Seattle ALT.NET post-mortem
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Dave Foley
Oct 23, 2012, 11:17:00 AM10/23/12
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This group, despite having a number of very smart people and some of the best programmers I know, has withered to the point that it contains only a few announcements and some job spam that the moderators delete periodically. The monthly meetups are a thing of the distant past. Basically, the group is dead.
Did it go mainstream? Are the ideas of ALT.NET so accepted at most organizations that this group is unnecessary?
Did we all just leave for non-.NET technologies? Did disgust with webforms and the like lead to the abandonment of Windows altogether?
Was it subsumed by Software Craftsmanship or some other "movement"?
Did it just get boring?
Ian Davis
Oct 23, 2012, 11:21:17 AM10/23/12
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For me, twitter and app.net have taken over from the mailing list. Spider webs of information linking between people and pop up on my feed. I no longer use RSS because if it is worth hearing about, someone seems to be talking about it. Blogs are still important, but I hear about their content differently.
As for the group and meetings, I don't live in Seattle, so I can't really comment on that part.
-Ian
As for the group and meetings, I don't live in Seattle, so I can't really comment on that part.
-Ian
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Michael Ibarra
Oct 23, 2012, 11:56:04 AM10/23/12
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Short answer? Yeah. I think Dave is right. Alt.NET in Seattle is dead, for the reasons stated below but also...
I think it died a natural death. As I recall, the original idea behind Alt.NET was to discover that there were more and better ways, tools, techniques and ideas for the developer community than just what came out of Redmond. In that, I'd say Alt.NET was a huge success.
I don't know of any of us who were originally involved with Seattle's Alt.NET group who still codes exclusively for .NET (if at all). Many of us use and contribute to OSS tools and projects.
So what now? Following the many smart folks I've met through Alt.NET on twitter, and many others since has been my main method of keeping in touch.
I really enjoyed the monthlies for a while, until people stopped showing up and nobody knew what to talk about. Then it got really boring and sad.
I don't know if I can say Alt.NET has been subsumed by the Software Craftsmanship meetup, but it seems to fill that void for some. If that's the case, I'm glad.
Getty Images' has been hosting the meetups since May and I've been really happy with the turn out. The name might be a sort of misnomer, though. I'm not sure. But the idea is to connect developers in the community with the goal of getting better and better at what we do. What that will look like a few months from now is hard to tell.
We're having a meetup this Thursday by the way...http://www.meetup.com/seattle-software-craftsmanship/events/83575352/
Anyway, that's my 2cents.
Mike
Eric Lee
Oct 23, 2012, 1:28:44 PM10/23/12
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Nothing lasts forever and I think Seattle’s Alt.NET group served its purpose. For a while there was an explosion of learning going on and it was a very exciting time. I don’t think that its ideas are totally mainstream now, but I do think that those of us who were involved talked them all out so that there just wasn’t anything (in the context of Alt.NET) left to learn. Our learning has moved into other areas.
I know some people have abandoned the Windows platform altogether but there are a lot of us who still program mainly in .Net. Being *exclusively* .Net is pretty rare these days, though.
The one thing I miss is the opportunity to get together regularly with smart Seattle hackers and maintain a sense of community. The Software Craftsmanship thing at Getty is a partial replacement for that, but they’re relatively short and not as discussion-oriented as Alt.NET used to be.
Eric
Justin Bozonier
Oct 24, 2012, 1:10:20 AM10/24/12
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+1 To Eric Lee.
My take aways that I try to apply to other groups I'm a part of now:
- Find out what is driving the active members of the community ASAP. Find that common thread (or several) and weave the interests of most everyone together (usually behind one or two lone nuts in the group)
- Show everyone how to follow the lone nut(s) by doing something meaningful as a group. My fondest memories are of the Dahlia Hackathon and TDD seminar. Bobby Johnson and Chris Bilson were a couple of my favorite lone nuts.
- Use the group accomplishments to recruit like minded people.
Would this have saved the group? I dunno and I don't know that it's important. What held us together was always just so fuzzy (fragile in retrospect given this thread) and I wish somebody could have helped align us.
In the end, the only thing that could have happened did and my life is better for it. Thanks for all the fish!
Adron Hall
Oct 24, 2012, 2:00:22 AM10/24/12
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Ditto to Eric & crew. +1.
