Overpriced Developer Conferences - <AUTHOR> http://www.amberweinberg.com/overpriced-developer-conferences/ <comment><USER5> I've run a conference for freelance web devs 2 years in a row, both times at a loss (though the loss is shrinking each year) but have tried to keep the ticket prices down, but also try to cover some expenses for speakers (hotel or travel for speakers from out of the area, primarily).

Tried to keep tickets at a max of $99 the first year. Bumped up to $149 second year (with cheaper 'early bird' tickets both years). Bigger issue was trying to get sponsors to help defray costs. Given the nature of our conference - freelance web professionals (devs, designers, etc) - surprisingly a lot of companies weren't interested because we weren't 'targeted' enough. I may have just been getting polite brush offs, but I'd contacted 45 companies - many of whom sponsor other tech conferences - and had 3 sponsors the first year. A few only want to send a speaker and schwag, but no money. Conference venues and catering staff don't like to be paid in bobbleheads and cup holders, unfortunately.

A note on schwag - I basically hate it. I think it's wasteful, and going to conferences where I've paid hundreds of dollars, then given a bag with a bunch of plastic crap made in and shipped from China just gets my goat. So we don't do 'bags of crap' at my conference. I don't think too many people have missed it so far.

gentle plug - <http://indieconf.com> is setting dates for this fall in North Carolina. I remember inviting Amber to come speak at our first conference two years ago, but the timing didn't work out - perhaps we can get her to come this year. :)

<comment><USER6> Can you elaborate on the costs? Why do you need catering?

Thanks for eliminating the "schwag" waste. I also hate that crap.

<comment><USER5> Conference venue costs - While I'd prefer we were at a hotel, to allow easier movement for attendees and speakers (and better nightlife/restaurant selection) other venues I've looked at in the area _start_ at roughly double what we're paying now. Oh, and then you have to add in A/V costs on top of that. Our conference center provides nice projection screens (huge) and nice mics as part of the rooms.

Catering - people need to eat. 99% of conference venues will not let you bring in random food, or in most cases even professional catering companies, unless they're on an approved list. Snacks/coffee/tea/etc throughout the day cost. Our food cost, including lunch, was north of $20/head. This is surprisingly cheap.

Power - some conference venues charge you for power access. $x/seat or something. We cut down on that this year compared to first year because few people seemed to use it the first years.

Wifi - our conference center has good wifi and it's free. One place I looked at said wifi access was $25/head/day. That's not a typo.

One of my goals was to have an event with non-local speakers. A barcamp is great, but... you end up seeing mostly the same people speak on the same topics. By having people from out of the area (state/region) speak, you'll be guaranteeing most attendees in the region won't have seen/met these speakers before. That costs something. Most of our speakers have been gracious with their time, but I wanted to at least cover some of their expenses in travel. With 20 speakers, and 8-10 with that sort of assistance, that's an additional cost.

I lost > $3k on the first event. ~$2k this time around, and would like to break even this year, or perhaps (gasp) make a small profit. A large profit would allow me to do regional versions of indieconf in different areas, bringing together a mix of local and non-local experts on various freelancing topics. That was the idea 2 years ago, but I can't commit to that until I know I won't keep losing money.

EDIT: oh yeah, insurance. The venue requires an insurance policy. For the minimum coverage, that's another... $600 or so.

EDIT 2: I would have probably broken even this year except for 2 things.

1) speaker dinner. Given the enormous effort many of our speakers put in (and travel) I like to have a low-key speaker dinner that's private for them to unwind. We have a few attendees that pay for a premium ticket to have a few dining hours for some one-on-one with our speakers. As fun as it's been, we may change that event this year.

2) After-party. This year instead of some ritzy club or venue, we had a jazz trio come in and had some catered snacks (veggie trays, etc). No alcohol, but I don't think anyone cared.

Without those two additional things, I think we'd have broken even this year on tickets and sponsorships. I'd rather not eliminate either one, as I think they each add something special for different groups.

<comment><USER7> > Wifi - our conference center has good wifi and it's free. One place I looked > at said wifi access was $25/head/day. That's not a typo.

At Minecon (a convention for Minecraft) in the Mandalay Bay Las Vegas they were (if I recall the figure correctly) charged $50,000 for wifi for 2 days. It's insane, especially when the wifi was absolutely unusable.

<comment><USER8> Certainly those rates should entitle one to an actionable SLA...am I clueless? I'm not trying to rag on unions at all (though what union would neteng be a part of?), but for insane money you should get insane service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a frequent conference attendee and speaker, a lot of the points that this post enumerates resonate with me. Our profession seems to have a love affair with conferences, and it's been getting worse year after year.

I believe a large part of the problem is that many conferences are priced with the idea that the fee will be covered by corporations that pay for their employees to attend, as opposed to being covered by an individual. Businesses have an easier time justifying a $1000 conference ticket (especially if they're able to recruit or scout out new potential hires at said conference) than an independent consultant.

But, conferences don't _need_ to be quite so expensive. Conference organizers just need to reorganize their priorities. The best conferences I've ever attended (and paid for out of my own pocket) had less than two hundred attendees, were _not_ held in a hotel, and had an incredible focus on the local community.

The best example of this: <http://brooklynbeta.org/2011>. Total cost for the conference was $100, and an additional $100 for the (optional) special event held the day before the conference, both of which included food, coffee, sponsored after-parties, more beer than we could finish, and the list of attendees and speakers was the best that I had ever seen.

People need to start voting with their wallets a bit more. Stop going to conferences that suck.

[Disclaimer: I now work for the organization that runs Brooklyn Beta, but did not work for them when I attended the conference in 2010 and 2011]

<comment><USER10> Step one: Decide that spending a few thousand dollars per year on conferences is excessive.

Step two: Discover that if you lived in Brooklyn there would be a critical mass of colleagues living right there in town with you, such that you could put on an awesome local conference for one or two hundred dollars per person.

Step three: Move to Brooklyn, at a cost of an additional _N_ hundred dollars per person per _month_ , regardless of whether that month includes an awesome local conference.

Step four: ?????

Step five: Profit!

(Mind you, I completely agree with your strategy, which is why I live near Boston. I could tease myself just as I'm teasing you. ;) But I don't try to pretend that the strategy is designed to save money. Living in proximity to a number of excellent local conferences and meetups is very expensive - though, of course, you also get the awesome local restaurants and shops and museums and university libraries.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I'm not a "fan of expensive conferences" per se, I thought this was a bunch of junk. FTA:

"I'm a huge proponent against expensive conferences, as I feel that the point of these conferences in the first place is to get the community together to learn and meet each other."

As The Dude once famously said, "Well, that's just like, your opinion, man."

I don't think that at all; I think a conference that I pay for should be a learning experience. I think that, for $1000 or $2000 that I should be able to get vicarious experiences from attending the sessions/demos/labs that I would either (a) not have been able to receive elsewhere, or (b) not been exposed to. It should replace my time at a training class, for example, except that it should be broader experiences.

Networking is fine but dude - you simply have it wrong if that's what you think programming conferences are all about. And you have it wrong if you think that tech conference attendance fees are paid for by the individual programmers/devs who attend. Oh sure, there are some folks who pay for these huge costs out of their own pocket but, by and large, this is a "job perk" or a "job training" event that is, thus, paid for by their company.

Sorry but, for most companies, there is no "networking" budget for the programmers/devs.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've never attended any conferences in my life (and I have been programming for 25 years (16 years professionally)). I can buy books, read online, watch videos online on more programming topics than I have time/capacity for. My tolearn.txt is quite long all the time. For networking among programmers there are more than enough online communities. Business networking would be very useful (basically meeting people who need my knowledge/expertise and learning about business opportunities), but how can I do that among people who want to sell the same thing that I want to sell?

