spend it on more powerpoints. Let's emphasize the parts you already like better, and actually focus on the unique benefits of in-person time.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 02:23:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Saturday, June 30, 2018 02:08:08 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...] The response is that those of us who have gone to dconf have found it to be valuable. It's not just that we're doing what others have done or that we think that it might be a good idea. It's actually been valuable in practice. Honestly, this is this first time that I've ever seen anyone try to argue that conferences like this are a bad idea. My experience has been that it has been a very good idea, and there are plenty of people out there who attend conferences regularly and try to get others to go because of how much value they see in it (and not just for dconf). If anything, the number of conferences that I've been hearing about has gone up, not down, and plenty of new conferences have started up in recent years (e.g. BSD Taiwan started up last year, the OpenZFS guys have started up a at least a couple of related conferences in the last few years, and RustConf is quite new). If you think that it's a bad sign that we have dconf, then that's certainly your choice, but the arguments that you've presented are unlikely to be persuasive to those of us who have actually attended dconf. That's nice, but since you present no arguments other than simply stating that it's "valuable" or "a very good idea" that's "gone up"- why? who knows? That would require actually supplying an argument- the 99.9% of D users who've never attended Dconf are unlikely to be persuaded that it's ever worth attending DConf or wasting any more time with a language that is more focused on blowing time and money on that outdated conference format than getting work done on the language.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, June 30, 2018 02:08:08 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: > Simple, D is a collective effort. If the core team wants to waste > one of its key funding sources in getting a bunch of hobbyists > together in a room showing off to each other then going on a > European vacation, completely ignoring how the world and tech has > changed from back when that could actually be worthwhile, that > signals to me and others that D is not a serious effort to build > a viable programming language. Such an egregious waste of > resources signals that this is just a bunch of boys having fun > with their toys, only now out on the town in Europe. > > I'm not saying that was the intent all along: I suspect that like > most people and institutions, DConf simply blindly aped what was > done in the past, which is why conferences still happen. However, > I'm now presenting arguments for why that doesn't make sense and > why that outdated ritual is dying off, as Marco notes, and if the > response is merely, "That's the way things have been done and > we'll just keep doing it regardless," well, congrats, you just > explained the thinking for why C and C++ will never be displaced > by D. The response is that those of us who have gone to dconf have found it to be valuable. It's not just that we're doing what others have done or that we think that it might be a good idea. It's actually been valuable in practice. Honestly, this is this first time that I've ever seen anyone try to argue that conferences like this are a bad idea. My experience has been that it has been a very good idea, and there are plenty of people out there who attend conferences regularly and try to get others to go because of how much value they see in it (and not just for dconf). If anything, the number of conferences that I've been hearing about has gone up, not down, and plenty of new conferences have started up in recent years (e.g. BSD Taiwan started up last year, the OpenZFS guys have started up a at least a couple of related conferences in the last few years, and RustConf is quite new). If you think that it's a bad sign that we have dconf, then that's certainly your choice, but the arguments that you've presented are unlikely to be persuasive to those of us who have actually attended dconf. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 01:52:15 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Saturday, June 30, 2018 01:43:32 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 01:33:34 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: > On Saturday, June 30, 2018 01:12:10 Joakim via Digitalmars-d > > wrote: >> Yes, this is about those people, who as that blog post >> notes, are wasting a ton of money on an outdated ritual >> that no longer makes sense. If you believe the core team >> and a few key devs like you need to get together once a >> year in person and hash things out, then do that as an >> offline retreat somewhere, just don't sucker in a bunch of >> other paying DConf attendees to help defray your costs. >> >> The ultimate question here is what is the best use of the >> money that's being expended every year at DConf? Is that >> money best spent mostly on hotel/conference rooms and >> airline tickets for marginal benefit to most or on actually >> getting shit done? I think it's obvious that the model I've >> sketched out to Mike above would get a _lot_ more done. > > A lot of people would disagree with you. If you don't want > to go, then don't go. If others don't want to go, then they > don't have to go. No one is being forced to go. There are > clearly plenty of folks interested in going to dconf, and I > expect that it will continue to happen so long as there is > such interest. If folks aren't interested, then they won't > show up, and if attendance is too low, then presumably, > dconf won't be held anymore. However, the interest is > clearly there even if you aren't interested, and I don't > understand why you would be trying to get folks to stop > going when they're very much interested in going and see > value in doing so. If all you care about is being able to > get online content, then just watch the videos online. My point is obvious from the arguments I've made, including the one you just responded to while ignoring the substance of the argument. And not that many people are actually interested in attending DConf as presently run, I counted what, maybe 100-150 people at the one in Munich last month? If you're going to keep ignoring Marco's