I'm all over the place these days, Ruby on Rails Meetups, Node.js and JavaScript, Python or Erlang even and the list goes on. However I'll admit I'm practically done futzing around with .NET in any meaningful way. It seems anything and everything I keep getting paid to do for .NET is a sort of stop gap until things can get bumped up to X technology - whatever it may be. It kind of reminds me of making Delphi apps somehow work with .NET Apps 6+ years ago to hold over until things could be fully ported.
...strange how all of it seems to unfold.
Adron B Hall
Tech Blog: http://compositecode.com
Iron Foundry Project: http://www.ironfoundry.org
About Me: http://compositecode.com/about
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/adron
Lee Fisher
Oct 24, 2012, 2:32:05 AM10/24/12
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That other Seattle-based .NET developer user group also recently died off.
The main Microsoft campus-hosted .NET Developer Assoc. downsized to a
Meetup-hosted event, after it said it was having problems finding
speakers and attendees.
So it seems expected that other local .NET dev groups would also be on
the decline.
My $.000002
The main Microsoft campus-hosted .NET Developer Assoc. downsized to a
Meetup-hosted event, after it said it was having problems finding
speakers and attendees.
So it seems expected that other local .NET dev groups would also be on
the decline.
My $.000002
Tim Erickson
Oct 24, 2012, 2:40:14 AM10/24/12
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I've told myself (and my higher-ups) that, if I never do any C# again, and I just do javascript from now on, that I could be perfectly happy.
But that doesn't answer the original question, nor is it meant to imply that I don't enjoy C# anymore. On the contrary, I have fond memories of ALT.NET and still enjoy C#.
Things change. It's a shame MS can't make up it's mind re: C# vs javascript... Them's was heady days, in the early ALT.NET Seattle times.
osh...@gmail.com
Oct 24, 2012, 2:42:56 AM10/24/12
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Doubt is part of the thoughtful mind. Focus on what solves the problem.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone
Kelly Leahy
Oct 24, 2012, 3:14:59 AM10/24/12
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Personally, I think the following happened:
1) the first ALT.NET seattle meeting was SPECTACULAR and led a number
of us attendees (Justin, myself, Chris Bilson, Bobby, Tim, etc., etc.
- no offense to anyone I'm not mentioning) to want more and try to
form a local group.
2) many of us that formed the initial local group were energized both
by the excitement from the large event and the fact that we were
meeting new "like-minded" individuals in our local area that I think
most of us didn't know.
3) the first year or so of meetings following the original (April
2007?) event were "get to know the rest of the group" and "share ideas
of how we personally like to do things", and "learn from others"
meetings.
4) after a bit more than a year, we largely knew one another, didn't
have a lot of new people showing up at the meetings (actually, I think
we had way more attrition than newcomers in that first year), and I
would bet that most of us could probably start to predict what each
other would say on the miriad topics discussed at the typical monthly
meetings.
5) we had another couple attempts at a big successful event (to mixed
reviews) but I think most people would agree that we never really had
another large event that lived up to the expectations we had after
that first one. This was despite excellent efforts from Justin,
Glenn, etc. to try to reproduce the "magic".
6) by 2 or 3 years in, we still didn't have all that many newcomers,
and the attrition had gotten really high. In large part, you wouldn't
expect to see more than about 15 people on a good monthly meeting, and
some had less than 5 of us. There were some newcomers for sure, but
not enough to replace the people that stopped coming.
7) at this point, I can't speak for other people, but I can say for
myself I almost expect to be able to predict the topics that will be
discussed, and if the people I expect to be at the meeting are
actually there, I'd bet I could even predict 90% of the conversation.
I think this is a testament to how clearly we have shared our views
and how dedicated many of us are to our beliefs - I don't think
there's anything wrong with this, it's just that we've already learned
most of our point of views!
I personally have greatly enjoyed this group, and hope to get back to
hosting the annual BBQ even if we don't have any meetings anymore :)
I feel like I have personally gained a great deal from this group both
in terms of learning, opening my mind to some of the ideas of ALT.NET,
and of course the pool from which to hire coworkers! Most of you know
that many of the ALT.NET originals have worked at my company now (or
are still working at my company) and I love working with most of them
too! My entire team is made up of people I met through ALT.NET and
we've built an amazing product together that I'm very proud of.
