Rustconf 2016 – What was cool and what surprised me

I was fortunate to be able to attend. Sometimes I feel like I'm just not built for conferences: I prefer solitude, and people usually go to conferences to confer. That said, this was an exceptional group of people to be among: smart, friendly, helpful, passionate, and accepting. I know it's been said before: the rust community at this stage of its evolution gets this right.

I also attended the beginner and intermediate training on Friday, and I feel like this pushed me over the hump. Thank you, Steve and Aaron, for presenting the material so well.

I even attended the tokio hackathon on Friday night to push myself out of my comfort zone. I wasn't able to contribute anything that night, but I spent some time troubleshooting a build problem in the tokio-line project, just for the sake of learning.

I would recommend attending next year if you get the opportunity.

I was one of the presenters at RustConf this year. Despite being a new conference, the organizers did incredibly well; everything went as smoothly as any of the top tier of Open Source conferences. And of all the Open Source conferences I've been to, I found RustConf by far the most welcoming and energizing; great reflection on both the Rust community and the RustConf organizers.

I've found this about Rust in general: despite being a very new community, it manages to come across as quite mature and established in many ways. For instance, the language's stability-marking infrastructure allows experimentation with new language features without requiring stable applications to build with a nightly compiler because key dependencies want nightly features. Many of the mistakes and missteps that I've seen in new communities, as they rediscover problems from other communities, seem to have been anticipated and avoided in the Rust community.

RustConf was a reflection of that; despite being the first RustConf, it went as smoothly as any established conference that's been running for years.

Let me use the opportunity to advertise the rustfest, Europes first rust conference in Berlin, this upcoming weekend.

https://rustfest.eu

(I'm not part of the orga team, but affiliated)

I was also there as one of the presenters, and concur, it was a great experience. The strength of the community is absolutely one of the threads that ran throughout the conference. I've been involved in open source a long a long time and had sadly revised my expectations downward, but Rust is going a long way towards restoring my confidence.

Kudos and thanks to the organizers!

There was something Julia Evans said at the end that really struck me as the key to Rust (I can't quote it)

The language gives you the security to try something new, convinces you that a mere mortal (as opposed to a C expert) can write systems level programs without fear. This is an amazing feature of the language.

It's democratizing what used to be exclusive to a low level community.

For those interested in more Rust conferences, RustFest is September 17-18 in Berlin (no idea if tickets are still available) and Rust Belt Rust is October 27-28 in Pittsburgh (tickets available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rust-belt-rust-conference-regis... ). Yours truly is giving one of the beginner tutorials at the latter, and I'll be handing out custom-machined rusty metal doodads to my attendees. :)

I haven't been to many tech conferences, but RustConf was hands down the best I've been to. Classy group of people. Smart, entertaining talks. I can't recommend it enough. There's no doubt in my mind that the quality and diversity of speakers, content, attendees and general atmosphere was due to community that has been curated. And I think that curation has been very intentional and has paid off. It was repeated numerous times that the Rust community is helpful and inviting... including IRC.

(Thanks Steve, I think you're a powerful force in shaping the awesome, welcoming tone in the Rust community)

Is the webpage loading for anyone else? I'm being sent the Wordpress PHP code!

All talks were recorded, we'll have them up at some point.

Rust is an awesome community. They are patient and helpful to newbies. As oppose to the 2 other communities i know of, the rust community can handle criticisms maturely. Its so refreshing. Cheers to rust!

I don't attend many conferences, but I've been to a few and the quality of the speakers at RustConf was above and beyond any I've ever seen. Kudos to everyone that organized the event and spoke at it, it was a great experience!

Agreed with my fellow co-speakers. It was humbling to be surround by such brilliant people. But it was also so inspiring to be a part of a community that takes pride in welcoming and empowering every developer, regardless of background.

I apologize for being harsh here. But if you're submitting your own articles to HN, I think it might make sense for it to not read like an ad for your company. There is nothing technical in the article, not even links.