and my arguments and simply repeatedly state that it's worth it for those who attend despite all the flaws, then there's no point in discussing it. Clearly the current conference format is like a religious ritual for you then, something that must be blindly done regardless of any considerations of value. Those of us who take the time and spend the money to go to dconf consider it worth the expenditure, or we wouldn't take the time or spend the money to go. It's our money to spend, and we see real value in what we get out of it, or we wouldn't keep going. If you don't agree with us, fine, but I don't see how it makes sense to try and talk us out of doing what we see value in doing. If you want to spend your time and money on something else, then do so. Simple, D is a collective effort. If the core team wants to waste one of its key funding sources in getting a bunch of hobbyists together in a room showing off to each other then going on a European vacation, completely ignoring how the world and tech has changed from back when that could actually be worthwhile, that signals to me and others that D is not a serious effort to build a viable programming language. Such an egregious waste of resources signals that this is just a bunch of boys having fun with their toys, only now out on the town in Europe. I'm not saying that was the intent all along: I suspect that like most people and institutions, DConf simply blindly aped what was done in the past, which is why conferences still happen. However, I'm now presenting arguments for why that doesn't make sense and why that outdated ritual is dying off, as Marco notes, and if the response is merely, "That's the way things have been done and we'll just keep doing it regardless," well, congrats, you just explained the thinking for why C and C++ will never be displaced by D.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, June 30, 2018 01:43:32 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 01:33:34 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: > > On Saturday, June 30, 2018 01:12:10 Joakim via Digitalmars-d > > > > wrote: > >> Yes, this is about those people, who as that blog post notes, > >> are wasting a ton of money on an outdated ritual that no > >> longer makes sense. If you believe the core team and a few key > >> devs like you need to get together once a year in person and > >> hash things out, then do that as an offline retreat somewhere, > >> just don't sucker in a bunch of other paying DConf attendees > >> to help defray your costs. > >> > >> The ultimate question here is what is the best use of the > >> money that's being expended every year at DConf? Is that money > >> best spent mostly on hotel/conference rooms and airline > >> tickets for marginal benefit to most or on actually getting > >> shit done? I think it's obvious that the model I've sketched > >> out to Mike above would get a _lot_ more done. > > > > A lot of people would disagree with you. If you don't want to > > go, then don't go. If others don't want to go, then they don't > > have to go. No one is being forced to go. There are clearly > > plenty of folks interested in going to dconf, and I expect that > > it will continue to happen so long as there is such interest. > > If folks aren't interested, then they won't show up, and if > > attendance is too low, then presumably, dconf won't be held > > anymore. However, the interest is clearly there even if you > > aren't interested, and I don't understand why you would be > > trying to get folks to stop going when they're very much > > interested in going and see value in doing so. If all you care > > about is being able to get online content, then just watch the > > videos online. > > My point is obvious from the arguments I've made, including the > one you just responded to while ignoring the substance of the > argument. And not that many people are actually interested in > attending DConf as presently run, I counted what, maybe 100-150 > people at the one in Munich last month? > > If you're going to keep ignoring Marco's and my arguments and > simply repeatedly state that it's worth it for those who attend > despite all the flaws, then there's no point in discussing it. > Clearly the current conference format is like a religious ritual > for you then, something that must be blindly done regardless of > any considerations of value. Those of us who take the time and spend the money to go to dconf consider it worth the expenditure, or we wouldn't take the time or spend the money to go. It's our money to spend, and we see real value in what we get out of it, or we wouldn't keep going. If you don't agree with us, fine, but I don't see how it makes sense to try and talk us out of doing what we see value in doing. If you want to spend your time and money on something else, then do so. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 01:33:34 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Saturday, June 30, 2018 01:12:10 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: Yes, this is about those people, who as that blog post notes, are wasting a ton of money on an outdated ritual that no longer makes sense. If you believe the core team and a few key devs like you need to get together once a year in person and hash things out, then do that as an offline retreat somewhere, just don't sucker in a bunch of other paying DConf attendees to help defray your costs. The ultimate question here is what is the best use of the money that's being expended every year at DConf? Is that money best spent mostly on hotel/conference rooms and airline tickets for marginal benefit to most or on actually getting shit done? I think it's obvious that the model I've sketched out to Mike above would get a _lot_ more done. A lot of people would disagree with you. If you don't want to go, then don't go. If others don't want to go, then they don't have to go. No one is being forced to go. There are clearly plenty of folks interested in going to dconf, and I expect that it will continue to happen so long as there is such interest. If folks aren't interested, then they won't show up, and if attendance is too low, then presumably, dconf won't be held anymore. However, the interest is clearly there even if you aren't interested, and I don't understand why you would be trying to get folks to stop going when they're very much interested in going and see value in doing so. If all you care about is being able to get online content, then just watch the videos online. My point is obvious from the arguments I've made, including the one you just responded to while ignoring the substance of the argument. And not that many people are actually interested in attending DConf as presently run, I counted what, maybe 100-150 people at the one in Munich last month? If you're going to keep ignoring Marco's and my arguments and simply repeatedly state that it's worth it for those who attend despite all the flaws, then there's no point in discussing it. Clearly the current conference format is like a religious ritual for you then, something that must be blindly done regardless of any considerations of value.