Of Booze and Brogrammers

http://www.databasesoup.com/2012/04/of-booze-and-brogrammers.html

by vgnet • 14 years ago

110 66 14 years ago

I agree with this guy to an extent. Drinking doesn't bother me, but I don't like "parties." High density socializing and musical/similar entertainment isn't for me (introvert), so it's great when events have something more focused and event related to attend (as well as the party, of course) rather than go watch TV in the hotel room (which, admittedly, I enjoy ;-))

At some events (especially smaller ones), "parties" can seem to be at the expense of things like BoFs (as he mentions), lightning talks, hackathons, etc, and when you have so much talent all in one place, it seems a shame to waste opportunities for it to come together productively.

Some of my best conference moments have been sitting around with 10-20 people in hotel lobbies talking or in empty conference rooms coding. The worst have been crammed into a bar and having to shout at strangers. As the author suggests, let the partiers party, but give some space to the squares too ;-)

listrophy• 14 years ago

FWIW, we had tremendous success at Madison Ruby: rooftop party with live DJs (two of which were attendees, the other was Dosh). Alcohol available, good music, and the open air made it possible to converse.

benihana• 14 years ago

Afterparties have been great to me. I've made a lot of good connections and had a lot of doors opened for me that couldn't have happened during a lightning talk. Talking over drinks really makes it easier to speak confidently about oneself.

sopooneo• 14 years ago

Absolutely yes. I love talking to interesting people over drinks. Love it. However, when they insist on playing music so loud that you can't hear each other, that option goes away. And almost always they insist on playing the latest vapid pop. The play music by 17 year olds for 40 year olds? Why? So we can pretend we're still kids? Fuck that.

Give me quality liquor, music a bulk of the people actually like, played low enough that no one has to yell. Then fill the room with passionate thinkers. Heaven.

capkutay• 14 years ago

In my experience drinking hasn't been conducive to being a good programming/problem solver. I don't have the mental stamina to finish a program when I'm hungover.

mhurron• 14 years ago

Drinking and Drunk are not the same thing.

gauravk92• 14 years ago

Ballmer's peak has nothing to do with "the morning after." For me it's after 2-3 drinks but after 4 it's probably gone.

jpk2• 14 years ago

Agreed. I find even a beer or two throws me off. However, when I need to write emails or some more social, less technical thing, a couple beers makes me way more productive. I think because I tend to waffle on verbiage and think things like, "no, that sounds condescending and I don't mean it to be, backspace" I find a little alcohol brings the "fuck it, send" threshold close enough to be productive at something I'm kind of bad at sober.

coopdog• 14 years ago

Hungover yeah not good, but I find a beer or two can give you a different perspective on something that's exactly what you need sometimes. Like how you solve problems in your sleep or in the shower, sometimes just saying 'screw it' and doing something sloppily gives you the clarity needed for the real answer

jf781• 14 years ago

LobbyCon is the best action for data ...it's all about the hallways. I will say that lots of folks know each other online so meeting face 2 face is a fun time to bond and party rather than info gathering which conferences are not good for anyway (due to the real time web)

-john furrier palo alto

mechanical_fish2• 14 years ago

I like beer (though in moderation, because these days it does not always like me back) and I do not tend to be an introvert at conferences, and I would love to meet each and every one of you over beer, but I socialize by conversing, not by standing around smiling and nodding and asking for things to be repeated because I can't hear a damn thing. I can't sort out conversation at the ambient sound level of many bars. (It may be partly physiological; I have friends who have far more difficulty than I, though their hearing, like mine, is fine to first order.) And most clubs are an order of magnitude louder than a bar.