I am not saying that conferences are not useful, just I did not find the motivation yet to attend one.

<comment><USER5> "Business networking would be very useful (basically meeting people who need my knowledge/expertise and learning about business opportunities), but how can I do that among people who want to sell the same thing that I want to sell?"

Umm.... it's generally not about selling _right there and then_ , but making connections which may turn in to relationships.

I've been to conferences and have made a great network of people I wouldn't have met otherwise, and some of it has led to projects/work months or years after our initial meeting. Most of the conferences I go to now are almost always just for hallway networking and socializing.

20 years ago, I used to wonder "how does someone run a business? how can you compete? it's a closed network - just friends of friends, etc". That's not 100% true, but it's more true than many people would want to admit. However, it's not all that hard to 'break in to' some circles and become part of a network. It does take time and commitment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I kind of agree. I've attended two conferences for the past few years: Pubcon and An Event Apart.

Pubcon was priced at $699, and included three full days of sessions, with 5 different tracks. I learned a lot there, and felt it justified the price.

An Event Apart was $899 the first year I registered, I believe, and this year is $1045. I work for a small company that pays these expenses, but I couldn't even justify asking for that this year.

I know that I am paying to see some of the "biggest names" in the industry. Several of these people are excellent and entertaining, and I don't doubt their knowledge in the field -- Dan Cederholm and Jared Spool specifically.

But do I really need to pay over $1000 to hear from the "biggest names"? I'm not sure if it's worth it. Yes, Eric Meyer is a genius at CSS, but how do I somehow explain the ROI of using slightly more optimized CSS? Or one year AEA had a speaker who spent almos the whole hour somehow relating fashion magazines to web development. Ugh.

I guess what irks me is feeling like I'm paying extra for the celebrity status of some of these speakers, when in reality, I'd most likely learn just as much _useful_ knowledge at a Wordcamp or one of the multitude of sub $200 conferences.

</comment><comment><USER14> JavaZone in Oslo, Norway costs 1033 USD (or 5950 NOK) - a lot of money, and inflated by low dollar and high krone. Although I don't have any statistics, I believe few individuals pay this themselves - most participants get their company to pay for it. It's a great conference. Two days, seven (7) tracks. Food included, and lots of it. At the end of the first day there's ClubZone, which includes free beer.

Is it overpriced? Perhaps. It could probably be done cheaper. The money seems to be going to make a great conference, though, and as long as most people don't pay for it themselves, I don't think it's a big problem. It's really _the_ place you want to be if you live in Norway, so perhaps it is a bit unfortunate that it isn't more accessible to people who _can't_ get their company to pay for it.

Great conference, highly recommended. Many, if not most talks are in english. Unfortunately, the website seems to be broken at the moment: <http://javazone.no>

Videos from last year: <http://vimeo.com/tag:javazone2011>

</comment><comment><USER15> The other problem with these conferences is their size. Most of them are very small. If you only have a few hundred people, the cost of the venue and such isn't divided by a large enough number. This is because these developer conferences are often so specific in their subject matter that the audience is small, and also because of the high price.

I would like to see a convention, not a conference, that is for programmers, period. It should be gigantic like the big geek conventions PAX, Comic-Con, etc. Price could be $50 for three days. Thousands of us would be there. Lots of money to be made selling space to exhibitors. I would go every year.

<comment><USER16> Let's make it happen. We can use the Javits Center in NYC.

<comment> yo-mf If I had my choice of hosting a conference in the Javits Center, a Supermax prison, or Kabul, I might be tempted to choose the later two options...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it's important to separate the question of whether _this_ conference was badly run, and too expensive, from whether all conferences are.

This conference sounds like it was terrible. A well run conference, though, costs a lot more to stage than you might expect. Andy Budd wrote an illuminating article on the subject last year: [http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_non...](http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/)

<comment><USER18> I complete agree. We're a small Ruby consultancy and we run a relatively small Ruby/Ruby on Rails conference in Helsinki[1] and before we organised it for the first time we basically had no idea how much everything would cost.

Expect to be overcharged for everything ranging from coffee, to having power outlets available, to having tables for registration. You can expect a cup of coffee at your venue (any venue) to cost the same or more than it would in a good coffee shop (but it won't be anywhere as near as good). Lunch will probably cost two times more than it would in a decent restaurant nearby (but good luck finding a restaurant that can cater to 200-300 people at once).

Oh, and most venues have terms which prohibit you from using an outside caterer and thus you're stuck with the venue's own catering, no matter what it costs.

In terms of compensation for speakers, we do our best to help them out, but the economics of running a small conference means that we can't afford to pay everyone's travel expenses (never mind paying them a non-insulting speaker's fee). I wrote a blog post partially related to this about a year ago: <http://blog.kiskolabs.com/post/5661615036/controversy>

In terms of making money, we'd be much better off just concentrating on our core business, but then it's likely that Finland wouldn't have any Ruby conference at all. We'd love to be able to drop our prices to the sub 100€ level, but frankly that's not possible, not even with the great sponsors that we've been lucky to have in the past years.

To help with the "high" ticket prices, we offer discounts to full time students and discounts at a few levels to people who have contributed to Ruby on Rails. In fact, if you have enough contributions to Rails, we'll give you a free ticket.

[1]: <http://frozenrails.eu>

<comment><USER19> _but good luck finding a restaurant that can cater to 200-300 people at once_

Do the attendees really all have to go to the same restaurant?

<comment><USER20> As someone else mentioned, the real conference happens around the food, the speakers and presentations are just a side show. If everybody disappeared off with their friends to eat on their own, then you've lost much of the point of a conference. At every conference I've been to the highlights have almost always been meeting awesome people over lunch or drinks, and only very rarely any of the actual presentations.

<comment><USER19> I've only gone to conference once, but I generally ate out with groups of people who didn't already all know each other. A table only holds so many people, so the same strategy is necessary whether people scatter to restaurants or stay in one place for a catered meal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As a response to this problem, a few London-based ruby developers set up a no- frills ruby conference called "Ruby Manor". Talks were chosen democratically from the community, and were of a very high quality. They have had three so far, for, each for under £15 for a day, and they had enough money left over at the end of the day to buy us all a few beers. I think more than anything, they wanted to prove that you could have a great conference without charging large amounts of money:

<http://rubymanor.org/>

</comment><comment><USER22> These overpriced tickets mostly come from the fact that companies/agencies send their employees there, book it as an expense and dont think about it. If every attendee had to pay this with his own private cash, i am sure the average ticket price would be much lower.

</comment><comment><USER23> warning, contrarian opinion:

when i have questions about why something is, i try to examine people's incentives and doing this i've found I can usually figure things out. with this in mind, here's a speculative perspective to why dev conferences are expensive.

why do speakers speak? The most attractive speakers are super busy with their projects, and they're the most visibly good at what they do so they're at the tip-top compensation. Speakers speak because it gets them visibility - <USER2> helps them recruit, it helps them network, it helps build their company brand.

Ever notice how the speakers always have private speaker-only lunch rooms, and speaker-only bar events? Its because the speakers have less interest in networking with the masses. Being a speaker is a decent signal for being among the highest value people in the room. the speakers want to network with other speakers.

Altruism is a motivator, but I speculate, much less of one. If you're speaking at conferences "for the good of the people", you're probably not busy enough, and it will slow down as you become busy, unless it also provides something you need. so as a speaker grows his credibility, he tends to become less interested in the actual conference, perhaps a bit jaded even.

