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.