And so, I concur: All my happiest conference memories are about hotel lobbies. If you want to run a good conference, give those of us who enjoy conversation the option of dropping by a 24-by-7 lobby. (Drupalcon actually tends to do this; they call it the "hacker lounge". Just another thing to like about the Drupal folks.)

j_baker2• 14 years ago

This sounds like Auditory Processing Disorder[1], a very common condition. The problem isn't your hearing, rather it's how your brain processes sounds. One effect it has is dulling your ability to focus in on one particular conversation if there's a lot of background noise.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder

zerohp3• 14 years ago

As far as I can tell, there are no more of these kinds of parties at conferences than there were 10 years ago.

Excluding academic conferences, I don't think programmers drink and more or less than other professionals at conferences.

thenduks• 14 years ago

I'm not sure why that's relevant. Should we not try to improve things just because it's 'always been like this'?

zerohp3• 14 years ago

It is relevant because of the assertion that it's partially due to 25 year olds and brogrammers. Neither are true.

Also it has not been established that changing things would be an improvement.

ktizo5• 14 years ago

I think the award for that is probably jointly shared by doctors, journalists and sci-fi authors, with an honorary mention for stock market traders.

[edit] The team representing the traders were in an early lead, but they all got disqualified after testing positive for cocaine. The doctors and authors should have been disqualified as well, but the doctors all said they had a sore leg and none of the substances in the authors' blood showed up on any known test. As far as anybody can tell, the journalists were just drunk, but no-one really knows what happened to them in the end, although there are some unconfirmed reports of one being eaten by a leopard.

JBerkus4• 14 years ago

I agree. In fact, I would argue that open source developer conferences actually have fewer drunken revels than more conventional industry trade shows (which, in my experience, also have more issues with exclusion and sexual harassment). However, that doesn't mean that we can't still try for a better balance.

mjn• 14 years ago

> Excluding academic conferences, I don't think programmers drink and more or less than other professionals at conferences.

As an academic, I'm curious in which direction you're implying academic conferences deviate. :)

zerohp3• 14 years ago

I have no idea, thats why I exclude them. I don't have experience in that circle or knowledge of friends experience that I can use as a basis to speculate.

mr1976• 14 years ago

yes and no. I attended OSCON[1] in 2005 and 2006 and, like the linked post, I remember a strong focus on BOF sessions and tech-related activities after the main day sessions were over, with a small amount of partying towards the end. Product specific conferences (Oracle, MS etc.) were always more party and less talk, but the audience was very different - I suspect that was the status quo wherever salespeople and corporate folks outnumbered technical people by any margin.

It may be a side effect of the increased popularity of the dev/OSS/startup industry as a whole over the last few years, but I've certainly seen (purely anecdotal, I know) a decrease in productivity and an increase in hangovers & 'remember when bob fell in the fountain' stories the next day...

[1] european. not US.

Rickasaurus• 14 years ago

I don't usually have a very good time at the conference after parties but there have been a few exceptions.

The best time I've ever had at a conference was at TechEd New Orleans. It was fantastic just to buddy around with the same people making the programming languages and tools that I love. I made a ton of connections and some conversations even turned into opportunities down the road.

I'm an introvert by nature, but exhausting as it is, it really pays to put yourself out there.

Another example was at PDC. They had a big party with arcade games and VR simulators. Sure, there was beer, but tons of folks were throwing down on some Street Fighter as well. If you don't like partying, and you don't like video games are there any social activities that you enjoy at all?

staunch• 14 years ago

I think the core reason for this is that conferences are essentially all expenses paid mini vacations for corporate workers.

It's a seemingly legitimate way for companies to give their employees a perk. Sure, some people are actually there to learn things for work purposes, but the vast majority are simply happy to have a few days off work to relax (and maybe learn a bit) on the company dime. It's America's (crappy) solution to our relatively low number of vacation days.

It shouldn't be any surprise that people drink and party a lot at conferences. People tend to do those things while on vacation.

bksenior• 14 years ago

The other piece to that is in most cases these events are the only time some groups of friends or strong acquaintances have the opportunity to hang out and bond face to face. confer. I would argue that is human nature to want to celebrate with friends who you only see on rare occasion and drinking tends to be the most easily and socially acceptable way of doing so. In many cases it is at these events that many times acquaintances become stronger relationships through just hanging out as people post conference.

bmelton• 14 years ago

Almost exactly what I was going to say. I have a team of employees that work in San Francisco. I work from home in Annapolis, MD, on the opposite side of the country.

