The comparison to sexism is pretty offensive to me (even though you try to minimize it early in the article, yet bring it up again via a link at the end). You're privileged to have the option to just not go to the party after the conference - women don't get to just "not be women".
I'm sure you meant well. This is simply what happens when people make mountains out of miniature molehills, repeatedly and ludicrously, all over the internet.
Hi, I'm sorry you got that from the article. I knew it was going to be an issue (which is where the disclaimer came from) and it definitely felt like a losing battle in a way, and that people were going to see me drawing a comparison no matter what in the last few sections. Do you think I should remove the last link?
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately for you, lots of people drink. It's not just a programmer thing. It's one of the most prominent ways people socialize. Not programmers, people.
I'm sorry that you feel uncomfortable going to conferences because of the drinking, but unfortunately, it's something you should probably learn to accept. You can move cities, change careers, do whatever you want, but unfortunately, you're going to find that people socialize via drinking just about everywhere.
> It's one of the most prominent ways people socialize. Not programmers, people.
So if you don't drink you're not a person? Alcohol is generally prohibited in Islam. Are you going to tell me that there are entire nations inhabited by human non-people?
ctide didn't say anything of the sort. I think ctide was trying to generalise from programmers -> people not implying all of humanity.
I have seen this phenomena (?) of "binge conferences" in many other circles - medical, engineering, accounting, legal. Journalism.. the list goes on, so it is a fair point.
I think the main reason it turns into "binge conferences" is because people treat them as a vacation.
Away from home, why not have a few drinks.
I'd bet $5 that the tap at GitHub isn't used to binge (as much as the author thinks). It's like a foosball table, used for a week straight, then forgot about.
No, then if you don't drink, you simply don't participate in one of the most prominent ways people socialize. There was no implication of sub-humanity there. Strawmen are bad.
Even including Islamic countries in the set, drinking is still one of the most prominent ways people in general socialize on average.
> No, then if you don't drink, you simply don't participate in one of the most prominent ways people socialize.
If that were true that would be bad - drinking at conferences would then truly alienate non-drinkers. But actually, non-drinkers can participate just fine in one of the most prominent ways people socialize.
When it sounds like somebody is saying something totally crazy, before you jump down their throat, try taking a step back and see if there's a more reasonable way to interpret it. Even exceptionally clear statements in English can often be taken two ways — this is one of the reasons that writing instruction manuals is so devilishly hard — and it's unreasonable to expect even that level of clarity from everyone all the time.
In this particular case, it's more likely that the grandparent meant "this is something that most people do — programmers are not unusual in this regard, so it's weird to single them out."
Ignoring the whole leap to conclusions thing going on here, I'd just like to add that at least half of all Muslims I know drink socially. And, from what I've heard, alcohol in countries like Iran is much like marijuana in the USA.
Okay, I'll admit to being rather hyperbolic here. However, when you say things like, "This is something that people do." it sounds a lot like you're making a universal statement about people everywhere.
Arguments of the type of "well, I've seen lots of people do this" just smell of availability bias. I can't argue that you're wrong, but you haven't given a good enough argument for me to conclude that you're correct.
Are you really questioning that drinking is an enormously popular activity in most of the world? It's pretty common knowledge that drinking is popular, and its popularity is pretty close to universal. For example, according to the World Health Organization, drinkers are the vast majority of the adult population in most developed countries. Drinking as a common social activity is even mentioned in the Bible and other ancient texts.
The OP, on the other hand, is much more of a "Well, I've seen lots of people do this" argument: It's explicitly based on his personal experience with conferences.
Exactly, it's not a programmer thing, it's a culture thing.
Non-development oriented conferences I've been to end up in the bar too.
It's not just conferences, plenty of non developer activities I've been to end up with most people congregating in a pub/bar afterwards, all of them with a mix of age ranges and healthy ratio of women/men. Mountain biking trips, rock climbing weekends, skiing trips, beer festivals - actually scratch that last one.
It might be more pronounced in tech companies and conferences than in some other areas because the age range is probably skewed a bit more to the lower end (baseless assumption) than in other fields?
I don't think guy has problem with drinking...Its about focus. And he is right, people go to these conference just 4 drinking and partying hard. Actual talks just get over shadowed with these booze parties. Its not "necessary" to make them part of culture...It should be optional. Come-on, most part of a 650$ conf ticket is for booze ...isn't it.. ? I think it should be like paid (and discounted..) "buy extra coupon" if u want to booze...