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Saturday, June 30, 2018 01:12:10 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: > Yes, this is about those people, who as that blog post notes, are > wasting a ton of money on an outdated ritual that no longer makes > sense. If you believe the core team and a few key devs like you > need to get together once a year in person and hash things out, > then do that as an offline retreat somewhere, just don't sucker > in a bunch of other paying DConf attendees to help defray your > costs. > > The ultimate question here is what is the best use of the money > that's being expended every year at DConf? Is that money best > spent mostly on hotel/conference rooms and airline tickets for > marginal benefit to most or on actually getting shit done? I > think it's obvious that the model I've sketched out to Mike above > would get a _lot_ more done. A lot of people would disagree with you. If you don't want to go, then don't go. If others don't want to go, then they don't have to go. No one is being forced to go. There are clearly plenty of folks interested in going to dconf, and I expect that it will continue to happen so long as there is such interest. If folks aren't interested, then they won't show up, and if attendance is too low, then presumably, dconf won't be held anymore. However, the interest is clearly there even if you aren't interested, and I don't understand why you would be trying to get folks to stop going when they're very much interested in going and see value in doing so. If all you care about is being able to get online content, then just watch the videos online. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 19:50:32 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Friday, June 29, 2018 11:54:48 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: > On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d > > wrote: >> I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes >> a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: >> >> https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era >> >> Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf >> geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with >> arranging those online talks. > > That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from > conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having > a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few > days where they can talk in person. It "pre-supposes" nothing, points like yours are specifically addressed: "But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, networking, and simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes despite) the conference formula." Well, then I clearly read over it too quickly, but regardless, I think that you're going to have a hard time convincing the folks that attend dconf that meeting in person is not highly valuable, and for those who aren't there in person and only care about the talks, the talks are livestreamed and then made available separated out later. I don't see how trying to kill off the in-person aspect of things makes it any worse for those online, and I can say from experience that meeting in person can be a game changer. It gives you a very different perspective on someone if you've actually talked with them in person, and there's lots of communication that works far better that way. dconf is valuable for both the talks and the communication that happens before, between, and after them. And regardless of its location, I would hate to see it stop happening or stop being an actual, physical conference. Much as I prefer it when it's closer to where I live so that the travel time and expenses are lower, I've gone even when it's been halfway around the world, and I wasn't speaking (and thus wasn't reimbursed), and I will continue to do so. And I hate flying. I honestly don't see how convincing folks to do just online videos instead of meeting in purpose and recording the talks is any kind of improvement. At best, it could be argued that if folks could give their talks from home that the travel expenses would be avoided, but that's not even vaguely worth the loss of being able to have most of the core devs and many D enthusiasts meet and talk in the same place for a few days - even if several hours of that time is spent listening to talks that could arguably have been done from home. As I just told Mike, if you can't defend wasting time watching talks together, then do all those things you mention without the talks. And simply stating that the in-person talks are "valuable" is no defense. If you don't want to show up in person, then just watch the livestream and don't show up. The rest of us actually want to show up in person. I have never shown up in person, I suspect I never will. I feel sorry for those who want to come but can't afford to (be it due to the time required or the money required), but they wouldn't be any better off if everyone were livestreaming their talks from home instead of a central location that they couldn't afford to go to. This is not about them, as you say, they can just watch the talks online either way. Many of us pay to go to dconf and consider the money very well spent. Yes, this is about those people, who as that blog post notes, are wasting a ton of money on an outdated ritual that no longer makes sense. If you believe the core team and a few key devs like you need to get together once a year in person and hash things out, then do that as an offline retreat somewhere, just don't sucker in a bunch of other paying DConf attendees to help defray your costs. The ultimate question here is what is the best use of the money that's being expended every year at DConf? Is that money best spent mostly on hotel/conference rooms and airline tickets for marginal benefit to most or on actually getting shit done? I think it's obvious that the model I've sketched out to Mike above would get a _lot_ more done.