I don't see them often enough and while I certainly love my co-workers, I try to pack as much face time in whenever I'm on their side of the country as I'm able.

If I'm there for a conference, it's because I want to learn, or be enriched by whatever the conference is offering -- but I can bet that for certain I'll be hanging out late with the peeps I don't get to see enough as well.

neilc• 14 years ago

It's America's (crappy) solution to our relatively low number of vacation days.

This would suggest that you'd find less conference participation in places with more generous vacation policies, like Western Europe or Australia. Anecdotally I haven't seen any evidence that that is true, although it might be.

j_baker2• 14 years ago

It might also suggest that conferences in those places might be a bit more technology-oriented and less like spring break in Maui.

rickmb• 14 years ago

What I have heard from various people is that conference attendees in the US tend to be much more focused on socializing, whereas in Europe most people will attend the sessions and then go home. But shorter travel distances may also be a factor.

On a related note: alcohol laws may also make a big difference. Europeans have pretty much grown out of the "awesome, I can drink legally now" phase by the time they hit 25, Americans in that age group tend to have a slightly immature alcohol culture.

TamDenholm• 14 years ago

Can anyone explain what BOF stands for?

pgbovine• 14 years ago

See http://static.usenix.org/event/lisa11/bofs.html

garethsprice• 14 years ago

Birds of a Feather. They're informal, ad-hoc meetings centered on a specific topic. Like if the topic of "unit testing" (for example) comes up a lot, someone might propose a BOF on unit testing and anyone interested can show up and ask questions, run a demo, etc.

BrianLy3• 14 years ago

You'll also see them called "open spaces".

PyCon has some great ones although they were a little disappointing this year. A combination of the hotel layout and placement of the openspace proposal (sign up) board was not great.

JosephHatfield• 14 years ago

I don't get it, I went to every Microsoft Professional Developers Conference from 1995-2005 and I never saw any partying (well, there was that one visit to Universal Studios that was pretty cool). I missed out!

BrianLy3• 14 years ago

Almost 10 years ago work sent me to TechEd 2002 EMEA in Barcelona. I remember a party with Cirque du soleil (or a similar) troupe, and a Ballmer-like break dancer. Everyone was driven over to the event at one of the former Olympic venues. There was booze and loud music but it a fairly good event even if you weren't drinking.

tedmiston2• 14 years ago

It sounds like the biggest complaint here is more or less sound volume (i.e., loud ass music --> I can't talk to people). I share this sentiment with bars. Quiet to moderate volume bars > loud "hip" bars any day.

iamgilesbowkett• 14 years ago

"Don't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group! He takes everything too seriously!"

"Don't have parties at your confs! You're not being serious enough!"

I sometimes skip the parties at confs, but I sometimes go, and I've been to a few which were great. I think attempting to come up with some kind of Canonical Seriousness Level for all developer gatherings is doomed anyway. This is a matter of personal taste.

All you can do as a conf organizer is decide what kind of conf you want to run, and make sure people know before they buy their tickets. Or, if you're running a very large conf, set up loud options and quiet options.

There's also a flaw in his argument here, one which I hope is not significant:

"It's easier for overworked conference organizers to arrange a party than other evening activities which actually require planning."

On its own, this sentence is so dementedly off-target that it initially made me wonder what other wildly inaccurate assumptions he might be making. However, later in the blog post, it turns out that he might mean it's easier because all you do is hand it off to some company who wants to organize the party for you.

Of course, not doing anything is easier than doing something. Can't argue with that. However, if he really thinks parties require no planning, he either has no experience throwing parties, or the parties he throws are not good.

