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Where were the programmers at Agile 2010?

1 year ago

I just came back from Agile 2010, which I rather enjoyed. We had some intense discussions, and plenty of whining sessions, about the relative lack of content for programmers. I found out that about 1/6 of the conference attendees identified themselves as “developers” and about 1/5 identified themselves as “consultants”. If we suppose that even half the consultants are programmers, then only about 1/5 to 1/4 of the attendees had medium-to-strong interest in deep content for programmers. It turns out that the number of such sessions amounted to about 1/5 of the program, and by all reports, most had lower-than-expected attendance. If the conference offered enough content for programmers, then I have to ask two questions:

  1. Why didn’t more programmers attend Agile 2010?
  2. Why didn’t more of the programmers who attended Agile 2010 go to the deep technical sessions?

If you’re a programmer, then why did you choose not to attend Agile 2010?

If you’re a programmer who attended Agile 2010, then why did you choose not to attend many/any sessions meant for programmers?

If you manage programmers, or otherwise approve the budget for them to attend Agile 2010, then why did you decide not to send them/let them attend?

I appreciate any feedback you’d be willing to provide. I intend to use this information to decide how I will spend my energy proposing technical sessions for future conferences.

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