Why do tickets cost much? Most tickets are expensable. The market for headliner speakers drives competitive comp. A first-class venue in vegas will draw a bigger crowd, even if its just people who want to party for a week. More tickets = bigger conference.

This is why you go see Douglas Crawford speak to a room full of experienced developers and he gives some high-school level talk about "javascript the good parts". We get it man, the whole room owns your book. But we're all still at the conference, even if most of us don't realize that while we're wishing to learn something from the headliners, all we actually bought was a ticket to be in a room with them.

<comment><USER24> _Ever notice how the speakers always have private speaker-only lunch rooms, and speaker-only bar events? Its because the speakers have less interest in networking with the masses. Being a speaker is a decent signal for being among the highest value people in the room. the speakers want to network with other speakers._

No actually. I don't. I speak at a fair number of conferences and I have had that experience a grand total of once.... and it felt very strange and "wrong". I remember several of us talking about how weird it was that we were isolated from the rest of the folk by the conference organisers (this was a French conference - maybe they generally do it differently there).

Occasional a single speaker dinner maybe - but that's it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Moving on, even though I didn't pay for my ticket since I was a speaker

I've attended PyCon a few times and found the experience to be great value. I believe their speakers have to pay their own way just like other attendees. Other events that I've attended such as TechEd appear to be a bit of a "jolly" for speakers (MVPs) who are carted around to other events throughout the year.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd love to attend more conferences but as the author says it's too expensive to justify the cost in a majority of cases.

I did always wonder why they are so expensive. Are they the big cash cows we assume them to be? Or are they far more expensive to run than we think them to be?

<comment><USER27> Have you seen how much hotels, conference centres charge for venue, beverages etc :)

<comment><USER28> Yes, but I've also seen how cheaply a number of other conferences/events are able to run in the same or comparable venues.

<comment><USER24> Can you give some examples please? If there are people out there who can run large conferences cheaply I'd love to go look and figure out how :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Some actual figures:

For the last two years I have run the MathsJam conference, and I'll be doing so again this year. Last year the fee covered lunch Saturday, dinner, accommodation, breakfast, lunch Sunday, all tea, coffee and biscuits, and all sessions. No bag, paper, pen, coasters, pins, or other swag. Nada. You want it, you bring it. We didn't pay the speakers, and last year we had 60 lightning talks of 5 minutes each.

Fantastic atmosphere of 120 enthusiastic people who love their subject and wanted to share stuff.

10% discount early bird, 10% discount for the unwaged.

Full price: ukp165 (which is about usd200).

That covered expenses with basically no head room. Note that accommodation was included, as was a ferry from the local train station.

</comment><comment><USER30> Having participated in conferences in the US and Europe I can say that there are real cost structures to organizing a conference that just can't be avoided. I've done this at venues such as the LA Convention Center, Las Vegas Convention Center, MGM Grand Convention Center, RAI Convention Center (Amsterdam), ICM Munchen (Munich) and various hotels and smaller venues.

In general terms I find the European venues and smaller American or European hotels far more pleasurable, simpler and cheaper to deal with.

The unionized American venues are very expensive and can be a nightmare to deal with. Want coffee in a room for visitors? Sure. It'll be $200 for a gallon. Want a light turned off above a booth? No problem, it'll cost $350 for a union electrician to go to the breaker panel and quite-literally flip a switch. Need to bring some boxes on a dolly to a booth? Can't do it. Once you enter their domain union members need to handle even the most basic of jobs.

In general terms, large venues are expensive, union or not. The union part just skews the cost curve because of how bloated and unreasonable things can become. Add to that insurance, guarantees and other fixed costs and you have a solid formula for high prices for attendees. And, if you are after a venue such as the LV Convention Center, well you'll have to sign a contract and pay a large chunk of money upfront a year ahead of your event.

Then there's the issue that someone alluded to: What do you actually get out of conferences. There are some where you might just meet a person or learn about a technology that is a game changer for whatever it is you are doing. That's priceless and always worth the cost of admission. More often than not, at least in my experience, conferences are very disruptive and do more harm than good. Why?

If you are an exhibitor very soon conferences become these artificial and unreasonable deadlines that almost require you to make announcements. This means that mad scrambles happen around them to get to that point. This can disrupt a company for weeks, both before and after a conference.

As an attendee, you might also delay acting on purchases in order to see the above-mentioned announcements at the conference. The problem is that most conference announcements are vaporware --requiring months of additional work to be real products. By waiting for the next shiny thing you delay your process. And then, of course, there's the huge disruption of sending a whole team to a conference for three to five days --or even more if it requires traveling out of your country.

For a large class of things I have personally found that the quality and depth of information available on the internet is significantly better than what you can get at a conference. I have avoided conferences for three years now, and, I must say, I have learned a lot more, been more productive and made better decisions because of it.

<comment><USER31> I wonder why unions seem to have such horrible effects in the US, while they are comparatively useful in Germany and Scandinavia? Perhaps the explanation for that will also encompass the British unions and Margaret Thatcher?

<comment><USER30> Not sure about Europe. After having dealt with unions in the US for quite some time my general opinion of the average unionized worker is not very kind: lazy, non-productive, selfish, self-important, over-paid, unfairly protected, de-humanized, and more.

Of course, this is a gross over-simplification and a generalization that is not fair to a lot of people. There are good unionized workers.

I'll give you an example: Las Vegas Convention Center. Doing some work at night setting up computers, etc. The crew that installs the carpets comes in. Their job is, quite literally, to roll out the carpeting. I watched as this unfolded. Every hour or so a supervisor would roll around on a little electric cart and would tell people that they had to take a break. The workers would lay down on the carpet and go to sleep. This ballet continued for hours. The work that could have been done in three hours too six, if not more. I asked one of them how much they made. She, very proudly replied: $45 per hour plus benefits and a pension plan. My jaw dropped.

Then there are the stories of the security guards making $150K a year to sit on a chair by a door. And the stories of the union worker refusing to lend a hand because the task is not in their union contract.

Anyhow, the issue, as I see it, is that unions have resulted in hordes of people that are devoid of any real drive to succeed and move forward in life. In unions there are few incentives to be better at what you do. In a lot of union contracts you just can't be fired. I mean, take the examples of (unionized) teachers sexually assaulting students. They don't get fired, they are transfered and "hidden" in another job. There was a recent case of a (unionized) teacher who was feeding his students cookies with semen on on top. That's beyond sick. And, as I understand it, the guy was not fired and will enjoy his 80% pension for the rest of his life.

Anyhow, I don't want to go off on that tangent, but I've just seen too many examples where unions are just destroying drive, innovation and competitiveness in this country. It's a damn shame.

<comment><USER32> People usually treat venue staff like crap, so it's no wonder that they might be surly. They are anticipating prima donnas walking in and screaming at them (and they do).

When you bring a big event to a venue you are creating an immense amount of work. You're only there for a short time, you show up for a few days and then leave. They're there all the time. A janitor can make or break your conference. Can you imagine what 1500 people do to a venues' washrooms?

Before our events, we always go and introduce ourselves to the staff. We try to keep things friendly and it's always paid off for us. I hand out my business cards to every staff member from hotel clerks to cleaners to security guards. If they have any problems or questions, they have my personal cell number to call.

If we have pizza brought in for the volunteers, we always offer some to the shift workers there. We try to be pleasant and courteous to the staff ahead of time, you won't believe what a huge difference it makes.