JBerkus4• 14 years ago

Giles,

I've planned quite a few parties. In fact, I used to plan them professionally for the San Francisco Opera, and that's about as high-maintenance as a party gets. I've also helped organize a dozen open source conferences.

My point is not that planning parties is easy, but rather that planning a boring party (i.e. hotel ballroom or bar, bad DJ and some free booze) is easier than planning alternative activities. Scheduling BOFs, game nights, or the kind of party at LinuxCon are all significantly more work than that.

And, in my experience, the majority of parties at confs are, in fact, bad parties which require little planning.

kscaldef• 14 years ago

Frankly, the most of the "parties" at most conferences _aren't_ good. Mostly, "party" just means an open bar and, if you're lucky, some light nibbles, either in the exhibit hall of the conference center or in a tacky hotel restaurant.

mattdeboard2• 14 years ago

I propose the Bowkett Constant, the ideal canonical seriousness level for all developer gatherings.

scythe• 14 years ago

Binge drinking is an unhealthy pattern of behavior. It causes damage to those who partake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binge_drinking#Cause

"I forget my problems (41%)"

41% only tracks the number of people who admit this to themselves. If there is a systematic problem of alcohol abuse and uncontrolled excess, we have to ask what is so horrible in the life of a programmer that so many of them would prefer to forget themselves entirely?

Of course I don't really know if there is a legitimate binge drinking problem, or if people are just loud and drunk. I'm not usually at these conferences.

wtvanhest• 14 years ago

It is also fun sometimes. And it happens in every business, not just tech

ryan-allen• 14 years ago

I'm one of those programmers who likes drinking and yelling about JavaScript in noisy bars after a conference. I'm friends with both types of programmers as well, and enjoy sober conversations about JavaScript (again, usually yelling).

There's opportunity here to start another movement at conferences like how the unconf stuff popped up at the larger ones. Why not start a 'ModerateConf' unafterparty at these things? Have hacking spaces, name tags, light music and a small bar. All the 'brogrammers' (how I hate that term!) will go to the other places and do their shots of absinthe.

If you don't like 'parties' that's fine, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them.

ORioN63• 14 years ago

"The Brogrammers are desperately trying to prove to themselves that, while they may be programmers, they're not geeks."

Nope, we're trying to show people that being geek, doesn't mean being socially awkward.

learc832• 14 years ago

>we're

So you're classifying yourself as a Brogrammer, or you're saying that people going to parties aren't Brogrammers--they're just socially aware geeks?

Geeks are awkward b/c by definition we are obsessive, and our passions tend towards topics that non-geeks don't understand.

It can be tough for some people, but once you're aware that you can't speek geek to a non-geek, the social awkwardness goes away (or at least fades a little).

mjwalshe2• 14 years ago

Met any members of CAMRA have we :-) CAMRA is the Campaign for Real ale aka beer geeks

JBerkus4• 14 years ago

If you need four shots of Jaeger to start a conversation, that's the definition of socially awkward.

russianbandit• 14 years ago

"...while they may be programmers, they're not geeks. Drunken parties are part of this self-deception."

So, all programmers are geeks?

JBerkus4• 14 years ago

That's a whole 'nother long discussion. One kerfuffle at a time please!

learc832• 14 years ago

I would say very nearly all programmers fit the popular definition of geek just by being programmers. If someone you don't know finds out you're a programmer, they're probably going to classify you as a geek. I think our culture has moved beyond that being automatically negative, however.

If you find yourself in a peer group who still stigmatizes being a geek, just wait until you're a few years older and money becomes the primary status symbol.

"Brogrammers" often try very hard to distance themselves from "geeks" by adopting non-geek hobbies, but still tend to approach them with geek-like obsession. Someone who obsesses over cars, or sports, or beer is still a geek--just a different kind of geek.

I'm sure you've met plenty of fantasy football geeks, car geeks, and beer geeks who would emphatically reject the geek label.

Of Booze and Brogrammers

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