Personally, I think the following happened: 1) the first ALT.NET seattle meeting was SPECTACULAR and led a number of us attendees (Justin, myself, Chris Bilson, Bobby, Tim, etc., etc. - no offense to anyone I'm not mentioning) to want more and try to form a local group. 2) many of us that formed the initial local group were energized both by the excitement from the large event and the fact that we were meeting new "like-minded" individuals in our local area that I think most of us didn't know. 3) the first year or so of meetings following the original (April 2007?) event were "get to know the rest of the group" and "share ideas of how we personally like to do things", and "learn from others" meetings. 4) after a bit more than a year, we largely knew one another, didn't have a lot of new people showing up at the meetings (actually, I think we had way more attrition than newcomers in that first year), and I would bet that most of us could probably start to predict what each other would say on the miriad topics discussed at the typical monthly meetings. 5) we had another couple attempts at a big successful event (to mixed reviews) but I think most people would agree that we never really had another large event that lived up to the expectations we had after that first one. This was despite excellent efforts from Justin, Glenn, etc. to try to reproduce the "magic". 6) by 2 or 3 years in, we still didn't have all that many newcomers, and the attrition had gotten really high. In large part, you wouldn't expect to see more than about 15 people on a good monthly meeting, and some had less than 5 of us. There were some newcomers for sure, but not enough to replace the people that stopped coming. 7) at this point, I can't speak for other people, but I can say for myself I almost expect to be able to predict the topics that will be discussed, and if the people I expect to be at the meeting are actually there, I'd bet I could even predict 90% of the conversation. I think this is a testament to how clearly we have shared our views and how dedicated many of us are to our beliefs - I don't think there's anything wrong with this, it's just that we've already learned most of our point of views!
I personally have greatly enjoyed this group, and hope to get back to hosting the annual BBQ even if we don't have any meetings anymore :) I feel like I have personally gained a great deal from this group both in terms of learning, opening my mind to some of the ideas of ALT.NET, and of course the pool from which to hire coworkers! Most of you know that many of the ALT.NET originals have worked at my company now (or are still working at my company) and I love working with most of them too! My entire team is made up of people I met through ALT.NET and we've built an amazing product together that I'm very proud of. I'd love to think that ALT.NET will continue, but I'm not sure that it can unless there is an influx of new people and some new ideas to talk about (and our lives get less busy somehow!). Personally, I think sharing some of the things my team does would be very interesting, but I don't really know how / when to do that given my schedule and our other personal obligations... Sorry for the long email - this stuff just comes out when we start talking about ALT.NET! Kelly On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 8:17 AM, Dave Foley <davidmfo...@gmail.com> wrote: > This group, despite having a number of very smart people and some of the > best programmers I know, has withered to the point that it contains only a > few announcements and some job spam that the moderators delete periodically. > The monthly meetups are a thing of the distant past. Basically, the group is > dead. > > What happened to it? > > Did it go mainstream? Are the ideas of ALT.NET so accepted at most > organizations that this group is unnecessary? > > Did we all just leave for non-.NET technologies? Did disgust with webforms > and the like lead to the abandonment of Windows altogether? > > Was it subsumed by Software Craftsmanship or some other "movement"? > > Did it just get boring? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Seattle area Alt.Net" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/altnetseattle/-/5HDGdNhinAMJ. > To post to this group, send email to altnetseattle@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > altnetseattle+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/altnetseattle?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Seattle area Alt.Net" group. To post to this group, send email to altnetseattle@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to altnetseattle+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/altnetseattle?hl=en.
