On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 12:58:22 H. S. Teoh wrote:
> I couldn't make it to the conference, but from what I heard, a lot of hatchets were buried and a lot of issues were sorted out as a result of meeting in person. That should never be underestimated. :) In this day and age of online personae, it's all too easy to forget that there are real, living, breathing people behind the personae. Meeting in person has a way of sorting things out in a way no amount of email, forum, or online chat could ever do.

I was very surprised by how many valuable discussions and interactions took place outside of the talks. I don't think that that value can be overestimated. For instance, I suspect that almost all of us view Manu somewhat differently from having interacted with him in person. He's still somewhat abrasive in person but nothing like he is online. You get a very different view of someone from interacting with them in person, and I found that many discussions were far more effective when we had the opportunity to discuss stuff in person informally rather than in the newsgroup (as valuable as discussions here can be).

And for those that couldn't actually make to the conference, they've been able to view the recordings of the talks. I don't see how we lose anything by having conferences like this. They're incredibly common, and I think that we'll benefit immensely from having them yearly like Walter and Andrei have said is the plan is from now on.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Tuesday, 25 June 2013 at 22:16:31 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> I don't see how we lose anything by having conferences like this.

There is possibly an opportunity cost: I'd be willing to work significant time on D stuff, directed by the community, for a year if paid the $30,000 we raised on kickstarter, and perhaps even use spaces instead of tabs in the code [!!!] and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

But the conference(s) may end up being worth more than contracting some programmers, so it isn't necessarily a loss.

On 26 June 2013 08:16, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg@gmx.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 12:58:22 H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > I couldn't make it to the conference, but from what I heard, a lot of hatchets were buried and a lot of issues were sorted out as a result of meeting in person. That should never be underestimated. :) In this day and age of online personae, it's all too easy to forget that there are real, living, breathing people behind the personae. Meeting in person has a way of sorting things out in a way no amount of email, forum, or online chat could ever do.
>
> I was very surprised by how many valuable discussions and interactions took
> place outside of the talks. I don't think that that value can be
> overestimated. For instance, I suspect that almost all of us view Manu
> somewhat differently from having interacted with him in person. He's still
> somewhat abrasive in person but nothing like he is online. You get a very
> different view of someone from interacting with them in person, and I found
> that many discussions were far more effective when we had the opportunity
> to
> discuss stuff in person informally rather than in the newsgroup (as
> valuable as
> discussions here can be).
>

Brutal! ;)

On Tue, 25 Jun 2013 19:58:59 -0400, Manu <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:

> Brutal! ;)

Wow, you're not as ugly as you type! :)

One thing that I would agree is that people are more civil, more accommodating in person. I too cannot put enough value on actually interacting with everyone instead of typing at them.  Personal interaction is a very important thing, we take so many cues from body language in how to interpret this ambiguous language (English, that is). We digital-age folks tend to forget that.

Not just in burying hatchets, but tearing down biases as well... I can think of a few people who are quite different in person than I was expecting. Will not name names though :)

-Steve

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 09:58:59AM +1000, Manu wrote:
> On 26 June 2013 08:16, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg@gmx.com> wrote:
[...]
> > I was very surprised by how many valuable discussions and interactions took place outside of the talks. I don't think that that value can be overestimated. For instance, I suspect that almost all of us view Manu somewhat differently from having interacted with him in person. He's still somewhat abrasive in person but nothing like he is online. You get a very different view of someone from interacting with them in person, and I found that many discussions were far more effective when we had the opportunity to discuss stuff in person informally rather than in the newsgroup (as valuable as discussions here can be).
> >
> 
> Brutal! ;)

Heh... I must say, watching Manu's talks gave the necessary context to interpret his online writing style, which are actually *not* abrasive as some might construe them to be. It's a case of "lost in transit": online text is notoriously bad at conveying the author's emotions and tone of voice (that is to say, not at all), so an offhand joke or casual remark can be wrongly taken to be a personal attack when there is no such intention on the part of the author. Getting to know a person (in person :-P) makes a big difference in how you interpret what he writes.

That's why meeting in person makes a huge difference. :) Online video chats (e.g. Skype) help somewhat, but I still feel that Skype is missing something from actual in-person contact.


T

-- 
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.  Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. -- Robert Wilensk

On 26 June 2013 10:15, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 09:58:59AM +1000, Manu wrote:
> > On 26 June 2013 08:16, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg@gmx.com> wrote:
> [...]
> > > I was very surprised by how many valuable discussions and interactions took place outside of the talks. I don't think that that value can be overestimated. For instance, I suspect that almost all of us view Manu somewhat differently from having interacted with him in person. He's still somewhat abrasive in person but nothing like he is online. You get a very different view of someone from interacting with them in person, and I found that many discussions were far more effective when we had the opportunity to discuss stuff in person informally rather than in the newsgroup (as valuable as discussions here can be).
> > >
> >
> > Brutal! ;)
>
> Heh... I must say, watching Manu's talks gave the necessary context to interpret his online writing style, which are actually *not* abrasive as some might construe them to be. It's a case of "lost in transit": online text is notoriously bad at conveying the author's emotions and tone of voice (that is to say, not at all), so an offhand joke or casual remark can be wrongly taken to be a personal attack when there is no such intention on the part of the author. Getting to know a person (in person :-P) makes a big difference in how you interpret what he writes.
>

Haha, well I'm glad to hear that!
I think it's safe to say that my generally blunt and perhaps somewhat
northern-australian inflammatory sense of humor just doesn't translate to
text.
I've also never involved myself in any online community before, and just
write basically how I talk. Believe it or not, I'm actually a friendly guy!
...or at least, I like to think so... ;)