On the 2nd day of our last event, one of the security guards bought me a screwdriver set out of his own money because he saw we needed one. Doesn't always happen but people can surprise you.

<comment><USER33> It's good that you make the extra effort, but it's not like these people are waiters that make their living from tips. I work a lot too and sometimes get frustrated with customers, but that doesn't give me license to treat them like crap.

<comment><USER32> Well, we're all the protagonists of our own story. I'm sure some people think I'm a surly bastard.

My job can be pretty stressful too, but I rarely have to deal with a washroom stall covered in filth from the most disturbing case of explosive diarrhea ever.

Likewise I'm not usually expected to escort out a distraught, screaming homeless person who is having a psychotic episode in the middle of a busy convention center.

Hakuna Matata.

Just assume someone has dealt with something like that or worse and it gets easier to be nice to them, even when they're behaving like right old pricks.

<comment><USER34> This might be OT, but you seem like a very good guy. I've no deeper insight to offer than that, just wanted to say it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It seems this was a conference organized for profit, so the high price tag doesn't seem very surprising. I have been both at for-profit and "grass roots" conferences, and I like the latter much better.

I have also helped organize a conference (German Perl Workshop 2012), here are some key facts: * price: 75€ regular fee, 50€ for speakers, 250€ for people sent by companies (yes, most were there "for fun" on their own expense) * duration: 3 days, 2 tracks * roughly 90 visitors * free catering in the coffee breaks and for lunch * rooms provided by the local university (quite a cost relief) * social event sponsored by a local (but not small) company * a few small sponsors * conference t-shirts and bags for free * in the end, we had a bit of money left over

I guess you can go to quite some length if you have volunteers organizing things.

</comment><comment><USER36> Ignoring the details of this particular conference, I think its mostly wrong to say 'conferences should be priced to cover X'

There are conferences that go all the way from free to > $5000, I am constantly hearing about the amazing experiences at certain very expensive small conferences, as well as people enjoying the cheaper events (I recently helped out organising a conference that charged £50 full price).

Obviously we dont want anyone to be ripped off, but generally if you have an expensive conference the organisers and the speakers have to justify that cost, and if they do so great. We also dont want to alienate new people from attending conferences, but as long as their continue to be free meetups and cheaper conferences as an alternative, I dont see the problem

</comment><comment><USER37> I was incredibly excited when I found out Euruko is only £65; every other Ruby conference is extortionate. I don't care about fancy venues or freebies; I want to meet other people and learn something new.

Most of these conferences are pricing out the people who actually want to learn, and instead mostly just filling their seats with people who know it already.

<comment><USER38> Most EuRuKo venues since it started moving were actually fancy :). I still remember the days when they were hard pressed to find locations in germany that gave a cheap room with a projector to 20 rubyists :/.

I think the model of moving the conference through europe also ensures that there is a healthy competition between the user groups.

But there are other great conferences at a similar price point in the ruby world, for example Ruby Lugdunum: <http://rulu.eu/> .

<comment><USER39> > a cheap room with a beamer

A tip for you, and maybe other German speakers here: "beamer" is one of those German words that seems like English, but it's not (like handy). In English, the word is "projector", whether it's analog or digital.

<comment><USER40> I thought he meant that they were provided BMWs for transportation.

Thank you so much for that clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Overpriced conferences are a great opportunity for local user groups. I'm a member of one and we often invite one of the local conference speakers to do a free, less formal talk after the first one.

Honestly, I believe that a conference ticket should only cover a venue and speakers travel cost. Even with this days economy it's not hard to find a sponsor and with ticket price around 100-200 euro it's certainly possible to provide great experience AND free beer.

<comment><USER42> They can be an opportunity in other ways too. Some conference organizers are keen to engage with local user groups and can go out of their way to offer space for an on-site meetup or similar things and offer cut price tickets or even free entry.

O'Reilly is a good example of this. They let a free side event take place at RailsConf for a couple of years and you could get right into the conference and mingle with all the RailsConf attendees for free! The only thing you couldn't do was go into the talks (and, yes, they had people checking on the doors.)

I think O'Reilly also does "expo hall" passes for certain conferences for $25 or something.. it's almost like getting the best part (hallway track!) for free :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sure, it would be great if these conferences cost less. It be nice it my rent were cheaper, too.

But this author ignores the economic reason why these conferences ticket prices are so high: because they can be. WWDC and Google's I/O have no trouble selling out (both in under a day this year). So unless they are going to make these events much larger, there isn't going to be room for students and newbies anyway.

<comment><USER44> _because they can be_

Because they have to be, due to simple supply/demand. I/O sold out in 20 minutes and some suspect that was even throttled.

It's a shame, as the author says, because it tilts attendance in favor of either veterans with deep pockets, or employees of corporations.

Good of Google to offer I/O to students at discounted rates; bad of them for not following through with filtering the attendance down to coders: [http://googlecode.blogspot.de/2011/11/google- io-2012-extende...](http://googlecode.blogspot.de/2011/11/google- io-2012-extended-to-three-days.html)

</comment></comment><comment> Su-Shee I'm seeing the same thing in Berlin these days - tech conferences of all kinds, usally 2 days, tickets ranging from 300,- euros up to 1200,- euros.

Even if employers would send their developers to one of those two or three times a year - how many developers from different countries can even afford those prices? Half of europe simply isn't that rich and doesn't pay nowhere near that high salaries.

On top of the two-days event you'd have to add hostel/hotel and travel (train or flight) - even with my (in comparison) rather high german salary I think twice if I really want to pay several hundred euros for an event of two days.

And conferences don't have to take place in hotels, there's all kinds of venues - some hotter, some less so - one could meet with 50, 100, 500 or 1000 people. Some developer conferences simply take place in rooms of the local university for example. (Usally a not so hot location, ok..)

I would really like to see that developer's conferences stay (really) affordable for _all_ of the intended audience.

</comment><comment><USER45> > The next conference of the day is Future of Web Design. I believe these > tickets are well above £1000.

She could have at least checked before making this nebulous claim; the most expensive ticket at FOWD London is £695+VAT, some way shy of 'well above £1000'. It does somewhat undermine your argument if you pull numbers out of thin air…

</comment><comment><USER42> This could be called "Overpriced [anything]." It seems someone went to a conference they thought didn't offer value for money. Sad, but it happens.

People pay $200/hr for developers who don't get the job done, too, but that shouldn't diminish other developers who charge $200/hr and provide good value. So it goes with conferences. A TED ticket costs thousands of dollars, for instance, but people seem to enjoy going.

The people who claim conferences should "only" charge enough to cover their costs, though, strike me as weird. That's like saying developers should only earn enough to cover their living expenses or that all software should be free. Sure, some conferences have altruistic motivations, but some are run by businesses who work hard at it and, well, deserve to make a profit.

</comment><comment><USER46> I found and attended the ACCU conference in Oxford last year. I found it quite affordable at 695 GBP, and it was hands down the best conference I've been to. The speakers were great, the topics were interesting (programming languages, testing, developer processes, etc), the size of the conference was just right. The speakers were fun and knowledgeable, and had no qualms about joining the masses. In fact at one event the speakers and the masses were joined up in an networking activity. It was awesome. The wifi was flaky but is something I could deal with no problem. I've often wondered why there isn't a developer conference like this here in the states?

<comment><USER47> There are lots of conferences like that in the US. Strange Loop, Philadelphia ETE, Code Mash, OSCON, etc.

<comment><USER46> Is there an easy place to find out about these conferences and more like them?