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On 6/29/2018 2:34 AM, Mike Franklin wrote: I doubt there'd be any problem have DConf anywhere in the world as long is it is properly funded. Who in Asia would be willing to sponsor it? Mike is right on both counts.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, June 29, 2018 11:54:48 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: > > On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d > > > > wrote: > >> I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a > >> lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: > >> > >> https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era > >> > >> Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared > >> towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those > >> online talks. > > > > That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from > > conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a > > bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days > > where they can talk in person. > > It "pre-supposes" nothing, points like yours are specifically > addressed: > > "But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, > networking, and simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes > despite) the conference formula." Well, then I clearly read over it too quickly, but regardless, I think that you're going to have a hard time convincing the folks that attend dconf that meeting in person is not highly valuable, and for those who aren't there in person and only care about the talks, the talks are livestreamed and then made available separated out later. I don't see how trying to kill off the in-person aspect of things makes it any worse for those online, and I can say from experience that meeting in person can be a game changer. It gives you a very different perspective on someone if you've actually talked with them in person, and there's lots of communication that works far better that way. dconf is valuable for both the talks and the communication that happens before, between, and after them. And regardless of its location, I would hate to see it stop happening or stop being an actual, physical conference. Much as I prefer it when it's closer to where I live so that the travel time and expenses are lower, I've gone even when it's been halfway around the world, and I wasn't speaking (and thus wasn't reimbursed), and I will continue to do so. And I hate flying. I honestly don't see how convincing folks to do just online videos instead of meeting in purpose and recording the talks is any kind of improvement. At best, it could be argued that if folks could give their talks from home that the travel expenses would be avoided, but that's not even vaguely worth the loss of being able to have most of the core devs and many D enthusiasts meet and talk in the same place for a few days - even if several hours of that time is spent listening to talks that could arguably have been done from home. If you don't want to show up in person, then just watch the livestream and don't show up. The rest of us actually want to show up in person. I feel sorry for those who want to come but can't afford to (be it due to the time required or the money required), but they wouldn't be any better off if everyone were livestreaming their talks from home instead of a central location that they couldn't afford to go to. Many of us pay to go to dconf and consider the money very well spent. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 17:04:46 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:54:48 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days where they can talk in person. It "pre-supposes" nothing, points like yours are specifically addressed: "But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, networking, and simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes despite) the conference formula." Some communities (e.g. the BSD community) even have developer meetings connected to conferences where they specifically put a bunch of developers in a room together to discuss stuff. The talks are valuable, but in some ways, those face-to-face interactions are worth far more than the talks. So, while there's certainly value in finding ways to get more talks online, I think that it would be a huge mistake to try and push for online stuff to replace physical conferences where developers actually interact with each other in person. I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes. Actually the network speed in China is not satisfied in some extent, and that of Korea and Japan are much better. What about Hong Kong?
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On 06/29/2018 02:20 AM, Joakim wrote: However, Ali notes significant interest in his D book in China and Russia (also see updated stats later in that thread): https://forum.dlang.org/post/oarr8l$19rh$1...@digitalmars.com Random stats of the day: LocationPages HitsBandwidth - United States 34,237 42,6081.34 GB China 28,616 29,040 543.10 MB Turkey 16,121 46,814 929.62 MB Russian Federation 10,205 12,616 525.24 MB Netherlands 8,559 8,747 148.16 MB Norway 7,247 7,324 79.20 MB Thailand 7,045 7,052 78.29 MB Germany 6,172 7,734 495.69 MB Brazil 5,272 5,604 128.59 MB [...] Ali
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:54:48 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days where they can talk in person. It "pre-supposes" nothing, points like yours are specifically addressed: "But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, networking, and simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes despite) the conference formula." Some communities (e.g. the BSD community) even have developer meetings connected to conferences where they specifically put a bunch of developers in a room together to discuss stuff. The talks are valuable, but in some ways, those face-to-face interactions are worth far more than the talks. So, while there's certainly value in finding ways to get more talks online, I think that it would be a huge mistake to try and push for online stuff to replace physical conferences where developers actually interact with each other in person. I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes. Actually the network speed in China is not satisfied in some extent, and that of Korea and Japan are much better.