
Rustconf 2016 – What was cool and what surprised me - andygrove
http://www.agildata.com/rustconf-2016-what-was-cool-and-what-surprised-me/
======
pohl
I was fortunate to be able to attend. Sometimes I feel like I'm just not built
for conferences: I prefer solitude, and people usually go to conferences to
confer. That said, this was an exceptional group of people to be among: smart,
friendly, helpful, passionate, and accepting. I know it's been said before:
the rust community at this stage of its evolution gets this right.

I also attended the beginner and intermediate training on Friday, and I feel
like this pushed me over the hump. Thank you, Steve and Aaron, for presenting
the material so well.

I even attended the tokio hackathon on Friday night to push myself out of my
comfort zone. I wasn't able to contribute anything that night, but I spent
some time troubleshooting a build problem in the tokio-line project, just for
the sake of learning.

I would recommend attending next year if you get the opportunity.

~~~
jimktrains2
> That said, this was an exceptional group of people to be among: smart,
> friendly, helpful, passionate, and accepting. I know it's been said before:
> the rust community at this stage of its evolution gets this right.

I wasn't at the conference, but I've seen the same thing online. I wonder if
it's because we've all been humbled by the borrow checker _constantly_ it
seems.

~~~
nnethercote
I'm pretty sure it's because Graydon established and enforced a positive
culture from the very start -- backed up by a good Code of Conduct -- and
everyone since has continued to do that.

------
JoshTriplett
I was one of the presenters at RustConf this year. Despite being a new
conference, the organizers did incredibly well; everything went as smoothly as
any of the top tier of Open Source conferences. And of all the Open Source
conferences I've been to, I found RustConf by far the most welcoming and
energizing; great reflection on both the Rust community and the RustConf
organizers.

I've found this about Rust in general: despite being a very new community, it
manages to come across as quite mature and established in many ways. For
instance, the language's stability-marking infrastructure allows
experimentation with new language features _without_ requiring stable
applications to build with a nightly compiler because key dependencies want
nightly features. Many of the mistakes and missteps that I've seen in new
communities, as they rediscover problems from other communities, seem to have
been anticipated and avoided in the Rust community.

RustConf was a reflection of that; despite being the first RustConf, it went
as smoothly as any established conference that's been running for years.

~~~
bluejekyll
Have you posted you content online? It was an excellent talk. Nice job!

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Have you posted you content online?

The video should go up soon. I haven't posted the slides anywhere, but I
should fix that.

Ideally, I'd love to see all the slides posted on rustconf.com linked from the
talks.

> It was an excellent talk. Nice job!

Thanks!

------
Xylakant
Let me use the opportunity to advertise the rustfest, Europes first rust
conference in Berlin, this upcoming weekend.

[https://rustfest.eu](https://rustfest.eu)

(I'm not part of the orga team, but affiliated)

------
raphlinus
I was also there as one of the presenters, and concur, it was a great
experience. The strength of the community is absolutely one of the threads
that ran throughout the conference. I've been involved in open source a long a
long time and had sadly revised my expectations downward, but Rust is going a
long way towards restoring my confidence.

Kudos and thanks to the organizers!

------
bluejekyll
There was something Julia Evans said at the end that really struck me as the
key to Rust (I can't quote it)

The language gives you the security to try something new, convinces you that a
mere mortal (as opposed to a C expert) can write systems level programs
without fear. This is an amazing feature of the language.

It's democratizing what used to be exclusive to a low level community.

~~~
mshenfield
Obligatory links to talk and HN comments:

[http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/09/11/rustconf-
keynote/](http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/09/11/rustconf-keynote/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12477211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12477211)

------
kibwen
For those interested in more Rust conferences, RustFest is September 17-18 in
Berlin (no idea if tickets are still available) and Rust Belt Rust is October
27-28 in Pittsburgh (tickets available at [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rust-
belt-rust-conference-regis...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rust-belt-rust-
conference-registration-25729515674) ). Yours truly is giving one of the
beginner tutorials at the latter, and I'll be handing out custom-machined
rusty metal doodads to my attendees. :)

~~~
llogiq
I'd really love to be there. My third child will probably be about 3 or 4
weeks old by that time, so I at least have good reason to miss out.

------
colemickens
I haven't been to many tech conferences, but RustConf was hands down the best
I've been to. Classy group of people. Smart, entertaining talks. I can't
recommend it enough. There's no doubt in my mind that the quality and
diversity of speakers, content, attendees and general atmosphere was due to
community that has been curated. And I think that curation has been very
intentional and has paid off. It was repeated numerous times that the Rust
community is helpful and inviting... including IRC.

(Thanks Steve, I think you're a powerful force in shaping the awesome,
welcoming tone in the Rust community)

------
solarengineer
Is the webpage loading for anyone else? I'm being sent the Wordpress PHP code!

~~~
amluto
I have the same problem. Oddly, even using archive.org sends me php code.

~~~
captaincrowbar
Me three. Tried it on Chrome/Windows and Safari/Mac, same breakage.

------
steveklabnik
All talks were recorded, we'll have them up at some point.

~~~
klocksib
Is there a youtube channel or confreaks we can subscribe to so we can watch
them when available?

~~~
steveklabnik
I am 99% sure that it was confreaks who did the recordings, but I'm not sure
if there's something you can subscribe to. They'll be tweeted from @rustlang
and @rustconf for sure as well as posted to the users' forum, and I can't
imagine that /r/rust won't pick them up.

~~~
klocksib
Perfect, thanks!

------
vatotemking
Rust is an awesome community. They are patient and helpful to newbies. As
oppose to the 2 other communities i know of, the rust community can handle
criticisms maturely. Its so refreshing. Cheers to rust!

------
tedmielczarek
I don't attend many conferences, but I've been to a few and the quality of the
speakers at RustConf was above and beyond any I've ever seen. Kudos to
everyone that organized the event and spoke at it, it was a great experience!

------
pegasos1
Agreed with my fellow co-speakers. It was humbling to be surround by such
brilliant people. But it was also so inspiring to be a part of a community
that takes pride in welcoming and empowering every developer, regardless of
background.

------
jeswin
I apologize for being harsh here. But if you're submitting your own articles
to HN, I think it might make sense for it to not read like an ad for your
company. There is nothing technical in the article, not even links.

~~~
klausa
I don't understand where the assumption that there must be something
'technical' in the post to 'deserve' a place on HN came from, but it's wrong.

~~~
bluejekyll
Agree. Even if it is promoting their own company, this is a great example of
someone using new technology to profit.

I get excited when I see this, even if I don't learn anything from the
content.