<comment><USER47> There's a guide of interesting US conferences that I like here: [http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software- conferences-...](http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software- conferences-2012/) and the search functionality in Lanyrd is pretty useful: <http://lanyrd.com/search/>

<comment><USER46> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It sounds like the conference Amber went to was a bad conference. They exist. Both expensive and non-expensive ones :-)

A few thoughts...

1) Price != Value

Just like everything else in life the price tag is not the way to judge a conference. It's the value received. Some free conferences will be worth £1000 to somebody. Some £1000 conferences will be worth nothing to somebody else. Some expensive conferences will suck universally. Some free events will too. If you want to know what a conference will be like - go look at previous years. Go look at the speakers. Go talk to people who have attended. Figure out if it's the right conference for you.

For example, I was scheduled in as a speaker at last year's Agile 2011 conference. As a _speaker_ it would have cost me about £6k to attend once you take travel from the UK, hotel & lost work hours into account. That's money out of my pocket - I run my own business.

I couldn't attend at the last minute due to family illness. Judging by previous years not attending has _lost me money_. Agile 2011 is worth _more_ that £6k to me and my business. To somebody in a different business, or with different skills - probably not.

Another way to think about what conferences provide - ask yourself what your day rate is? How many working days of value are you expecting to get from the conference?

2) Experts need events too

Yes there have to be events with a broad appeal for "high schoolers, college students and newbies to our industry". But there also needs to be events for "people who already know everything you'd need to know about the presented topics".

The latter might not enjoy the former's events. The former may not enjoy the latter's events. Finding a balance that will attract and entertain both groups is really fricking hard.

3) Cost of large events

I've been involved several times with organising conferences both small (e.g. BarCamp Bournemouth - 2days, 75ish people, free) and large (Agile 2010 with 1400ish people, five days, $1-2k & Agile 2012 - probably about the same). Anybody who thinks large conferences are massive money spinners has never been involved with organising a large conference :-)

Large conferences are not usually cheaper to organise because of economies of scale. Quite the opposite if anything.

For example take the venue. For small conferences you can often cadge a venue with some sponsorship, or find a small one in a slack period running cheap. You're flexible because you can change location on very short notice and there are usually multiple venues in a town or city that can support you.

For large conferences there are few venues that can support you. Those venues' business is based around extracting every last penny from large events - <USER3> they're very good at it. They need to be booked months, sometimes more than a year, in advance. Which brings in a whole set of different organisational and cash-flow issues... They often require a guaranteed minimum income from the floorspace, which gives you much less flexibility of resizing and scheduling. Short version - it's _really_ freaking hard.

Then there's insurance. Speaker compensation. Programme selection. Managing submissions (if you have an open submission process) and/or finding speakers. The folk needed for security, health & safety, catering, etc. Food. Wifi. Transactional fees. Power. AV. Publicity. Etc.

</comment><comment><USER48> I was considering a conference that will be happening next month. After researching it a bit more, I realized I would have been really ticked if I had actually gone. The conference was not expensive at all, but going to it would have meant a flight and hotel, as well as valuable time away from our startup. Looking at the info, I discovered two important things:

1\. They still have not announced the topics, just the speakers, which makes me think that the talks will be ill-prepared at best. A good presentation takes time to hone.

2\. They claim that the conference is two days, but in reality, the second day will occur at a different location still TBD (probably not near the first day's venue), and is just an open Barcamp for the attendees. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Barcamp. I've spoken at ours several times. The thing is, a good Barcamp is free. Like Amber, I am from Nashville. We can put on a good one and it doesn't cost attendees a lick. Maybe it's just our volunteer spirit, being the Volunteer state and all.

I am still interested in the conference, but the time away from our startup, the cost of the flight and hotel, and the concerns I listed above make me want to avoid it like the plague.

</comment><comment><USER49> I see where the author is coming from. Playing devils advocate as someone who runs a reasonable sized event in London[1] I can tell everyone ere that the single biggest expense is the venue itself, closely followed by all the little bits on top (such as catering etc.). Having said that, £799 for a single track two day conf is a bit steep (for a comparison 44con's two day ticket[2] is £300, fully catered). The biggest bugbear I have is poor speaker ops. Speakers need to be taken care of, if you don't then you'll struggle to attract quality and end up with a depressive spiral. It seems this conference failed.

The interesting point for me was Sencha. I wonder if thy had Sencha sponsored slots? We don't do this, especially as people pay to attend.

The point about travel expenses is unforgivable. We cover our speakers flights and accommodation so they're not out of pocket. At the very least it shouldn't cost the speaker a fortune to attend.

[1] -<http://44con.com> [2] -<http://44con-2012.eventbrite.co.uk>

</comment><comment><USER50> My problems do not just include the ticket, here in the U.S. there seems to be a desire to have conferences in the most expensive cities possible. New York, Boston, LA, SF, etc. It seems as if there's this bubble filter that makes these people think developers are only in these locations. Please note, developers are everywhere, think about it.

Often times the airfare and hotel equal or go beyond the costs of the conference ticket. Therefore I don't go to a lot of conferences, it's just too hard to justify them. At this point I'm more apt to look for more training- like gatherings where the speaker will discuss actual code instead of just talking about whatever random subjects. A speaker describing his favorite topic fits fine for local meetups and the like, I once spoke on a one of my pet peeves to a local meetup and it was great. I suggest that people look for more of that type of thing these days.

<comment> excuse-me It can be cheaper for people to get to these cities and get accomodation - <USER4> well as the millions that live nearby.

I did a conference at the Anaheim convention center (=Disneyland). Flights to LAX were $200, there was a $10 shuttle from the airport and a line of $50 motels.

Then I had to go to Pittsburgh, sounds like a cheap place. But flights were $1000 with a lot less choice (who wants to got to Pittsburgh?). There were only a couple of hotels near the convention center and they were $200/night.

Las Vegas is one of the cheapest places in the US to get to and stay at, that's why it's so popular for conferences. Similarly for Amsterdam in Europe.

<comment><USER51> There are several cities that aren't really expensive that have tons of cheap conference space, see, Atlanta.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I went to a conference a few weeks back that was £300 a ticket. Factoring in accommodation + travel. The cost was well over £500.

Was it worth it? Not really.

The talks were put on YouTube and the 'goody' bags weren't that great.

Some of the speakers were ok but I guess I would of rather put that money elsewhere.

It wont stop me from attending conferences but lesson learnt.

</comment><comment><USER53> The problem is not overpriced conferences. The problems are that employers don't want to shell out $2000/year because it seems like a hefty pricetag, conferences are just of often as not not well-enough organized and operated, and sponsors put off more people than they sell to when they do the hard sell.

The ways to fix that are: 1. conferences should instead do a subscription model where you join up for $2000/year and you go to as many conferences as you want (but you have to pay the hotel fee + maybe another $100 or so to keep the riffraff out), 2. if conferences happened more often, the kinks would be worked out, 3. sponsors: give away product and then stay the hell out of it- you'll get the exposure x 10.

</comment><comment><USER54> Maybe more "gatherings" and less conferences are the way to go (invite a speaker once you have an interested group) - kind of like the way these BSD guys in NYC do it: <http://www.nycbug.org/>

</comment><comment><USER55> I help run a free conference for about 1,000 people (MinneBar: <http://minnestar.org/minnebar/>) that is paid for by sponsorship (and volunteer time - the organization is a non-profit with a low budget).

It gives me sympathy for paid conference organizers. Conferences are expensive! We have breakfast, lunch, and a happy hour, pay no speakers, usually get venues donated, have no paid staff, and it still costs $40/person!

</comment><comment><USER56> I love how everyone screams about the 'open' web and yet these conference tickets are priced so highly.