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:13:09 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:50:52 UTC, Joakim wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. It seems that people in different countries of Asia may live in different timezone. So do people in US and Europe, the vast majority of whom watching the livestream or online videos didn't attend DConf. On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 12:30:49 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:54:48 UTC, Joakim wrote: I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Except it doesn't exclude anyone -- it's not just the key developers. First off, I question there's much benefit to even the key devs beyond communicating through email and video conferencing to iron things out, as Andrei indicates he does with Walter. And Jonathan only mentioned the key devs, so that does exclude. As for everybody else, see below. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes. There are huge benefits to being there in person that extend beyond the time spent listening to the talks. People congregate in the lobby after hours, have three meals a day together, exchange ideas, make new contacts that lead to collaborations down the line... I wouldn't trade the time I've spent at the four DConfs I've attended for anything and very much regret missing the two I couldn't attend. Then spend all your time doing those things: why waste the majority of conference time sitting through talks that you don't bother defending? Here's what a "conference" in Asia or Europe or wherever should probably look like in this day and age: - Have most talks prerecorded by the speaker on their webcam or smartphone, which produce excellent video these days with not much fiddling, and have a couple organizers work with them to get those home-brewed videos up to a certain quality level, both in content and presentation, before posting them online. - Once the videos are all up, set up weekend meetups in several cities in the region, such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangalore, where a few livestreamed talks may talk place if some speakers don't want to spend more time producing a pre-recorded talk, but most time is spent like the hackathon, discussing various existing issues from bugzilla in smaller groups or brainstorming ideas, designs, and libraries for the future. This is just off the top of my head; I'm sure I'm missing some small details here and there, as I was coming up with parts of this as I wrote it, but I estimate it'd be an order of magnitude more productive than the current conference format while being vastly cheaper in total cost to all involved. Since D is not exactly drowning in money, it makes no sense to waste it on the antiquated conference format. Some American D devs may complain that they no longer essentially get to go on a vacation to Berlin or Munich- a paid vacation if their company compensates for such tech conferences- but that's not our problem.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:54:48 UTC, Joakim wrote: I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Except it doesn't exclude anyone -- it's not just the key developers. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes. There are huge benefits to being there in person that extend beyond the time spent listening to the talks. People congregate in the lobby after hours, have three meals a day together, exchange ideas, make new contacts that lead to collaborations down the line... I wouldn't trade the time I've spent at the four DConfs I've attended for anything and very much regret missing the two I couldn't attend.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:50:52 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:31:05 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:20:55 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: [...] I get the sense that the US and Germany have the largest amount of heavy D users, which is why all the DConfs so far have been held in those two countries. Three of the five largest D Meetup groups are in those countries: https://www.meetup.com/topics/dpl/ However, Ali notes significant interest in his D book in China and Russia (also see updated stats later in that thread): https://forum.dlang.org/post/oarr8l$19rh$1...@digitalmars.com Japan may be in third place for heavy users, as Kenji Hara and a few others are significant contributors, and they certainly tweet about dlang: https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/dlang It may be a good forward-looking move to hold one of the next two or three DConfs in Japan or Hong Kong, perhaps working with Laeeth and the Hong Kong Meetup group. Thanks for sharing these info! Maybe China is also a good candidate:), as we know that Chinese companies like PuTao(http://www.huntframework.com/) is using D for their production environment and has been contributed to many D open source projects. I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. It seems that people in different countries of Asia may live in different timezone.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:14:42 UTC, bauss wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: Dear all, How about set up DConf Asia every year? As far as I know, there are a few D programmers and fans in Asia, but DConf was traditionally held in U.S. or Germany before,so that it may be not convenient for them to take part in these celebrations. Today more and more programmers in Asia are embracing Open Source, and many technology conferences have their Asia version such like the just concluded LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen that has been held in Beijing for two years, and the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon will be held on Nov in Shanghai this year, and many Linux/BSD conferences for Kernel or Distributions have been held in Japan, Korea, and so on. For programming languages, PyCon APAC has been successfully held in many Asian countries each year. And Gopher China has also been held for many years. So I wonder if DConf can be held in Asia will be sure to greatly expand the influence of D languages, and attract the eyes of the largest group of programmers in the world. All suggestions are welcome! I would love a DConf in Asia. Would give me a reason to travel there other than vacation :) Welcome!