No, it isn't. As organizer of http://scaleconf.org/ I can tell you that almost all of the money goes towards venue hire, lunch/coffee/daytime refreshments, internet and AV equipment, and depending on the conference, flying speakers in.
Then, at the end, you've got a couple of thousand dollars left over, and that goes on the bar tab.
Think about how many dollars worth of alcohol you would drink during a two day conference, then drop the amount because there's a lot of buying in bulk and people who don't go to the parties or drink. It doesn't come anywhere near "most part of a $650 conf ticket".
I can understand that he might get annoyed with the culture of trying to make programming "cool" by having everything at bars, but seriously, he needs to get over himself. That said, I'm quitting drinking/smoking for a month so it will be interesting to see things from his perspective.
I go to conf after-parties and I barely drink at all any more, due to a health problem. Nobody has ever given me shit, and I enjoyed myself just as much as ever. I originally worried that people were going to seem obnoxious when they were drunk and I was sober, but it was an unfounded fear. I can count on one hand the times I've thought "wow, that's a sloppy drunk."
Sounds to me like the author is trying hard to conjure up a problem.
Great points. I often am dismayed that conferences and user groups seem more like frat parties than a profession attempting to further itself. And we wonder why progress plods.
I feel the same way at conferences, and I actually do drink, though I never binge drink.
But, that's not why I came to the conference. I can drink at home.
I think you're fighting a losing battle, though, because the demographic that is generally involved in programming is essentially the same (with a slight tendency to nerdy and aspie) as the demographic of bros, and going to a conference is like a paid vacation for people who like programming (and aren't too intensely on call) - hence party time. Think state college spring break.
I think social awkwardness has an effect, too. I'd venture to say that the computer obsessed tend to more socially awkward, and alcohol offers a crutch when attempting to consciously network.
Maybe it doesn't matter, but I didn't see anywhere in the article why Ryan chooses not to drink. Obviously, his own choice with what to choose to put in his body. But I have definitely wondered about the influence of the culture on those who don't drink for cultural or religious reasons (e.g. Muslim, Mormon) Are we losing talented people who don't want to be part of that aspect of the culture?
Protip: on nights when I choose not to drink, I usually drink club soda with a bunch of lime wedges (like 3-4). I love the taste of it, it looks like a gin and tonic or vodka and soda and no one ever asks.
I don't think why he doesn't drink should have any bearing on it. He feels excluded from the culture, and it doesn't matter whether that's because he's religious, an alcoholic, etc.
Similarly, one shouldn't have to pretend to be drinking to enjoy a night in the pub (note, I'm a non-drinker who feels perfectly at home in the pub).
I agree - this is largely my own curiosity (nosiness).
It's clear that the OP had a very strong objection. This kind of passion doesn't generally emerge from nowhere, so I was curious about what was really driving him. (And I reiterate - if he chooses not to drink, he is of course answerable to no one. His body, his choice.)
At the same time, it's fruitful to fish where the fish are. If a person wants to have conversations with tech people and the tech people are at the pub he can either go to the pub or engage with them at some other time / place. Seems Ryan has chosen the latter.
I also agree that one need not be pretending to drink or ashamed of not drinking. Not at all. I use my fake-drink for convenience, to stave off the Nth person asking me why I don't have a beer in my hand or whatever.
> I also agree that one need not be pretending to drink or ashamed of not drinking. Not at all. I use my fake-drink for convenience, to stave off the Nth person asking me why I don't have a beer in my hand or whatever.
yet:
> I agree - this is largely my own curiosity (nosiness).
It seems every single person asks non-drinkers why they don't drink. For me, who doesn't really have a reason, it's just a bit boring. But I imagine if I had a real, or perhaps a painful reason, I wouldn't like to be reminded every time I went to the pub.
Excellent points all around Ryan. Thanks for bringing this up. The binge drinking that is almost mandatory at most conferences I attend these days is exclusive and annoying.
I don't, however, think that you need to stop attending conferences because of it. Rest assured there will always be someone else there like you that will have interesting things to talk about and will be sober.
Now that you have let others know that you definitely won't be drinking, you may actually be inviting others who feel the same way to seek you out at conferences because it's more fun to hang with like-minded people.
The OP seems to have a real chip on his shoulder about drinking. About half of what the OP said was him putting words in people's mouths (see: "Y U NO DRINK" for an example). This is coming from someone who is also a non-drinker, and who is from a culture in which drinking is almost the only social activity (I'm from Ireland).