I'd love to think that ALT.NET will continue, but I'm not sure that it
can unless there is an influx of new people and some new ideas to talk
about (and our lives get less busy somehow!). Personally, I think
sharing some of the things my team does would be very interesting, but
I don't really know how / when to do that given my schedule and our
other personal obligations...
Sorry for the long email - this stuff just comes out when we start
talking about ALT.NET!
Kelly
1) the first ALT.NET seattle meeting was SPECTACULAR and led a number
of us attendees (Justin, myself, Chris Bilson, Bobby, Tim, etc., etc.
- no offense to anyone I'm not mentioning) to want more and try to
form a local group.
2) many of us that formed the initial local group were energized both
by the excitement from the large event and the fact that we were
meeting new "like-minded" individuals in our local area that I think
most of us didn't know.
3) the first year or so of meetings following the original (April
2007?) event were "get to know the rest of the group" and "share ideas
of how we personally like to do things", and "learn from others"
meetings.
4) after a bit more than a year, we largely knew one another, didn't
have a lot of new people showing up at the meetings (actually, I think
we had way more attrition than newcomers in that first year), and I
would bet that most of us could probably start to predict what each
other would say on the miriad topics discussed at the typical monthly
meetings.
5) we had another couple attempts at a big successful event (to mixed
reviews) but I think most people would agree that we never really had
another large event that lived up to the expectations we had after
that first one. This was despite excellent efforts from Justin,
Glenn, etc. to try to reproduce the "magic".
6) by 2 or 3 years in, we still didn't have all that many newcomers,
and the attrition had gotten really high. In large part, you wouldn't
expect to see more than about 15 people on a good monthly meeting, and
some had less than 5 of us. There were some newcomers for sure, but
not enough to replace the people that stopped coming.
7) at this point, I can't speak for other people, but I can say for
myself I almost expect to be able to predict the topics that will be
discussed, and if the people I expect to be at the meeting are
actually there, I'd bet I could even predict 90% of the conversation.
I think this is a testament to how clearly we have shared our views
and how dedicated many of us are to our beliefs - I don't think
there's anything wrong with this, it's just that we've already learned
most of our point of views!
I personally have greatly enjoyed this group, and hope to get back to
hosting the annual BBQ even if we don't have any meetings anymore :)
I feel like I have personally gained a great deal from this group both
in terms of learning, opening my mind to some of the ideas of ALT.NET,
and of course the pool from which to hire coworkers! Most of you know
that many of the ALT.NET originals have worked at my company now (or
are still working at my company) and I love working with most of them
too! My entire team is made up of people I met through ALT.NET and
we've built an amazing product together that I'm very proud of.
I'd love to think that ALT.NET will continue, but I'm not sure that it
can unless there is an influx of new people and some new ideas to talk
about (and our lives get less busy somehow!). Personally, I think
sharing some of the things my team does would be very interesting, but
I don't really know how / when to do that given my schedule and our
other personal obligations...
Sorry for the long email - this stuff just comes out when we start
talking about ALT.NET!
Kelly
Adron Hall
Oct 24, 2012, 11:24:22 AM10/24/12
to altnet...@googlegroups.com
Here here. BBQ!
Adron B Hall
Tech Blog: http://compositecode.com
Iron Foundry Project: http://www.ironfoundry.org
About Me: http://compositecode.com/about
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/adron
Bobby Johnson
Oct 24, 2012, 11:34:10 AM10/24/12
to altnet...@googlegroups.com
For me personally, I made the mental switch from looking at other development communities and attempting to bring those ideas to .NET to venturing out into those other communities and not worrying so much about .NET at all. I still value the friendships I made via ALT.NET and like Ian am in contact with most of them via Twitter, Facebook, etc.
+1 on a need for another BBQ.
--
Jeff Miller
Oct 24, 2012, 12:25:48 PM10/24/12
to altnet...@googlegroups.com
I showed up late to the party, actually trying to attend an ALT.NET meeting downtown that was on the calendar but didn't actually happen.
I'm happy that the list connected me with the Seattle Geek Lunch and some of the other broadly focused software professionals locally.
Thanks again for making me welcome,
Jeff Miller
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