I think conferences are a fantastic idea.. you meet like-minded individuals and hear from really passionate presenters but the prices are crazy and thus I have only ever been to 1.

I understand how there are certain costs to be factored in like venue and speakers costs but come on, there must be something that can be done so developers from all backgrounds can take part in such events.

</comment><comment><USER57> Having attended several conferences and paid for the tickets, I can only conclude that they aren't worth the price. It's a good excuse if you want to travel far or if your employer is paying though.

Those that benefit most are the speakers, often well paid, free travel and accommodation, other freebies, usually a VIP event beforehand, they pimp their book for little effort, are often employed to do so, repeat same talk at other venues etc.

<comment><USER58> Please post a list of conferences where the speakers are well paid, I'd like to get on that gravy train ;-)

So far, the conferences where I've spoken have done no kore than take care of travel and accomodation. CUSEC, which is a tremendously valuable conference for attendees, did give me a USB stick in the form of a lego block, I will cherish that long after people have forgotten USB technology.

Anyhow, I'm not arguing with travel and accomodation, but as a Dad it can be lonely leaving my family even if it's a real pleasure to meet people at a conference. I personally find speaking to be a net financial loss by a large margin, at the end of the day I'd make much more money staying at home and consulting by the hour.

Other speakers' mileage may vary :-)

<comment><USER5> [http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_non...](http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/)

This conference listed that they paid each speaker $2000, plus travel and hotel.

I understand the dilemma they're trying to avoid. By paying this rate, they're trying to ensure professional speakers of presumably high quality. They contrast this with other options:

"Should all conferences be a single day long and only feature unpaid and inexperienced speakers? Should they all take place in second tier cities in low cost venues and force attendees to bring a packed lunch? Or should they be scrapped altogether, in favour of paid for content on a tutorial site..."

There's definitely room for middle ground in there. Personally, "second tier" cities are probably better choices for many people, due to lower costs, but why mention "packed lunch"? You can certainly have great food provided in 'second tier' cities, and at a lower cost to boot compared to 'first tier' cities.

Paying $2k for each speaker is certainly a nice gesture to the speakers, but they're setting up some extreme options here (basically spending $5k+ per speaker, vs nothing). Best value for all parties will probably be in between those extremes in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Most people don't pay the full ticket price. At many conferences it is an incentive to register early, so the organizers can be better prepared.

</comment><comment><USER60> Having not been to a conference for 10 years, is there anything I'm missing.

I gave up after seeing no value and crappy hotels too often.

</comment><comment><USER61> If you think the cost of a conference is too expensive, then don't go.

If enough people think the same, the conference won't make money and will either lower their prices or lose money. Eventually the prices will come down.

However, apparently, enough people put value into these conferences to justify conference organizers charging higher prices.

</comment><comment><USER62> Excellent answer on Quora from Adam Trachtenberg about conference ticket price: [http://www.quora.com/Tech-Events/Why-are-tech-conferences- so...](http://www.quora.com/Tech-Events/Why-are-tech-conferences-so-expensive- to-attend)

</comment><comment><USER63> I prefer cheaper conferences because the attendees tend to pay for their own tickets, rather than being sent by their company, resulting in a more passionate group of people.

</comment><comment><USER64> Clicking on the link to this articles freezes systematically my Firefox!

</comment><comment><USER65> I've been to two conferences in my life. One was, I think, a Bluetooth conference back in 2001 or so. I learned nothing. The other was a Flash conference in 2004ish. I learned nothing and was appalled at the low quality of presentations (one 'rockstar' developer spent several minutes showing us Homestar Runner while he flexed his guns at the podium - weird).

I guess the point of conferences is really just the networking. But I never really got the idea of wanting to network with a bunch of other people who _also_ don't know what they're doing.

I just don't see conferences being aligned with developers' interests at all (unless, of course, you're a speaker). Training sessions? Yeah. Conferences? No. Send the sales team or CEO instead.

</comment><comment><USER66> Attend a local Meetup-like meetup. Free or close to it. Be passive audience or speak or network. No hotel, airfare, rental car worries or costs. No union shenanigans. Eat at home or bring own snack, though many Meetup meetups have free food & drink by sponsors. No boredom or "well I paid for ticket" guilt. Come and go as you like, when you like, minimal structure but still get to meet other people with same technical interests. Lame speakers? Leave -- you didn't pay anything anyway. Granted, you do need enough people in your local area to reach that critical threshold. But don't ignore cheaper, easier, more flexible alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER67> You can call me sexist, and I probably deserve it.

But I read the whole post and my interest just grew from line to line. Until I got to the end and saw that the poster was not only a girl, but a hot girl. Than the whole picture changed in my mind and now I see this just as one girl being pissed off about people not giving her the attention she thinks she deserves.

Before I noticed it was a hot girl I had this image of a nerd web developer and I would totally agree with him. But now all I see is drama.

I feel bad for my pre-concept, but there's nothing I can do.

<comment><USER68> Huh? One of her gripes is that she says the speakers are bad, _including herself_. She says all this about a conference she spoke at, putting both her reputation and the conferences reputation at risk to help bring more strength to her argument. I'd say yeah, you're seeing drama where you want to see drama.</comment></comment>


Icebergs to Be Towed from Antarctica to United Arab Emirates for Drinking Water - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/uae-icebergs-drinking-water-from-antarctica-towed-united-arab-emirates-a7715561.html <comment><USER2> This is an old idea. When I was growning up in the early 80s there were lots of children's books titled "Living in the year 2000" or something. They all confidently predicted towing icebergs, along with moon bases and hotels in orbit.

On the surface it is not a completely crazy idea but the problem is always the logistics. Towing something that big (and constantly melting/changing) in one piece is always going to be difficult. The scale of the task is enormous.

We don't have moon bases or hotels in orbit yet. I don't have faith that a sizable ice berg will be successfully towed around the world any sooner.

</comment><comment> King-Aaron I'm sure this was covered on Futurama once.</comment>


Hacking Education One Video at a Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.victusspiritus.com/2011/08/01/hacking-education-one-video-at-a-time/ <comment><USER2> From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> :

        In Submissions

        Please submit the original source. If a blog post
        reports on something they found on another site,
        submit the latter.

Further, the original Wired article was submitted here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2770094>

There is some discussion there.</comment>


Turing Award winner came up with this algorithmic trick for passwords - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/2978392/data-security/tired-of-memorizing-passwords-a-turing-award-winner-came-up-with-this-algorithmic-trick.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly novel. I've heard of these for months now. A quick web search turns up this blog from 2008: [http://www.acleandesign.com/2008/05/password- algorithms-crea...](http://www.acleandesign.com/2008/05/password-algorithms- create-and-remember-unique-passwords-for-every-account/)

Also seems to produce short passwords.

<comment><USER2> Short, yes, but with a significant amount of entropy for their length. In any case, what strikes me is that this approach just makes the algorithm the secret instead of the token. Are people more likely to be able to remember algorithms for transforming URLs into passwords? I tend to doubt it.

<comment><USER3> I feel this is an unnecessary complexity thing. There are much easier things to remember that can be much much harder to brute force.

How is this any improvement over 'correct horse battery staple'?

Also, other flaws involve needing to meet site-specific password policies. The Amazon one in the article, is probably actually too short of a password for Amazon. And what if your sites requires certain special characters or disallows others?