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days where they can talk in person. It "pre-supposes" nothing, points like yours are specifically addressed: "But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, networking, and simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes despite) the conference formula." Some communities (e.g. the BSD community) even have developer meetings connected to conferences where they specifically put a bunch of developers in a room together to discuss stuff. The talks are valuable, but in some ways, those face-to-face interactions are worth far more than the talks. So, while there's certainly value in finding ways to get more talks online, I think that it would be a huge mistake to try and push for online stuff to replace physical conferences where developers actually interact with each other in person. I don't, I think it would be a huge improvement. There are very few benefits to getting people together in person in our hyperconnected age, and while "key developers in the same place" may be one of those, that excludes almost everybody else at DConf. Honestly, getting everybody together in a room and having them stare straight ahead at a speaker is a blindingly stupid waste of time these days. The only advantage of everybody being together in a room is the heightened communication bandwidth, and then you all sit next to each other staring straight ahead silently. The conference format made sense when pretty much everybody attending didn't have high-speed internet and connected video displays decades ago, but they make no sense now, as that blog post notes.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 11:32:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks. That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days where they can talk in person. Some communities (e.g. the BSD community) even have developer meetings connected to conferences where they specifically put a bunch of developers in a room together to discuss stuff. The talks are valuable, but in some ways, those face-to-face interactions are worth far more than the talks. So, while there's certainly value in finding ways to get more talks online, I think that it would be a huge mistake to try and push for online stuff to replace physical conferences where developers actually interact with each other in person. - Jonathan M Davis A major difference between most conferences and DConf from my perspective are things like the Hackathon etc. which makes it more than just a conference, but more like a large social D event.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, June 29, 2018 10:50:52 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote: > I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot > of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: > > https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era > > Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared > towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those > online talks. That article seems to pre-suppose that the only benefit from conferences is the talks. A _lot_ of good comes from having a bunch of the key developers in the same place for a few days where they can talk in person. Some communities (e.g. the BSD community) even have developer meetings connected to conferences where they specifically put a bunch of developers in a room together to discuss stuff. The talks are valuable, but in some ways, those face-to-face interactions are worth far more than the talks. So, while there's certainly value in finding ways to get more talks online, I think that it would be a huge mistake to try and push for online stuff to replace physical conferences where developers actually interact with each other in person. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:31:05 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:20:55 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: [...] I get the sense that the US and Germany have the largest amount of heavy D users, which is why all the DConfs so far have been held in those two countries. Three of the five largest D Meetup groups are in those countries: https://www.meetup.com/topics/dpl/ However, Ali notes significant interest in his D book in China and Russia (also see updated stats later in that thread): https://forum.dlang.org/post/oarr8l$19rh$1...@digitalmars.com Japan may be in third place for heavy users, as Kenji Hara and a few others are significant contributors, and they certainly tweet about dlang: https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/dlang It may be a good forward-looking move to hold one of the next two or three DConfs in Japan or Hong Kong, perhaps working with Laeeth and the Hong Kong Meetup group. Thanks for sharing these info! Maybe China is also a good candidate:), as we know that Chinese companies like PuTao(http://www.huntframework.com/) is using D for their production environment and has been contributed to many D open source projects. I coincidentally just read this blog post, that summarizes a lot of my thoughts against conferences and meetups: https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era Maybe a good first step would be a mostly online DConf geared towards Asian timezones? I could help out with arranging those online talks.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:18:01 UTC, Michael wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:12:28 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: I can tell you that DConf Asia is something the Foundation is interested in. It's also something I plan to work toward making happen eventually. We discussed this at our Seoul meetup recently. What I need to know before anything can happen is how large the Chinese and Japanese D communities are. I guess the best place to start is to organise meetups in the countries first to gauge interest and the size of the D community in those countries, and then there can be some communication between the local meetups aiming at organising a more regional DConf? As I understand it, they already have active D communities with their own forums & blogs and probably meetups. Several of the D blog posts have been translated to Japanese and the D_Programming tweets are often retweeted by a Japanese account. We just need to tap into those existing communities and find out their size, composition, etc, and who can help us organize.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:18:01 UTC, Michael wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:12:28 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: I can tell you that DConf Asia is something the Foundation is interested in. It's also something I plan to work toward making happen eventually. We discussed this at our Seoul meetup recently. What I need to know before anything can happen is how large the Chinese and Japanese D communities are. I guess the best place to start is to organise meetups in the countries first to gauge interest and the size of the D community in those countries, and then there can be some communication between the local meetups aiming at organising a more regional DConf? Good suggestion! I will try to evaluate if it is possible to set up a meetup for D language in China firstly.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:12:28 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:58:50 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: Yes, the Sponsors should be the major problem for holding DConf Asia. I will try to collect the info if any Chinese programmer organizations or companies are interested in it. Please people from other countries in Asia help to do the similar thing if you are interested to hold the DConf Asia in your country. Let's refer to the history of PyCon APAC which has been successfully held for many years, it was first held at the Singapore Management University by some professors, and held among other countries or regions in Asia annually, now PyCon APAC come back to Singapore(https://pycon.sg/) this year. I can tell you that DConf Asia is something the Foundation is interested in. It's also something I plan to work toward making happen eventually. We discussed this at our Seoul meetup recently. What I need to know before anything can happen is how large the Chinese and Japanese D communities are. I'm up to my eyeballs in work right now and had no plans to move on this until I finish off my current priorities, but if you're willing to help on the Chinese front, I'll do what I can to support you. My email address is aldac...@gmail.com, so please feel free to contact me about this and we can discuss it. Thank you very much!