That actually puts him in the same company as the brogrammers, who think that drinking is somehow makes their group special. The OP looks at drunken antics and thinks "those idiots" (emphasis on "those"), while they think "we're so cool" (emphasis on "we").
Compare to how I perceive most drinkers: people who want to have a conversation, and use alcohol to provide both the venue and a small social lubricant. Having been to a few github meetups in SF, they're largely sober affairs - I haven't observed much alcoholism or drunkenness. Conferences are a bit worse, but that's because people start drinking earlier.
It's not hard to enjoy these conferences, even as a non-drinker. Geeks chatting to geeks about geekery. Yes it happens in the pub; yes most people are drinking; yes some people have an unhealthy attitude to drinking - but that's life. I would suggest the OP tries again: roll your eyes at those bragging about drinking, ignore the guys slurring their words, and have good geeky conversation with the other 90% (a number which obviously diminishes the longer the event goes on).
When I go to tech meetups in Dublin, the chatting bit tends to happen in a pub afterwards.
Just curious, as a non-drinker do you enjoy attending events like PubStandards? I generally can't maintain a good geeky conversation in those environments from the noise, and leave with a sore throat from raising my voice.
Yeah, I do. I've been to PubStandards a few times, and went to FunConf, which was basically drinking on a bus to Kilkenny, lunch, then drinking on the way back. The sore throat is annoying, but its the same as going to any party, club, or loud pub.
I don't know about the OP, but I have a chip on my shoulder about professionalism in the industry, of which the alcohol and brogrammer culture is just a part.
We're on a long, slow slide away from CS and towards hacking out yet-another poorly designed programming language/web framework/whatever, patting ourselves on the back for re-inventing the wheel, and then grabbing some beers.
I'm studiously unimpressed with the quality of candidates, technology, and culture that I've been seeing in recent years.
What's next, "I feel excluded because I'm a naturist"? The author seems to be uncomfortable with drinking and seems to be projecting his discomfort on the people at these conferences. I go to social functions all the time where other people are drinking and I'm not — sometimes it's awkward, sometimes it's great fun anyway (honestly, that's true of dry events too). If that's not his bag, cool, but it's hard to find an actionable suggestion in this post beyond "I think everyone should be like me and not drink." This is not really comparable to creating a hostile environment where women feel objectified or looked down upon.
My actionable suggestions are to distance the event itself from the open bar that occurs afterwards. I definitely don't think people shouldn't drink in general.
I also don't think I was comparing it to creating a hostile environment where women feel objectified - I was saying it contributes to a hostile environment for lots of people.
Ah, so, because you feel excluded, you believe that conferences should be remade in a way that makes you feel included.
And who will that cause to feel excluded?
Not to mention, other than your colorful editorializations of what you think people mean ("Y U NO DRINK?" Y U NO BACK UP YOUR FAUX INTERNAL MONOLOGUES?), I don't see where's this hostile environment exactly? Because I haven't seen or heard of anything hostile at conf after-parties and I've spoken at 20 tech conferences and attended more. Confs from all over the "ego gamut" - from old school PHP confs, PERL confs, and OSCON to LessConf and JSConf. And, let it be known, I'm a woman. Who no longer drinks at conference after parties.
So you figure if anyone's gonna have a ring-side seat to obnoxiousness, it'd be me.
I absolutely agree with you! But "note why someone doesn't want to go to conferences any more" is not what this essay did. He systematically painted everyone involved as a bastard, simply because they like doing something he doesn't. He didn't even give any examples of people pressuring him to drink or treating him weirdly for not drinking… probably because there weren't any.
There's a huge gulf between "This turns me off, here's why" and quoting your wife, who is not involved in the situation, calling programmers terrible, as bad as bankers, based on your completely editorialized and unfounded comments about programmers who said something positive about drinking.
If you've ever been to a conference or a talk where there was no open bar (or even food) scheduled afterwards, everyone just leaves. This is more of an academic thing, so YMMV.
I'm not really a conference-goer but I thought the parties were kind of the point. I'll go see someone famous like http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/musings.html out of sheer tourist curiosity, but if you're just some guy, I'd rather read what you have to say (and unlimited followups) at my leisure than sit through the lecture format. A dry meet&greet could work, but only if there's a critical mass of interesting people who are equally comfortable doing that while sober (i.e., not using a buzz to damp social anxiety).
