All of that was fine with me except for the weird use of "redistribute", as in "rust wants to redistribute the power of systems programming", which I don't think is an appropriate use of the word. It implies there is a limited pool of "systems programming power" to distribute, which doesn't make sense. Empowerment means giving people power, but the power isn't taken from somewhere else in this case.
I think it’s worth considering the meaning in this case, especially since all of the language was so intentional in that segment.
Languages and systems are tied to communities and ecosystems.
I would say that the core developers if various kernels and OSes wield a lot of power. A community designed to be inclusive should be a part of that.
It really is political, you can draw lines between this and what’s currently happening in America with the mainstream acknowledgment of systemic racism. Power needs to be redistributed in that scenario too.
I stand by my criticism there. Systems programming is not a hierarchical thing, anyone can do it without stepping on anyone else's toes. Just build something. You can give people the power without taking it from anywhere. Is software dev political? Sure. But "Redistribute" as in "redistribute systems programming power" doesn't make sense. If you mean you want to redistribute decision making power with respect to linux kernel development or something specific like that, that's entirely different.
I agree. The talks were very light on content. This is was my first RustConf and I guess my expectations of PL conferences were mostly shaped by CppCon, which is overwhelming in the exactly opposite way.
I think the slides for "Error Handling Isn't All About Errors", by Jane Lusby (https://yaah.dev/rustconf), are substantive and on-point.
A case of the exception proving the rule, here?
That said, conference session videos are typically much less informative than the papers. Certainly the content per unit time required is lower in video.
I was on the RustConf program committee in past years, but not this year.
Traditionally, the way that RustConf's program works is, keynote speakers are invited, everyone else goes through a blinded review process. I don't know for sure how it went this year, but one of the organizers did say "speakers were picked blind" on reddit.
A blind review process is great! I'm just wondering if this was truly the case here as there were disproportionately more women and people of the LGBT community than white cisgender males.
The diversity of the community is by design (inclusiveness takes work). The diversity of RustConf is just a side effect of that plus an anonymized review process.
I think the speakers aren't diverse by design, but they've made the community very inclusive, so the speakers are naturally diverse by being a representation of the community. I've always thought it's impressive how the Rust community has managed to walk the fine line between "we want to encourage diversity in our community" and "we give preference to traditionally disadvantaged groups".
I guess i was just hoping for more technical content. Maybe I just had the wrong expectations. In the other Rust conferences there were always at least one or two more technical talks.
Creating a program is always difficult. Historically, there's been a big tension with Rustconf, and that's that many people are still new to Rust, so serving them best involves accepting talks that are more broad, both in scope and difficulty. It's really hard to pick talks for something as big as a language ecosystem for a one-day, one track conference.
Last year, RustConf did one day, but two parallel tracks. Fourteen talks instead of seven helps a lot, and lets you accept things in a much broader range of topics and difficulties.
2020 is... not a usual year for events. There are also more conferences these days, and with different focuses. Oxidize is very different than RustFest is different than RustConf is different than all the other various confs.
Those are good points. It would be cool to know the focus of the conferences in advance. Until now most conferences were single track only (the ones you mentioned with two tracks are the exception) but some at least felt pretty well balanced.
Maybe I just know Rust better now and what felt technical back then does not anymore.
“and that's that many people are still new to Rust, so serving them best involves accepting talks that are more broad, both in scope and difficulty”
Once the main conference on a technology starts to primarily target experts, you should start worrying about that technology.
The only ways to avoid “Many people are still new to Foo” are either to organize specialized conferences, or to have a conference on a (slowly) dying technology, where new users are rare.
The latter technologies tend not to have large conferences, so large conferences will mostly go for breadth, rather than depth (a workaround is to have both, with the ‘in depth’ sessions typically in smaller rooms)
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[ 0.33 ms ] story [ 52.2 ms ] threadLanguages and systems are tied to communities and ecosystems.
I would say that the core developers if various kernels and OSes wield a lot of power. A community designed to be inclusive should be a part of that.
It really is political, you can draw lines between this and what’s currently happening in America with the mainstream acknowledgment of systemic racism. Power needs to be redistributed in that scenario too.
I don't think I learned anything.
A case of the exception proving the rule, here?
That said, conference session videos are typically much less informative than the papers. Certainly the content per unit time required is lower in video.
It made me feel proud to be part of a group that is all about empowering the people that need it most. People that are typically marginalized.
How values aren’t an option; how deciding not to have values is itself a value choice.
The whole event made me even more excited about Rust, and building in an ecosystem that is very explicitly inclusive.
I love the diversity visible in RustConf speakers (and I often wonder how much of it is by design).
Traditionally, the way that RustConf's program works is, keynote speakers are invited, everyone else goes through a blinded review process. I don't know for sure how it went this year, but one of the organizers did say "speakers were picked blind" on reddit.
I guess i was just hoping for more technical content. Maybe I just had the wrong expectations. In the other Rust conferences there were always at least one or two more technical talks.
Last year, RustConf did one day, but two parallel tracks. Fourteen talks instead of seven helps a lot, and lets you accept things in a much broader range of topics and difficulties.
2020 is... not a usual year for events. There are also more conferences these days, and with different focuses. Oxidize is very different than RustFest is different than RustConf is different than all the other various confs.
Maybe I just know Rust better now and what felt technical back then does not anymore.
Once the main conference on a technology starts to primarily target experts, you should start worrying about that technology.
The only ways to avoid “Many people are still new to Foo” are either to organize specialized conferences, or to have a conference on a (slowly) dying technology, where new users are rare.
The latter technologies tend not to have large conferences, so large conferences will mostly go for breadth, rather than depth (a workaround is to have both, with the ‘in depth’ sessions typically in smaller rooms)