Memoirs of a Roadie

I've now uploaded the survey results for YAPC::Europe 2013 and The Pittsburgh Perl Workshop 2013. Both had only a third of attendees respond, which for PPW is still 20 out of 54, and 122 out of 333 for YAPC::Europe.

YAPC::Europe

In previous years we have had higher percentages of response at YAPC::Europe, but that is possibly because I was in attendance and promoted the surveys during lightning talks, and encouraged other speakers to remind people about them. It may also be the fact that there is a newer crowd coming to YAPCs, and the fact we had 44 out of the 122 respondees saying that this was their first YAPC, who have never experienced the surveys. While definitely encouraging to see newer attendees, it would be great to see more of their feedback to help improve the conferences each year. Like YAPC::NA 2013, we have reintroduced the gender question. This time around I didn't get the negative reaction, but this may also be due to the fact I've had more feedback about approaching the subject this time around. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were rather more male respondees, but I am also very encouraged to see that 8 respondees were female. While its difficult to know the exact numbers at the event, I'd like to think that we have been able to welcome more women to the event, and hopefully will see this number increase in the future.

Looking at the locations where attendees were travelling from to attend YAPC::Europe in Kiev, it is interesting to see a much more diverse spread. Once upon a time the UK was often the highest number, even eclipsing the host country. This year, it seems many more from across the whole of Europe took advantage of the conference. Again I think this is very encouraging. If Perl is to grow and reach newer (and younger) audiences, it needs to be of interest to a large number of people, particular from many different locations. While the UK (particularly London, thanks to Dave Cross) was perhaps the start of European Perl community, YAPC::Europe is now capable of being hosted in just about any major European city and see several hundred people attend. It will be interesting to see if Sofia next year, has a similar evenly spread of locations.

Of those that responded, it does seem that we had more people in the advanced realm. Particularly seeing as we had 56 people respond with more than 10 years experience of Perl. Back when we started the surveys, it would likely have been only a handful of people who attended who could have said that they had been programming Perl for more than 10 years. Thankfully though, it isn't just us old hands, as those only programming in Perl for a few years or less, are still making it worthwhile for speakers to come back each year and promote their projects big and small to a new audience.

One comment in the feedback however, described the Perl community as hermetic. I'm not entirely convinced that's true, but it is quite likely that some find it difficult to introduce themselves and get involved with projects. Having said that, there are plenty of attendees who have only been coming to YAPCs, or been involved with the Perl community, for a short while, who have made an impact, and are now valued contributors. So I guess it may just be down to having the right personality to just get stuck in and introduce yourself. This is one area of the Perl community that Yaakov Sloman is keen to break down barriers for, even perceived ones. We do need more Yaakov's at these events to not just break the ice, but shatter it, so we all see the benefit of getting know each other better.

And talking of getting to know others better, it was a shame I didn't get to meet the 15 CPAN Testers who responded. We have had group photos in the past, and I'd like to do more when I next attend a YAPC, but I think it would also be very worthwhile if the Catalyst, Dancer, Padre and many other projects could find the time to do some group shots while at YAPCs. At YAPC::NA it is a bit of a tradition for all those who contribute to #perl on IRC to have a large group photo, but it's never encouraged others to do the same. Perhaps this is also a way for people to get to know project contributors better, as new attendees will have a better idea of who to look out for, rather than trying to figure out who fits an IRC nick or PAUSEID.

The suggest topics for future talks were quite diverse, and "Web Development Web Frameworks Testing" is definitely an interesting suggestion, particularly as we are seeing more and more web frameworks written in Perl now, and we are after all very well known for our testing culture. One question I'm planning to include next years surveys, also looks at some of these topics and attempts to find out what primary interests people have. Again, this might help guide future speakers towards subjects that are of interest to their target audience.

Pittsburgh Perl Workshop

Workshops, by their very nature, are much smaller events, but with Pittsburgh being the home of the very first YAPC::NA, it is well established to host a workshop, and it would seem attracted some high profile speakers too. Possibly as a consequence, at least one attendee felt some of the talks were a little too advanced for them. At a smaller technical event it is much harder to try and please everyone, and with fewer tracks there often is less diversity. Having said that, I hope that the attendee didn't feel too overwhelmed, and got something out of the event in other talks.

From the feedback it would seem that more knowledgeable Perl developers were in attendance, so understandable that more talks might lean towards more advanced subjects, but as mentioned for YAPCs, speakers shouldn't feel afraid of beginner style introductions or howtos for their project, that could appeal to all levels of interest.

Overall I think the Pittsburgh Perl Workshop went down very well.

What's Next?

I now have to compile the more detailed personal feedback for these and the YAPC::NA organisers, so expect to see some further documentation updates in the near future. In addition, I want to work more on the raw data downloads. While it's interesting to see the data as currently presented, others may have other ideas to interrogate the raw data for further interesting analysis. I also still need to put the current code base on CPAN/GitHub and add the features to integrate with Act better.

The next survey will be for the London Perl Workshop at the end of November. If you are planning a workshop, YAPC or other technical event that you'd to have a survey for, please let me know and I'll set you up. It typically takes me a weekend to set up an instance, so please provide as much advanced warning as possible.