<comment><USER2> Yep, agreed, and like you I tend to favor passphrases over passwords. I find a sentence related to something meaningful in my life to be more memorable than a single word, especially when it's munged up with obfuscating character subs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Javascript Framework for 2D Game Development - GameJS - <AUTHOR> http://www.tommysmind.com/gamejs/

<comment><USER2> It will be interesting to see if these sorts of techniques will become more useful in the future. The iPhone, Palm Pre, and all Android enabled phones come with good javascript support which means--depending on processing requirements--they could all support this sort of game out of the box. Does this mean that javascript based RIAs will be an increasingly attractive alternative to native apps?

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey, I'm the author of this library. To be honest I have never tried to use ExCanvas or any other Canvas replacements scripts for IE with this library because I supposed it would run really slow. Thanks for the tip, I'm going to try it out.

I worked on this several months ago and never really had a second look because of lack of time. New job and all. I always wanted to come back to this though and polish some stuff like sound support (would have to be flash i guess), mouse support, some optimizations (did some tests creating space invaders and found some very real possible improvements, by for example using the experimental canvas.drawString available in some of the nightlies of (proper) browsers), and some other minor quirks.

If anyone has any questions or just wants to discuss something with me about the internals or possibilities, you can contact me at email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> I started writing Asteroids in Javascript is anyone's interested: <http://users.tpg.com.au/_dp//dave_asteroids.html>

Still a work in progress, but it's the first thing I've written in JS.

</comment><comment><USER5> 3rd time in one week: please add the one line of HTML to that page that you'll need to support IE as well.

You're mistaken that IECanvas will make your game slower in IE than it is in Firefox. Test it out, and you'll be surprised. IE has a much better rendering engine than FF, and even with the added overhead of converting all canvas calls to their SVG equivalent, it's still noticeably faster.

So yeah, please fix your thing. It's one line of HTML fer cryin out loud!

(nice effort, by the way)

<comment><USER6> Am I reading this right? Are you actually saying ExplorerCanvas (canvas on top of VML) is faster than native canvas in firefox, webkit, etc?

I have some experience with this -- my site uses canvas / ExplorerCanvas quite a lot -- ExplorerCanvas is both buggy and extremely slow for any kind of animation. Particularly long running animation (as in games). I wish it wasn't so.

VML may or may not perform well, but it's a different kind of api than canvas. In VML, like SVG, you're intended to draw a bunch of shapes and then manipulate them. To animate a circle crossing the screen, you draw the circle and the _move_ it every tick. The library manages the redraws, etc.

With canvas, you redraw every frame. So, to animate that circle you draw it in a different position every tick.

If you run canvas on top of VML you end up redrawing _a lot_ of extra elements which get reinserted into the dom at every step.

They're just fundamentally different approaches and the impedance mismatch kills ExplorerCanvas's performance. If this has changed recently, btw, I'd love to hear about it!

<comment><USER5> Yes. At least that's what I've observed in my attempts to get Firefox up to speed in Twiddla. Here's a benchmark that you can run to compare for yourself:

[http://www.twiddla.com/demo/rendering-performance- canvas.htm...](http://www.twiddla.com/demo/rendering-performance-canvas.html)

On my machine, IE will render 170 boxes per second. Firefox bogs noticeably after a couple seconds and finishes at around 60 boxes per second total.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> JavaScript is a good language for game development, provided you have a decent underlying media layer. The browser is not a good media layer. HTML Canvas, timing, input, and audio are all miserably inconsistent and hackish across browsers. Just use Flash.

<comment><USER8> Although this might be OK for devices like Palm Pre with Palm's webOS where you won't have other options for games, at least not in the beginning.</comment></comment>


Emulating the Rust borrow checker with C++ move-only types - <AUTHOR> http://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2017/05/emulating-rust-borrow-checker-with-c.html <comment><USER2> The Rust borrow checker checks _borrows_ : that is, references. This doesn't emulate borrows, but rather emulates Rust-style moves.

An attempt at a more accurate statement would be that this emulates the use- after-move checking that the Rust compiler does. The problem is that that it doesn't do that either: it statically prevents copies but doesn't prevent use- after-move.

I think the accurate way to describe this pattern would be that it disallows copies and forces you to annotate moves with the move keyword. This is somewhat similar to what Rust does, in that non-Copy types are moved by default. The difference is that you don't have to write "std::move" in Rust: the compiler just infers the right thing to do.

It's a little hard to map this onto Rust semantics to begin with, since fundamentally all this is is not having a copy constructor, which is a concept that doesn't exist in Rust in the first place.

<comment><USER3> > The difference is that you don't have to write "std::move" in Rust: the > compiler just infers the right thing to do.

And of course since it's the language's default you don't have to write a dozen lines of boilerplate either, this is the C++ code stripped of the interspersed text:

        class MoveOnlyInt final {
        private:
           int i;

        void release() { /* call to release function here */ }

        public:
            explicit MoveOnlyInt(int i) : i(i) {}
            ~MoveOnlyInt() { release(); }

            MoveOnlyInt() = delete;
            MoveOnlyInt(const MoveOnlyInt &) = delete;
            MoveOnlyInt& operator=(const MoveOnlyInt &) = delete;

            MoveOnlyInt(MoveOnlyInt &&other) { i = other.i; other.i = -1; }
            MoveOnlyInt& operator=(MoveOnlyInt &&other) { release(); i = other.i; other.i = -1; return *this; }

            operator int() const { return i; }
        };

This seems like a fair Rust version, with as you noted the "move source" becoming inaccessible rather than just being in an invalid state:

        struct MoveOnlyInt {
            i: isize,
        }
        impl MoveOnlyInt {
            fn new(i: isize) -> MoveOnlyInt { MoveOnlyInt { i: i } }
        }
        // Rust doesn't have an "operator int", this seems close enough
        impl<'a> From<&'a MoveOnlyInt> for isize {
            fn from(m: &'a MoveOnlyInt) -> isize { m.i }
        }

<comment><USER4> That's actually even way too much code for the Rust version. A wrapper type declaration is as simple as `struct MoveOnlyInt(i32);`, and construction is then just `let foo = MoveOnlyInt(42);`. (And of course, the wrapper type is only necessary because integers in Rust implement `Copy`, opting out of move semantics.)

<comment><USER5> (and "operator int" would be foo.0 in this case)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't this just a UniquePtr? Ie it allows moves, but references to it are not guaranteed to be valid. The latter is the borrow checker.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the unique_ptr<T> enforces move semantics and can be "borrowed" via get() (but unlike rust, further borrowing/moving rules are not enforced by C++). This post is an explanation of how to write your own class which enforces this for objects whether or not they are on the heap.

It's a good question to ask whether implementing a move-only class is more beneficial than wrapping a _normal_ class in a unique_ptr. This comes down to trusting the programmer to know when to copy/move/delete (for better or worse).

The best policy is probably to implement ALL constructor/assignments so there's minimal frustration when, say, trying to write a subclass, and have a special subclass `UniqueFoo` that deletes copy methods to enforce Moveability - minimizing surprise and maximizing flexibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Boy I am gonna get down voted, But I rather say this. I do consider myself C++ programmer, and I like it, but truth is truth. I think C++ designers are very well respected scientist. But they are not programmers. This is sad truth.

Every version of C++ comes out they tend to make C++ more complicate and introduce more ways to do something which was possible before. I was/am very happy with overall design of modern C++. But they did a very bad strategic mistake. Instead of making language simpler or at improving what was there, they are introducing new syntax for everything. Let me give you instance.

Imagine we have metafunction is_void.