I don't think that drinking has anything to do with the brogrammer trend. Drinking was around before the brogrammer trend and it's going to be around after. The author states that drinking might be the cause of the brogrammer trend but the offers nothing to support that claim and does not elaborate further.
Nobody is discussing drinking as a cause of this because it's not.
You're right. The drinking was always epic at OSCON in the early 2000s -- a conf that has historically been full of the purest OSS nerds, least brogrammer types. And let's not even get started on PERL events. Free as in beer, you know.
I don't have a good time/don't get as much as I could out of some conferences because of this issue. Due to a medical condition I have a sensitivity to chemicals. Just smelling alcohol (or cigarette smoke, detergents, cleaning products, ...) makes me ill. It's not something that I--as some of the commenters here have advised--can learn to accept.
I think the tech bloggers need to harden the fuck up. The whining is too much to bear.
A note from Hitchens:
“Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.”
I don't get it. Do people give you shit for not drinking when you go to events? I've never had any problem when I decide I don't feel like drinking that day. You say you don't want to tell people what to do, but you want them to stop drinking?
Hmm, I don't care if people stop drinking. I care that it's such a huge part of the atmosphere and identity of so many events. This part: For conferences: don't plan elaborate drinking parties and put them on the itinerary. Some people who want to go out to the club can still do so, they don't need you to schedule it for them.
In some situations, not following the behavior of the crowd has an effect. I've been at parties where people were passing round a bong or whatever and declined and it definitely separates you from the group for better or worse.
I'm old and stubborn enough now to know that if I don't want to do something, being outside of the crowd is no big deal. But it's still something that occurs, and some people are particularly sensitive to the effects of going against the flow or find it very difficult to do that.
Fair point, but I doubt it will change anything. Why not throw your own hackfests during the conferences for those who don't want to go out drinking. Perhaps many that go out are only doing it for lack of something better to do.
I wrote this mobile web app in node.js http://www.beveragelog.com/
So that you can audit your abstinence, record your responsible drinking, or boast about your binge drinking.
Its sad when someone introduces you to a new community, telling you how much they love to drink. Then when you reply that you don't drink, said person tells you .. you know actually I don't drink either.
First up, very few of these parties are advertised as a place to taste alcohol. They are advertised as get wasted as much as possible cause its cool. And its pretty much every conference I go to.
But at any rate, I think the "original" purpose was the same as why people drink when they are back at home: To reduce anxiety and to make it easier for people to get to know each other. I think that is a worthy goal since to me the main purpose of conferences are to network, the talks come second.
But I know the same deal from sports tournaments where its also play hard on saturday, get drunk on saturday evening, play hard on sunday. I just sick around as long as there is someone not drunk to talk to, or the DJ doesn't suck so that I can dance. So it goes.
I also recently wrote on my Facebook page, that this is yet another form of excluding people. Especially if the only non alcoholic drink is water and pineapple juice. But yeah the difference is that nobody has seriously (well jokingly they have) implied that I am a worse programmer because I don't drink, where as it appears to happen still way too often that women are assumed to be booth babes or n00bs.
But getting smashed also has the tendency that people do stupid things and when a bunch of guys feel like they totally own a place in numbers while being totally drunk they might also start thinking they can "own" that female geek hacker. So yeah maybe there is where we get back to the sexism debate.
Not sure if I'd paint it so black and white, I think in general I have been in many of these things as well.
On both ends – I guess more on the 'I'm getting a drink' one because I agree that after a while there is no reason to stay sober anymore, because everyone else is on their way already. It's either that or go home, which I do frequently as well. But it very much depends on the kind of people I am with – in many cases it's not just colleagues or people I find interesting in terms of technological background: they are my actual friends (not Facebook-friends).
And despite getting smashed I've still had a lot of interesting conversations and discussions with people in the same setting. I don't want to call anyone out which is why I won't name names, but I think all (three) conferences I attended last year had an "open bar" at some point and it was still worth while.
One was an amazing weekend of great talks, conversations, food and drinks.
And I don't regret going to any of these either. For starters, I can stop whenever I want and go back to my hotel or go home. I can still stay around and not drink anything and chat with others all night if I want to. Or do the opposite and have a drink with them.
I personally caught myself pondering about how you keep a level of professionalism – e.g. when you see your work mates (and/or superiors) drunk all the time, how do you keep the respect around?