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 10:12:28 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: I can tell you that DConf Asia is something the Foundation is interested in. It's also something I plan to work toward making happen eventually. We discussed this at our Seoul meetup recently. What I need to know before anything can happen is how large the Chinese and Japanese D communities are. I guess the best place to start is to organise meetups in the countries first to gauge interest and the size of the D community in those countries, and then there can be some communication between the local meetups aiming at organising a more regional DConf?
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:58:50 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: Yes, the Sponsors should be the major problem for holding DConf Asia. I will try to collect the info if any Chinese programmer organizations or companies are interested in it. Please people from other countries in Asia help to do the similar thing if you are interested to hold the DConf Asia in your country. Let's refer to the history of PyCon APAC which has been successfully held for many years, it was first held at the Singapore Management University by some professors, and held among other countries or regions in Asia annually, now PyCon APAC come back to Singapore(https://pycon.sg/) this year. I can tell you that DConf Asia is something the Foundation is interested in. It's also something I plan to work toward making happen eventually. We discussed this at our Seoul meetup recently. What I need to know before anything can happen is how large the Chinese and Japanese D communities are. I'm up to my eyeballs in work right now and had no plans to move on this until I finish off my current priorities, but if you're willing to help on the Chinese front, I'll do what I can to support you. My email address is aldac...@gmail.com, so please feel free to contact me about this and we can discuss it.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: Dear all, How about set up DConf Asia every year? As far as I know, there are a few D programmers and fans in Asia, but DConf was traditionally held in U.S. or Germany before,so that it may be not convenient for them to take part in these celebrations. Today more and more programmers in Asia are embracing Open Source, and many technology conferences have their Asia version such like the just concluded LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen that has been held in Beijing for two years, and the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon will be held on Nov in Shanghai this year, and many Linux/BSD conferences for Kernel or Distributions have been held in Japan, Korea, and so on. For programming languages, PyCon APAC has been successfully held in many Asian countries each year. And Gopher China has also been held for many years. So I wonder if DConf can be held in Asia will be sure to greatly expand the influence of D languages, and attract the eyes of the largest group of programmers in the world. All suggestions are welcome! I would love a DConf in Asia. Would give me a reason to travel there other than vacation :)
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:34:44 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: How about set up DConf Asia every year? I doubt there'd be any problem have DConf anywhere in the world as long is it is properly funded. Who in Asia would be willing to sponsor it? Mike Yes, the Sponsors should be the major problem for holding DConf Asia. I will try to collect the info if any Chinese programmer organizations or companies are interested in it. Please people from other countries in Asia help to do the similar thing if you are interested to hold the DConf Asia in your country. Let's refer to the history of PyCon APAC which has been successfully held for many years, it was first held at the Singapore Management University by some professors, and held among other countries or regions in Asia annually, now PyCon APAC come back to Singapore(https://pycon.sg/) this year.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:20:55 UTC, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: Dear all, How about set up DConf Asia every year? As far as I know, there are a few D programmers and fans in Asia, but DConf was traditionally held in U.S. or Germany before,so that it may be not convenient for them to take part in these celebrations. Today more and more programmers in Asia are embracing Open Source, and many technology conferences have their Asia version such like the just concluded LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen that has been held in Beijing for two years, and the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon will be held on Nov in Shanghai this year, and many Linux/BSD conferences for Kernel or Distributions have been held in Japan, Korea, and so on. For programming languages, PyCon APAC has been successfully held in many Asian countries each year. And Gopher China has also been held for many years. So I wonder if DConf can be held in Asia will be sure to greatly expand the influence of D languages, and attract the eyes of the largest group of programmers in the world. All suggestions are welcome! I get the sense that the US and Germany have the largest amount of heavy D users, which is why all the DConfs so far have been held in those two countries. Three of the five largest D Meetup groups are in those countries: https://www.meetup.com/topics/dpl/ However, Ali notes significant interest in his D book in China and Russia (also see updated stats later in that thread): https://forum.dlang.org/post/oarr8l$19rh$1...