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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.