We hired a lot of people in the last two years and while it's good to be friends with everyone you work with, I think there is a gray area of how far you want to go. There is work and after-work and in the end, some people manage it and others do not. For myself, I just decided to not shift into last gear when I go out with them and that means I can still have a good time and even have a drink if I want to. Got that much self-control (or maybe just fear of the next day).
I'm not sure I agree on a ban for alcohol from conferences. I can see where you're coming from and I'd like to think people should consume within reason, but I'm sure that doesn't really work out at all. At least for the majority. In the end it's always freedom of choice.
I give you that though: Maybe drinks should not be free so people don't get wasted right on. Whoever sponsors them could also sponsor something else, or something more worth while.
There is this old-fashioned idea called "professionalism", which seems to have been inadvertently discarded along with dress codes, and of which they were once emblematic. Work is not home, is not friends (wholly), and is most certainly not college (unless it is).
I kid myself that if there was a better age, sex and cultural mix in software companies, these kinds of extremes would be tempered. It would be a start. Is programming the new advertising? Or is it just a side-effect of success?
People are enjoying themselves. It's a matter of personal opinion if this is the kind of environment you want to be in. Maybe sometimes it's out of control and more a frat party than a conference.
For the record, the opposite is probably not what most people want either. And I wouldn't want to work in the opposite environment either.
In the end it's up to the people attending and of course up to the people organizing what they make of it.
I have some sympathy for the article writer. S/he was perhaps a bit hyperbolic.
I'd suggest just taking business cards to the parties; meet people, swap cards, get a few details, and then leave when it gets too much. That's really the only use you'll get from them. But at least you've made the introduction and a follow-up email a few days later will get some results.
Excessive drinking is a problem. In the UK we have a concept of "Units of alcohol" to try to help people understand how much alcohol they drink. Men should have no more than 3 or 4 units per day. (women no more than 2 or 3. (Current advice is none at all while pregnant, but that's based on a precautionary principle because the safe limit isn't known, rather than known harm at 1 unit per week.)) They also recommend some drink free days each week, and strongly suggest that units cannot be "saved up" to use later in the week. (EG: Drink free monday through thursday then fockin' blindo friday and saturday.) One unit of alcohol used to be a pub measure of spirits, or half a pint of beer, or a small glass of wine. Because alcohol strength has increased beer and wine are often more than one unit in a pub measure.
One unit is 125 ml of wine at 8% Alcohol by Volume. Most wine is sold in 150 ml or 175 ml (for a small glass) and 250 ml for a large glass. Most wine is at least 10% ABV, but 12% is not uncommon.
This nice chart shows 250 ml at 12%ABV is 3 units. One large glass a day is skirting the safe drinking limits.
It's easy to see that people drinking a couple of glasses of wine in the evenings after work do not see themselves as having a problem with alcohol. Add in extra social time drinking and some people get very high levels of alcohol.
It really is a problem in the UK.
This article mentions someone drinking a remarkable amount:
This article has some suggestions about binge drinking in the UK. We have weird pubs - vertical drinking environments - where seating is limited, music is noisy, food isn't served. All these things increase the amount that people drink. While it's technically illegal to serve someone who is drunk I've never ever seen anyone refused alcohol, and I have seen many people barely able to ask for the drink being served.
I've met a bunch of people who don't drink, but are perfectly able to socialize in those situations. It seems to me you're bothered by those few who can't handle liquor, and making a huge generalization about people who drink. No worries, it seems to be a common mistake in those rants. But I have to disagree with the title of your post: You're not being excluded by people who drink. You're excluding yourself.
I share his observations. At one company, I gave up on trying to have any meaningful conversations with anybody on Fridays, because everyone was too fucked up to speak intelligently. This was not a little startup, either.
Alcohol is not the main problem. The lack of professionalism that the attendees have is. You can have a drink or two and still have meaningful conversations, but getting sloshed is just stupid. If you want to get trashed, why waste the money on a conference ticket?
I have been thinking the same thing while reading the article and comments. I haven't been to any of the larger conferences, so I thought I'd keep my mouth shut in case I'm simply missing something. There are a couple monthly tech meetings in Indy that either are at a bar, or go to a bar afterward. I don't recall having seen a single intoxicated person at one of the local events, let alone a majority of the attendees.
Agreed! Hell, at meetups and conferences here in Indy it seems to be tough to even put a dent in a keg (since I bring the Dorkbot one home with me I get a pretty good measure each month). Most barely have a beer.