@digitalmars.com Japan may be in third place for heavy users, as Kenji Hara and a few others are significant contributors, and they certainly tweet about dlang: https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/dlang It may be a good forward-looking move to hold one of the next two or three DConfs in Japan or Hong Kong, perhaps working with Laeeth and the Hong Kong Meetup group. Thanks for sharing these info! Maybe China is also a good candidate:), as we know that Chinese companies like PuTao(http://www.huntframework.com/) is using D for their production environment and has been contributed to many D open source projects.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On 29/06/2018 9:20 PM, Joakim wrote: On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: Dear all, How about set up DConf Asia every year? As far as I know, there are a few D programmers and fans in Asia, but DConf was traditionally held in U.S. or Germany before,so that it may be not convenient for them to take part in these celebrations. Today more and more programmers in Asia are embracing Open Source, and many technology conferences have their Asia version such like the just concluded LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen that has been held in Beijing for two years, and the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon will be held on Nov in Shanghai this year, and many Linux/BSD conferences for Kernel or Distributions have been held in Japan, Korea, and so on. For programming languages, PyCon APAC has been successfully held in many Asian countries each year. And Gopher China has also been held for many years. So I wonder if DConf can be held in Asia will be sure to greatly expand the influence of D languages, and attract the eyes of the largest group of programmers in the world. All suggestions are welcome! I get the sense that the US and Germany have the largest amount of heavy D users, which is why all the DConfs so far have been held in those two countries. Three of the five largest D Meetup groups are in those countries: https://www.meetup.com/topics/dpl/ However, Ali notes significant interest in his D book in China and Russia (also see updated stats later in that thread): https://forum.dlang.org/post/oarr8l$19rh$1...@digitalmars.com Japan may be in third place for heavy users, as Kenji Hara and a few others are significant contributors, and they certainly tweet about dlang: Kenji has long since gone. He has been missed. Mike would be a better candidate for organizing as he is in South Korea. However some meetups first to get an idea of the numbers wouldn't be a terrible idea.
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: How about set up DConf Asia every year? I doubt there'd be any problem have DConf anywhere in the world as long is it is properly funded. Who in Asia would be willing to sponsor it? Mike
Re: Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
On Friday, 29 June 2018 at 09:03:19 UTC, 鲜卑拓跋枫 wrote: Dear all, How about set up DConf Asia every year? As far as I know, there are a few D programmers and fans in Asia, but DConf was traditionally held in U.S. or Germany before,so that it may be not convenient for them to take part in these celebrations. Today more and more programmers in Asia are embracing Open Source, and many technology conferences have their Asia version such like the just concluded LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen that has been held in Beijing for two years, and the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon will be held on Nov in Shanghai this year, and many Linux/BSD conferences for Kernel or Distributions have been held in Japan, Korea, and so on. For programming languages, PyCon APAC has been successfully held in many Asian countries each year. And Gopher China has also been held for many years. So I wonder if DConf can be held in Asia will be sure to greatly expand the influence of D languages, and attract the eyes of the largest group of programmers in the world. All suggestions are welcome! I get the sense that the US and Germany have the largest amount of heavy D users, which is why all the DConfs so far have been held in those two countries. Three of the five largest D Meetup groups are in those countries: https://www.meetup.com/topics/dpl/ However, Ali notes significant interest in his D book in China and Russia (also see updated stats later in that thread): https://forum.dlang.org/post/oarr8l$19rh$1...@digitalmars.com Japan may be in third place for heavy users, as Kenji Hara and a few others are significant contributors, and they certainly tweet about dlang: https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/dlang It may be a good forward-looking move to hold one of the next two or three DConfs in Japan or Hong Kong, perhaps working with Laeeth and the Hong Kong Meetup group.
Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?
Dear all, How about set up DConf Asia every year? As far as I know, there are a few D programmers and fans in Asia, but DConf was traditionally held in U.S. or Germany before,so that it may be not convenient for them to take part in these celebrations. Today more and more programmers in Asia are embracing Open Source, and many technology conferences have their Asia version such like the just concluded LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen that has been held in Beijing for two years, and the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon will be held on Nov in Shanghai this year, and many Linux/BSD conferences for Kernel or Distributions have been held in Japan, Korea, and so on. For programming languages, PyCon APAC has been successfully held in many Asian countries each year. And Gopher China has also been held for many years. So I wonder if DConf can be held in Asia will be sure to greatly expand the influence of D languages, and attract the eyes of the largest group of programmers in the world. All suggestions are welcome!
