
Clojure/West conference has launched - puredanger
http://clojurewest.org/news/2011/11/2/clojurewest-is-launched.html
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michaelschade
It says it on the website, but of particular note is that Alex also runs the
Strange Loop conference (<https://thestrangeloop.com/>). Of its three years,
I've attended two consecutively, and have had a blast both times, learned many
new things, and made great connections.

He also runs groups here in St. Louis that I attend, so that paired with my
experiences at his conference lead me to say with confidence that a conference
run by him is certainly worth considering.

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puredanger
I'd love to have Paul Graham talk at Clojure/West. Seeing as this is HN, if
anyone reading this wants to convince him, please do. :)

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puredanger
Unfortunately pg can't make it. :(

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sbochins
Can anyone give me a justification for attending a tech conference. I never
have attended one in the past an d $450 seems like a lot of money out of my
own pocket. I'm interested in writing clojure web apps, but I am not convinced
I would benefit enough from this conference to justify the cost. Can someone
tell me where I'm wrong?

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michaelschade
I'm not sure of your employment status, but if you are an employee somewhere,
it's quite possible that you can get your employer to at least partially pay
your way.

The cost is an interesting thing to attempt to justify, and it depends
entirely upon how you take on the conference. If you simply attend, sit in the
audience, and listen to some of the talks, with rare exceptions I would argue
that the cost isn't worth it for _any_ conference. You'll notice that many
conferences put videos of their talks online–for free. There's a reason for
this: the talks are not the most valuable aspect of the conference; rather,
the rest of the experience at the conference is the precious part.

This isn't to say that the talks are unimportant. The quality of speakers
reflects on the quality of the conference as a whole and the speakers set the
stage for the great discussion that will flow from there. At a conference,
you'll sit in the audience and listen to some really intelligent person speak
about a given topic, and people really get into what that person has to say;
but the real magic comes just after the speaker finishes. You'll notice that
those that really found the talk interesting will rise from their seats and
rush to the stage, crowding around the speaker to engage her in discussion.
Fellow attendees–speakers or otherwise–will further break off into their own
groups to keep the conversation flowing.

So, if you think of a conference as a novel, then imagine the speakers as the
main characters. While they keep the plot flowing, it's really the other
characters–the attendees–that tie everything together and make the main
characters worthwhile.

Additionally, you'll find yourself thrown into a large group of people where
you are both stronger than others in some areas and weaker than other
attendees in different areas. This tends to be any geek's best dream–you're
simultaneously around people from whom you can learn and to whom you can
impart knowledge, which means that you're in an environment that fosters
creativity and open discussion.

You won't remember everything that you learn at a conference. That isn't the
point. Instead, you'll be introduced to a wide range of new ideas, and you'll
take that new perspective back to work or other areas of your life and apply
it accordingly. For example, I saw Nathan Marz's talk at Strange Loop 2011,
where he open-sourced Storm. For days after (and, frankly, even as I was
working on something just the other day), ideas that he put forth in that talk
have resonated in my mind, and I've architected solutions to numerous problems
in ways that I otherwise would not have imagined, all because I was exposed to
a different point of view.

This benefit is what just _one_ speaker has done for me–now imagine how
powerful this is when you're exposed to 20, 40, or even 60 different speakers!
The benefit continues to grow as you talk not just with speakers, but with
fellow attendees as well, absorbing their newly gained snippets of knowledge
and sharing some bits of your own.

For these reasons I would say that, while $450 can indeed be a lot of money,
it isn't just applied to the two days that you will be at a conference.
Instead, it continues to work for you through the lessons learned and–perhaps
even more importantly–people met.

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sbochins
Those are very good points you brought up especially around the advantages
gained from networking. I don't think my company would sponsor me attending
this conference. I code in PHP at my current job. I'm using clojure for the
startup I'm bootstrapping on the side.

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marcolz
Cannot wait. I especially like the fact that there will also be training days:
being still a "new" language I believe it's nice to make it more appealing for
new people.

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puredanger
We have several things in the works but would love to hear any ideas you have
for more specific training than just "learning the language".

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marcolz
Still. For a couple of days of "just learning the language" I'm ready to come
all the way from Italy.

; )

Anyway, a few suggestions: \- Clojure for Processing large amount of data
(MapReduce); \- Clojure for Web Development; \- Clojure for When Other
Languages Are Simply Not Enough(tm).

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puredanger
Thanks - we already talking to people about most of those. :)

Also, we _will_ have training for learning the language as well, done by
Clojure/core.

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puredanger
Track Clojure/West on Lanyrd here: <http://lanyrd.com/2012/clojurewest/>

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tbatchelli
I find clojure/conj to be a tad too theoretical (at least from paper). Not
that I don't like that since I am a language geek anyway, but I think it will
be great for Clojure the language to have a more of a "get things done"
conference to complement the conj.

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fogus
Do you mind explaining "theoretical"? For example, of the talks listed this
year are there any that you would say are theoretical?

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tbatchelli
I guess theoretical is a subjective term.

What I meant to say was that Clojure/conj seems geared towards advanced
clojure users, and I think Clojure would benefit of a conference that focuses
more on bringing new developers to the fold. From this perspective, more talks
about build tools, web development frameworks, useful libraries, etc would be
great. I personally think that clojure could use some more evangelization here
in the Bay Area, and I believe Clojure/west can do just that.

But I myself attended to the Emerging Languages Conference, so I will
definitely enjoy the conj very much, don't get me wrong.

EDIT: I guess I didn't answer part of your question, which is what talks I
consider theoretical. Here are some (judging from title and abstract):
"Extreme Cleverness: Functional Data Structures in Scala", "Predicate
Dispatch", "Concurrent Stream Processing" . Hoping this will help with
clarification, this is what I would like to see too at some point: "From
concept to production in 40 min: how to create a webapp in clojure", "A survey
of Clojure tooling", "Debugging made easy", "Clojure and Hadoop", etc.

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fogus
I do see what you mean. I was afraid that you were getting into the "academic"
phrasing, but suspected that I only misunderstood. I too like case-studies and
prefer a mix of them and the "theoretical" topics.[1] I would hate to see one
excluded in favor of the other, so I am hopeful that Alex and team will put
together a great mix.

[1]: Although I think the vast majority of topics that we as programmers talk
about are theories.

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puredanger
We will brew up a tasty mix.

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AlexBaranosky
Very cool stuff. I'm very interested in hearing more about how this conference
(which I have every confidence will be really great) will complement the Conj.