Even at the larger conferences I've been to (few RailsConfs, and even Ruby on Ales) I can't recall more than a couple people who I would consider intoxicated (and that's just giving the benefit of the doubt, they may have just been odd people), much less the majority.
People have drinks, and talk shop. A few may get silly later on, but those are the few.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadI'm sorry that you feel uncomfortable going to conferences because of the drinking, but unfortunately, it's something you should probably learn to accept. You can move cities, change careers, do whatever you want, but unfortunately, you're going to find that people socialize via drinking just about everywhere.
So if you don't drink you're not a person? Alcohol is generally prohibited in Islam. Are you going to tell me that there are entire nations inhabited by human non-people?
ctide didn't say anything of the sort. I think ctide was trying to generalise from programmers -> people not implying all of humanity.
I have seen this phenomena (?) of "binge conferences" in many other circles - medical, engineering, accounting, legal. Journalism.. the list goes on, so it is a fair point.
Away from home, why not have a few drinks.
I'd bet $5 that the tap at GitHub isn't used to binge (as much as the author thinks). It's like a foosball table, used for a week straight, then forgot about.
Even including Islamic countries in the set, drinking is still one of the most prominent ways people in general socialize on average.
If that were true that would be bad - drinking at conferences would then truly alienate non-drinkers. But actually, non-drinkers can participate just fine in one of the most prominent ways people socialize.
In this particular case, it's more likely that the grandparent meant "this is something that most people do — programmers are not unusual in this regard, so it's weird to single them out."
Arguments of the type of "well, I've seen lots of people do this" just smell of availability bias. I can't argue that you're wrong, but you haven't given a good enough argument for me to conclude that you're correct.
The OP, on the other hand, is much more of a "Well, I've seen lots of people do this" argument: It's explicitly based on his personal experience with conferences.
Non-development oriented conferences I've been to end up in the bar too.
It's not just conferences, plenty of non developer activities I've been to end up with most people congregating in a pub/bar afterwards, all of them with a mix of age ranges and healthy ratio of women/men. Mountain biking trips, rock climbing weekends, skiing trips, beer festivals - actually scratch that last one.
It might be more pronounced in tech companies and conferences than in some other areas because the age range is probably skewed a bit more to the lower end (baseless assumption) than in other fields?
Then, at the end, you've got a couple of thousand dollars left over, and that goes on the bar tab.
Think about how many dollars worth of alcohol you would drink during a two day conference, then drop the amount because there's a lot of buying in bulk and people who don't go to the parties or drink. It doesn't come anywhere near "most part of a $650 conf ticket".
Sounds to me like the author is trying hard to conjure up a problem.
But, that's not why I came to the conference. I can drink at home.
I think you're fighting a losing battle, though, because the demographic that is generally involved in programming is essentially the same (with a slight tendency to nerdy and aspie) as the demographic of bros, and going to a conference is like a paid vacation for people who like programming (and aren't too intensely on call) - hence party time. Think state college spring break.
I think social awkwardness has an effect, too. I'd venture to say that the computer obsessed tend to more socially awkward, and alcohol offers a crutch when attempting to consciously network.
Protip: on nights when I choose not to drink, I usually drink club soda with a bunch of lime wedges (like 3-4). I love the taste of it, it looks like a gin and tonic or vodka and soda and no one ever asks.
Similarly, one shouldn't have to pretend to be drinking to enjoy a night in the pub (note, I'm a non-drinker who feels perfectly at home in the pub).
It's clear that the OP had a very strong objection. This kind of passion doesn't generally emerge from nowhere, so I was curious about what was really driving him. (And I reiterate - if he chooses not to drink, he is of course answerable to no one. His body, his choice.)
At the same time, it's fruitful to fish where the fish are. If a person wants to have conversations with tech people and the tech people are at the pub he can either go to the pub or engage with them at some other time / place. Seems Ryan has chosen the latter.
I also agree that one need not be pretending to drink or ashamed of not drinking. Not at all. I use my fake-drink for convenience, to stave off the Nth person asking me why I don't have a beer in my hand or whatever.
yet:
> I agree - this is largely my own curiosity (nosiness).
It seems every single person asks non-drinkers why they don't drink. For me, who doesn't really have a reason, it's just a bit boring. But I imagine if I had a real, or perhaps a painful reason, I wouldn't like to be reminded every time I went to the pub.
Excellent point, and something I had not considered.