Before C++11, there was only one way to call it :

> is_void<t>::value

C++11 they added :

> bool(is_void<t> {})

C++14 they added :

>is_void<T>{}()

and there was plan to add this syntax to C++17:

>is_void_v<T>

Okay. I am not scientist. And I do know someone people in committee are well respected scientist and tbh I like their job alot.

But when it comes practical stuff. This is nuts. Do they think how much makes this reading code bases hard ? How much makes tooling hard ? How much makes syntax unapproachable ?

I don't understand rational behind this, Why would they add new syntax for what already possible, when they can improve core language/libraries more and more.

<comment><USER9> Deprecating old and arguably inferior syntax is part of the evolution of a language.

C++ is not going anywhere, so improvements are welcome. Upgrading from is_void to is_void_v can be done automatically.

<comment><USER8> FYI they didn't deprecate anything, they just augment new syntax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As others have pointed out, this does not really emulate the Rust borrow checker. You can still have multiple references and pointers to the same object.

</comment><comment><USER10> And then someone heard the Rust mafia say "Form the MegaZord!!!"...and many corrections were posted.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, who'da thunk that saying technically inaccurate things on a site full of pedantic nerds would meet resistance. :P

<comment><USER10> Man! Rough crowd! Is there a 'joke' tag that I'm missing or something?

<comment><USER11> HN readers tend to downvote jokes.

<comment><USER12> Not funny ones, in my experience</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SculptGL - A WebGL sculpting app - <AUTHOR> http://stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/ <comment><USER2> A small tangent for those inspired to sculpt by this. The free 3D-suite Blender recently got support for dynamic topology sculpting (that is adaptively change the mesh density as you sculpt). Cross-platform, quite capable and it's a ton of fun to play around with.

[http://blender.org](http://blender.org) [http://cgcookie.com/blender/2013/04/29/intro-dynamic- topolog...](http://cgcookie.com/blender/2013/04/29/intro-dynamic-topology- sculpting-blender/)

<comment><USER3> If you're interested in the Geometric Modelling part of sculpting, Freestyle is a good starting paper - [http://liris.cnrs.fr/Documents/Liris-5391.pdf](http://liris.cnrs.fr/Documents/Liris-5391.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It doesn't like it when you try to drill holes through the sphere. Try it, it's fun.

<comment><USER5> It seems to "like" it here. I can also do other topology changes: make two projections and join them, drill a hole to an existing hole.

I did get it to mess up (holes in the _surface_ ) by clicking "Symmetry".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing! Working great on Win7/Chrome 28.0.1500.72 m.

Initial load gives a prompt 'Shit happens: context lost' and the sphere is not loaded.

Refresh says WebGL hit a snag, but provides an option to reload. After reload it works fine.

objects load well but I can't seem to find any more movement controls, just wasd/arrows. Still this is great and could serve as a step towards mudbox etc!

<comment><USER7> right click and drag works.

<comment><USER6> Yes it does, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ridiculously fun to play with, made a pretty bad looking boo from mario bros [http://pastebin.com/baGry3NF](http://pastebin.com/baGry3NF)

and a silly render [http://imgur.com/23U99Ab](http://imgur.com/23U99Ab)

</comment><comment><USER9> Very impressive, especially the adaptive topology feature, I don't believe even Mudbox has that.

Adding some sort of collaborative features would would be plausible and really cool (keep perspective and settings local, sync model updates).

<comment><USER10> Is this open source? I would love to poke around adding some real time collab features.

<comment><USER11> Github link: [https://github.com/stephomi/sculptgl](https://github.com/stephomi/sculptgl). License is MIT. This is from the main page ([http://stephaneginier.com/](http://stephaneginier.com/)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can not see anything in my Chrome 28.0.1500.71 Linux. Here is the error:

sculptgl.min.js:138 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property 'viewportWidth' of null

<comment><USER13> Proper 3D acceleration support ==> Mac OS X or Windows.

<comment><USER14> Works fine on Intel Ivy Bridge /Mesa/Linux here

<comment><USER15> Most of the time, but you're stuck with GLSL 1.40 while the rest is enjoying 3.30

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is very impressive but the "skin" shader is pretty gross if you've made a particularly deformed shape..

</comment><comment><USER17> This was very interesting! Was the OP the author? Care to share a bit about how you made it?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I found it on twitter, but it wasn't tweeted by the author either. In fact that website appears to be the only place on the internet the author exists, except for his github profile: [https://github.com/stephomi](https://github.com/stephomi)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Connect this to the Shapeways API and you've got one helluva powerful toy...

<comment><USER19> Was just thinking the same thing :) could make some really nice stuff in Ceramics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm running into issues. After a while it starts tearing holes in the sphere. Also the performance seems to die off. But I don't know much about 3D sculpting so maybe I'm abusing it.

Running on Chrome under Arch.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, that's beautiful.

I may have made the world's saddest slug.

</comment><comment><USER22> Incredible work, this is great. These are exactly the kinds of projects we need to advance technology on the web.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is Z-Brush on browser hehe

</comment><comment><USER24> That's badass. Gracias.

</comment><comment><USER25> i have made cool things in sculptris previously, this is awesome on my pc. gotta try it on the tablet now!

<comment><USER25> bugger, did not work on ipad under safari or chrome. still pretty awesome on pc

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Awesome work.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is... awesome!

What is more important, it is actually usable.

</comment><comment><USER28> Impressive.</comment>


Ask HN: What user support/feedback system do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I'm developing a web service that can capture a snapshot of a web page when a user is filling in a support/feedback form. The idea being that it's much easier to help someone when you can see exactly what their page looked like. (Even if they are logged into some non-public app page that uses lots of ajax.)
So far my service is capturing the snapshot and returning a generated URL for it. You can log in to browse the snapshots (along with date, user-agent info, etc).
Should I enhance my service into a fully fledged support system, like Zendesk for example? Or are you already happy with your user support solution and would just like a simple way to integrate something like my service? I'm trying to gauge what I need for an MVP.
What support systems are you currently using? Do you prefer to roll your own?
Thanks for any feedback you can provide.
(You can join the launch mailing list here: http://www.jooplicate.com/ ) <comment><USER2> We hacked together a simple system in a day to get user feedback from our beta group. You don't need something fancy and surely it can be replaced with something better down the road. For an MVP, it should really be an MVP. Just put together a simple feedback box that allow users to post feedbacks directly to you or in a forum style board where other beta users can discuss and roll with it.

Of course you can integrate simple solutions that do this for free as well rather than build your own. We just hacked something together because we wanted to be able to integrate it with our internal system (user logins) for people to post. You can do it differently.</comment>


Anyone get this message when trying to access Facebook? - <AUTHOR>

Redirect Loop
Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.
The browser has stopped trying to retrieve the requested item. The site is redirecting the request in a way that will never complete.

    * Have you disabled or blocked cookies required by this site?
    * NOTE: If accepting the site's cookies does not resolve the problem, it is likely a server configuration issue and not your computer.
 <comment><USER2> Funny, I just posted about that to my blog (www.returncontrol.com). In short, the theory that I posted there is this: People who opted in to preview the new facebook profile used to be redirected to new.facebook.com, but that domain is now redirected back to www.facebook.com, which is trying to send you back to new.facebook.com.... You get the picture.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah. That makes sense.

<comment><USER2> FYI, if you've just gotta get into Facebook immediately, m.facebook.com works (mobile site). ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bugs in Facebook are Hacker News now?</comment>


Up For Grabs: open-source projects that need new maintainers - <AUTHOR> https://up-for-grabs.net <comment><USER2> Where does the title come from? This project seems to be about projects that have active maintainers that could mentor people new to open source contributing, not projects that need maintainers.</comment>