On Wednesday, 26 June 2013 at 00:40:48 UTC, Manu wrote:
> On 26 June 2013 10:15, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 09:58:59AM +1000, Manu wrote:
>> > On 26 June 2013 08:16, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg@gmx.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>> > > I was very surprised by how many valuable discussions and
>> > > interactions took place outside of the talks. I don't think that
>> > > that value can be overestimated. For instance, I suspect that almost
>> > > all of us view Manu somewhat differently from having interacted with
>> > > him in person. He's still somewhat abrasive in person but nothing
>> > > like he is online. You get a very different view of someone from
>> > > interacting with them in person, and I found that many discussions
>> > > were far more effective when we had the opportunity to discuss stuff
>> > > in person informally rather than in the newsgroup (as valuable as
>> > > discussions here can be).
>> > >
>> >
>> > Brutal! ;)
>>
>> Heh... I must say, watching Manu's talks gave the necessary context to
>> interpret his online writing style, which are actually *not* abrasive as
>> some might construe them to be. It's a case of "lost in transit": online
>> text is notoriously bad at conveying the author's emotions and tone of
>> voice (that is to say, not at all), so an offhand joke or casual remark
>> can be wrongly taken to be a personal attack when there is no such
>> intention on the part of the author. Getting to know a person (in person
>> :-P) makes a big difference in how you interpret what he writes.
>>
>
> Haha, well I'm glad to hear that!
> I think it's safe to say that my generally blunt and perhaps somewhat
> northern-australian inflammatory sense of humor just doesn't translate to
> text.
> I've also never involved myself in any online community before, and just
> write basically how I talk. Believe it or not, I'm actually a friendly guy!
> ...or at least, I like to think so... ;)

Don't worry. Those of us in the #d IRC channel knew you were a friendly guy :P. This is why I'm surprised people are talking about you like you are aggressive or abrasive rather than just passionate about subjects you know a lot about.  Real time interaction, even through text, can do wonders for getting to know someone's tone.

On 6/25/2013 5:40 PM, Manu wrote:
>  Believe it or not, I'm actually a friendly guy! ...or at
> least, I like to think so... ;)

I can vouch that Manu is a friendly guy!

On 26 June 2013 01:18, Joakim <joakim@airpost.net> wrote:

> I was underwhelmed by Manu's talk: too much low-level technical detail about the integration effort between C++ and D, not enough discussion of the benefits of using D.  The Q&A panel with Walter and Andrei should have been an hour, or until questions petered out, and held every day of DConf. :)
>

I'd like to add a few comments here, since I guess I didn't do so at the conference.

I initially really wanted my talk to be as you say/hoped. But I started
down that path, and realised I didn't have anywhere near enough meat to
fill an hour.
The truth is, integration of D with our workflow took a lot longer than
we'd hoped, and in some ways it's a miracle we persisted...
We got caught up on endless stumbling blocks, but the whole time, we could
see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just one last hurdle... yay... oh,
no actually... just one last hurdle... [repeat].
The segment at the start of my talk wrangling compilers, runtime libraries,
IDE's, debuginfo... this actually took probably 80-90% of our time. I had a
lot more slides in there previously, but it felt like they were a bit of a
downer, and not that interesting, so I took them out and just summarised.

As a result, when I wrote the talk, there wasn't as much code written in D
as I'd originally hoped, or enough time spent by the average programmer
writing D code that I could draw strong conclusions of the type you'd have
liked to hear about.
In the end, I thought it was more valuable to discuss our hurdles, and
justify some of the design points, requirements, and reasons behind
language features I had pushed for.
I think what I wanted as the most important take-away from my talk, was to
generate discussions to make sure other companies approaching D cold, as we
did, don't need to go through the same painful lead-in process in the
future.
Additionally, the design of our framework, which is a fairly solid piece of
work, may be of interest to others looking to do similar things. It ended
up with a good block in the middle, which I admit, does appear to be the
focus since it was pretty hard to summarise, and dominates the slides. I
hope it was interesting at least. It was something concrete that I could
share.

At the end of the day, you all know what D code looks like anyway. When our
guys write D code, it looks more or less like you expect, and it just
works. Nothing really special about it.
Naturally, I couldn't discuss specifics of code written in D, since they're
game-specific features, and protected by NDA.

In the last segment, I did give a high-level glance over some of the things that basically all our programmers upon first contact immediately appreciated when working with D. Maybe they seem trivial, but it doesn't hurt to re-enforce that they are very strong features of the language that everyone falls in love with immediately.

I guess, in summary, sorry you were underwhelmed/disappointed. To be honest, I was too, I'd hoped I could offer more. I think a lot of other people did too... but maybe next year there will be another one with an additional year's practical experience...? :)

On Wednesday, 26 June 2013 at 03:22:16 UTC, Manu wrote:
> I guess, in summary, sorry you were underwhelmed/disappointed. To be
> honest, I was too, I'd hoped I could offer more. I think a lot of other
> people did too... but maybe next year there will be another one with an
> additional year's practical experience...? :)
No need to apologize or defend your talk.  I was simply expecting a talk about "Using D Alongside a Game Engine," not "Integrating D into an Existing C++ Game Engine." ;) Your talk was a nice technical introduction to the latter, I'm sure it was very useful for those wondering about the potential pitfalls of integrating with C++ and it was kind of amazing all the hoops you jumped through.  The last part of your talk, where you talked about actual D use, was what I was looking forward to the whole talk being about.  Maybe next year, :) as you say.