I don't, however, think that you need to stop attending conferences because of it. Rest assured there will always be someone else there like you that will have interesting things to talk about and will be sober.
Now that you have let others know that you definitely won't be drinking, you may actually be inviting others who feel the same way to seek you out at conferences because it's more fun to hang with like-minded people.
That actually puts him in the same company as the brogrammers, who think that drinking is somehow makes their group special. The OP looks at drunken antics and thinks "those idiots" (emphasis on "those"), while they think "we're so cool" (emphasis on "we").
Compare to how I perceive most drinkers: people who want to have a conversation, and use alcohol to provide both the venue and a small social lubricant. Having been to a few github meetups in SF, they're largely sober affairs - I haven't observed much alcoholism or drunkenness. Conferences are a bit worse, but that's because people start drinking earlier.
It's not hard to enjoy these conferences, even as a non-drinker. Geeks chatting to geeks about geekery. Yes it happens in the pub; yes most people are drinking; yes some people have an unhealthy attitude to drinking - but that's life. I would suggest the OP tries again: roll your eyes at those bragging about drinking, ignore the guys slurring their words, and have good geeky conversation with the other 90% (a number which obviously diminishes the longer the event goes on).
Just curious, as a non-drinker do you enjoy attending events like PubStandards? I generally can't maintain a good geeky conversation in those environments from the noise, and leave with a sore throat from raising my voice.
We're on a long, slow slide away from CS and towards hacking out yet-another poorly designed programming language/web framework/whatever, patting ourselves on the back for re-inventing the wheel, and then grabbing some beers.
I'm studiously unimpressed with the quality of candidates, technology, and culture that I've been seeing in recent years.
I also don't think I was comparing it to creating a hostile environment where women feel objectified - I was saying it contributes to a hostile environment for lots of people.
Lighten up.
And who will that cause to feel excluded?
Not to mention, other than your colorful editorializations of what you think people mean ("Y U NO DRINK?" Y U NO BACK UP YOUR FAUX INTERNAL MONOLOGUES?), I don't see where's this hostile environment exactly? Because I haven't seen or heard of anything hostile at conf after-parties and I've spoken at 20 tech conferences and attended more. Confs from all over the "ego gamut" - from old school PHP confs, PERL confs, and OSCON to LessConf and JSConf. And, let it be known, I'm a woman. Who no longer drinks at conference after parties.
So you figure if anyone's gonna have a ring-side seat to obnoxiousness, it'd be me.
But if nobody ever speaks up, then it implies that everyone is happy with things are going.
There's a huge gulf between "This turns me off, here's why" and quoting your wife, who is not involved in the situation, calling programmers terrible, as bad as bankers, based on your completely editorialized and unfounded comments about programmers who said something positive about drinking.
I don't think that drinking has anything to do with the brogrammer trend. Drinking was around before the brogrammer trend and it's going to be around after. The author states that drinking might be the cause of the brogrammer trend but the offers nothing to support that claim and does not elaborate further.
Nobody is discussing drinking as a cause of this because it's not.
A note from Hitchens:
“Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.”
I'm old and stubborn enough now to know that if I don't want to do something, being outside of the crowd is no big deal. But it's still something that occurs, and some people are particularly sensitive to the effects of going against the flow or find it very difficult to do that.
First up, very few of these parties are advertised as a place to taste alcohol. They are advertised as get wasted as much as possible cause its cool. And its pretty much every conference I go to.
But at any rate, I think the "original" purpose was the same as why people drink when they are back at home: To reduce anxiety and to make it easier for people to get to know each other. I think that is a worthy goal since to me the main purpose of conferences are to network, the talks come second.
But I know the same deal from sports tournaments where its also play hard on saturday, get drunk on saturday evening, play hard on sunday. I just sick around as long as there is someone not drunk to talk to, or the DJ doesn't suck so that I can dance. So it goes.
I also recently wrote on my Facebook page, that this is yet another form of excluding people. Especially if the only non alcoholic drink is water and pineapple juice. But yeah the difference is that nobody has seriously (well jokingly they have) implied that I am a worse programmer because I don't drink, where as it appears to happen still way too often that women are assumed to be booth babes or n00bs.
But getting smashed also has the tendency that people do stupid things and when a bunch of guys feel like they totally own a place in numbers while being totally drunk they might also start thinking they can "own" that female geek hacker. So yeah maybe there is where we get back to the sexism debate.
