{"id":777,"date":"2009-05-12T00:12:58","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T00:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joelonsoftware.com\/?p=777"},"modified":"2018-04-23T21:54:47","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T21:54:47","slug":"stack-overflow-devdays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joelonsoftware.com\/2009\/05\/12\/stack-overflow-devdays\/","title":{"rendered":"Stack Overflow DevDays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stack Overflow<\/a> has been going nuts\u2014after just six months in business, we\u2019ve had 3.5 million unique visitors per month. We\u2019ve starting thinking about how to get that great tribe of developers together in the real world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>We decided to launch a series of Stack Overflow events: the first gathering of the tribe of great developers making Stack Overflow so successful that over 90% of questions get answered<\/p>\n\n

.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be in October, in five<\/span> ten separate cities. In each city, we\u2019re planning a one-day event.<\/p>\n

We decided to cram as many diverse topics as possible into a single day event. Like a tasting menu at a great restaurant, we\u2019ll line up six great speakers in each city.<\/p>\n

This is not going to be just a Java conference or a .NET conference or a Ruby conference. This will be completely ecumenical. We\u2019ll have somebody to introduce Microsoft\u2019s new web framework, ASP.NET MVC, but we\u2019ll also get someone to talk about writing code for Google\u2019s new mobile operating system, Android. And in each city, we\u2019ll find one local computer science professor or graduate student to tell us about something new and interesting in academia.<\/p>\n

For smart programmers who are interested in learning about something a little bit outside of their own immediate field, this is the conference for you. We\u2019re doing it in the spirit of Byte Magazine. Remember Byte? Every issue covered a wide range of topics and technologies. Sadly, Byte disappeared, to be replaced by Mac-only magazines, IBM-PC only magazines, even Microsoft SQL Server-only magazines.<\/p>\n

The conference is for programmers. The conversation is going to be hard core. Speakers are going to be writing code.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Putting on these conferences is really expensive\u2014conference centers can charge you $1000 for one urn of coffee. That\u2019s why typical developer conferences can cost $1500, plus travel, hotel, and $73 for the Internet access in your hotel room. With the current worldwide recession, that just isn\u2019t gonna fly. Many great conferences, like SD West, have been cancelled. Attendance is way down at the conferences that survive.<\/p>\n

So I got together with Ryan Carson, whose company, Carsonified, has been putting on great conferences like FOWA, and we tried to figure out how little we could possibly charge for this thing. The answer: $99 per attendee.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it. These one day conferences are just $99. You can bring your whole team for less than the cost of a normal conference.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re doing it in five cities, so you may not even have to travel. We\u2019ve got room for just 300 developers in each city:<\/p>\n

October 19 San Francisco SOLD OUT <\/span>
\nOctober 21 Seattle SOLD OUT <\/span>
\nOctober 23 Toronto SOLD OUT <\/span>
\nOctober 26 Washington, DC SOLD OUT <\/span>
\nOctober 28 London SOLD OUT <\/span><\/p>\n

Update!<\/b><\/span> Due to popular demand, we\u2019ve added five more cities:<\/p>\n

October 7 Boston
\nOctober 14 Austin
\nOctober 16 Los Angeles
\nOctober 30 Cambridge, UK
\nNovember 2 Amsterdam<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Register for Stack Overflow DevDays right now<\/a>. Given the huge demand and the limited number of tickets, I expect all five cities will sell out pretty much instantly.<\/p>\n

OK, here\u2019s the FAQ:<\/p>\n

Who will be speaking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be speaking in every city. Jeff Atwood will appear in San Francisco only. We will line up about six speakers in every city.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>What will be the topics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The topics haven\u2019t been nailed down yet and depend on speaker availability. I\u2019ll do my best to get speakers on as many of the following topics as possible:<\/p>\n