On both ends – I guess more on the 'I'm getting a drink' one because I agree that after a while there is no reason to stay sober anymore, because everyone else is on their way already. It's either that or go home, which I do frequently as well. But it very much depends on the kind of people I am with – in many cases it's not just colleagues or people I find interesting in terms of technological background: they are my actual friends (not Facebook-friends).
And despite getting smashed I've still had a lot of interesting conversations and discussions with people in the same setting. I don't want to call anyone out which is why I won't name names, but I think all (three) conferences I attended last year had an "open bar" at some point and it was still worth while.
One was an amazing weekend of great talks, conversations, food and drinks.
And I don't regret going to any of these either. For starters, I can stop whenever I want and go back to my hotel or go home. I can still stay around and not drink anything and chat with others all night if I want to. Or do the opposite and have a drink with them.
I personally caught myself pondering about how you keep a level of professionalism – e.g. when you see your work mates (and/or superiors) drunk all the time, how do you keep the respect around?
We hired a lot of people in the last two years and while it's good to be friends with everyone you work with, I think there is a gray area of how far you want to go. There is work and after-work and in the end, some people manage it and others do not. For myself, I just decided to not shift into last gear when I go out with them and that means I can still have a good time and even have a drink if I want to. Got that much self-control (or maybe just fear of the next day).
I'm not sure I agree on a ban for alcohol from conferences. I can see where you're coming from and I'd like to think people should consume within reason, but I'm sure that doesn't really work out at all. At least for the majority. In the end it's always freedom of choice.
I give you that though: Maybe drinks should not be free so people don't get wasted right on. Whoever sponsors them could also sponsor something else, or something more worth while.
I kid myself that if there was a better age, sex and cultural mix in software companies, these kinds of extremes would be tempered. It would be a start. Is programming the new advertising? Or is it just a side-effect of success?
For the record, the opposite is probably not what most people want either. And I wouldn't want to work in the opposite environment either.
In the end it's up to the people attending and of course up to the people organizing what they make of it.
I'd suggest just taking business cards to the parties; meet people, swap cards, get a few details, and then leave when it gets too much. That's really the only use you'll get from them. But at least you've made the introduction and a follow-up email a few days later will get some results.
Excessive drinking is a problem. In the UK we have a concept of "Units of alcohol" to try to help people understand how much alcohol they drink. Men should have no more than 3 or 4 units per day. (women no more than 2 or 3. (Current advice is none at all while pregnant, but that's based on a precautionary principle because the safe limit isn't known, rather than known harm at 1 unit per week.)) They also recommend some drink free days each week, and strongly suggest that units cannot be "saved up" to use later in the week. (EG: Drink free monday through thursday then fockin' blindo friday and saturday.) One unit of alcohol used to be a pub measure of spirits, or half a pint of beer, or a small glass of wine. Because alcohol strength has increased beer and wine are often more than one unit in a pub measure.
One unit is 125 ml of wine at 8% Alcohol by Volume. Most wine is sold in 150 ml or 175 ml (for a small glass) and 250 ml for a large glass. Most wine is at least 10% ABV, but 12% is not uncommon.
This nice chart shows 250 ml at 12%ABV is 3 units. One large glass a day is skirting the safe drinking limits.
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Units_of_alcohol_char...)
It's easy to see that people drinking a couple of glasses of wine in the evenings after work do not see themselves as having a problem with alcohol. Add in extra social time drinking and some people get very high levels of alcohol.
It really is a problem in the UK.
This article mentions someone drinking a remarkable amount:
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15997695)
But these articles mention much more reasonable drinking is also a problem:
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16869618)
(Very annoyingly they say things like "triples the risk of mouth cancer" which is meaningless to most people.)
And this article recommends some time to recover after heavy drinking:
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15415713)
This article has some suggestions about binge drinking in the UK. We have weird pubs - vertical drinking environments - where seating is limited, music is noisy, food isn't served. All these things increase the amount that people drink. While it's technically illegal to serve someone who is drunk I've never ever seen anyone refused alcohol, and I have seen many people barely able to ask for the drink being served.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16466646)
Even at the larger conferences I've been to (few RailsConfs, and even Ruby on Ales) I can't recall more than a couple people who I would consider intoxicated (and that's just giving the benefit of the doubt, they may have just been odd people), much less the majority.
People have drinks, and talk shop. A few may get silly later on, but those are the few.
Maybe the JS scene is different?