Contemporary dance performance about gender at European Rails Conference | Hacker News Reader

Contemporary dance performance about gender at European Rails Conference

blog.railsberry.com

29 pointselamadej30 comments

So what exactly are these conferences for?

I was slightly supicious anyway - information about most tech is only a few clicks away these days so I'm not convinced they're a necessary part of an engineer's ongoing education. But now there are dance performances? And people get sent to these things on work time/money?

It's a performance for all developers who will be in Krakow (where both conferences takes place) around that time. It's an additional thing for those who want to experience art and boraden their perspective. Read the post, it explains it all, thanks!

Hi, you may have misunderstood. I wasn't asking why there is a dance performance, though that does feed into it. I was asking what the conferences themselves are for. Why would I go to one or pay for an employee to go to one?

Meet people, talk and learn from them directly. Sit with them and do hack sprints. Conferences are awesome and you should try more apparently.

So it's mostly about networking?

I'm not disputing that conferencea could be fun, there are lots of fun things in the world. I was just wondering what they were actually useful for.

From the personal point of view is fun, and you learn too. From the professional point of view you meet potential employers, employees or partner, and you learn too.

Sometimes you go to tech talk that you would never watch at home because you "have other stuff to do", just because is between two other interesting talks... and it often happens that also that one is awesome and you are glad you didn't miss it at the end of the day.

I go to conferences for professional development.

Typically, conferences are for professional development. Here's how a conference is superior to me clicking my way to professional development.

1. I'm not distracted by the demands of my day job. When I go to a conference I leave my day to day concerns behind. I can completely focus on learning and networking.

2. The biggest benefit for a conference for me personally is that I'm inspired by speakers, by what they're doing and working on, and by what my fellow attendees are doing and working on. This temporary reprieve from my day to day in #1 in conjunction with #2 has me itching to get back to my keyboard to code.

When I attempt to skip a conference and just watch the videos, I rarely watch them because of all the other things that are competing for my time and attention.

There are two main reasons why people attend conferences.

For some people (typically execs, sales people, recruiters, PR people, consultants, freelance professionals, etc), conferences are mostly or entirely about networking. They don't attend the sessions or, when they do, it's because it's the only place in the venue where they can sit down and catch up on emails.

At larger events like Mobile World Congress, those who know how networking works don't even waste their time attending the main event. They have pre-arranged meetings with all the key people they want to meet. And when they're not in a pre-arranged meeting, they are at one of the unofficial fringe events or parties, which is where the real networking happens (and they have, of course, arranged to get an invitation to the key fringe events as the best networking events are often invite-only).

For others, and most software developers would fall in that category I guess, conferences are mostly about personal development. No, you won't hear anything at a conference that you wouldn't have been able to find online. But a good speaker will instill a sense of energy and enthusiasm that you would never get from reading an article or even watching a YouTube video.

Because you're away from your daily grind and because of the way the content is delivered (you have to sit through an entire session and listen - unlike an article, a book or a video, you can't stop half way through or skim it), you also think very differently and tend to be a lot more open-minded and receptive to new ideas. So you almost always end up learning things that wouldn't normally have bothered to even read about otherwise or that you wouldn't have properly understood.

Not to mention the fact that you're surrounded with people coming from very difference backgrounds and industries than those at your workplace. You'll often pick up very different ways of thinking that might very well change your approach to your work.

Personally, in the good old days when I was "just" a software developer and didn't care much about networking, I loved attending conferences. I would leave a good conference bursting with energy and enthusiasm. My best work would always happen after a conference. That's when you feel the most ready to tackle hard problems and don't mind powering through the statu-quo to make things better.

Try it - if you're passionate about your craft, chances are good conferences will make you a better craftsman.

This is a really great answer.

I'll add one thing: don't be put off by the term "networking". It's about having interesting conversations, finding out what's going on in your industry and sometimes making new friends. If you go to "network" it can feel a bit contrived, but if you go to learn from other people and teach people yourself you can do excellent networking without even realising you are doing it.

Is this really deemed appropriate material for this board?

There's no substantive discussion of women in tech there, just "here's a contemporary dance about a subject".

So what? There's literally nothing in there I'm interested in, and I've wasted time looking at it trying to figure out why I should be.

Beyond that, I find the idea of enticing geeks to gawp at physically fit women gyrating to the subject of gender differences in tech more than a little ironic. Unless their purpose is to exploit the stereotype. In which case, get off HN!

I think there are some misunderstandings. As far as I can tell, this is an optional part of the conference where you can go on the day before if you want to do something beyond just the "professional" stuff.

I like the idea - its a local theatre with an interesting program relevant to current hot topics in the industry, why not show your city from your best side?

If you don't want to go, whats the point of being angry about it? Why waste breath on something optional?

Yeah? I'll see your 'Contemporary dance performance about gender' and raise with 'Anti-gay musical touring Malaysian universities' http://gu.com/p/3em7z

_____ I know, a bit off-topic and redditish, but it was serendipitously opened in the next tab

If you're anti-gay, I think we can all acknowledge that you're a jerk, but one might helpfully suggest that putting on a musical to get that particular message across isn't the best plan ever hatched.

I find this not constructive at all, to put it nicely.

So if there was a field with a low male participation would you set up a male bodybuilder show? Or a half naked men dancing show? These are just extreme examples but it's to make a point.

You want more female in tech? Instead of paying dancer go to mid school to show kids how cool is to program. If you do a good job also young girls will give tech a try.

Please, read the article, not just look at the pictures.

And RailsBerry is one of main sponsors of RailsGirlsKrakow, happening in Krakow just 2 days before it. And Applicake (the organizer of RailsBerry) is one of main sponsors of WebMuses -> https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.483519771671476.10....

The word "Contemporary" always makes me cringe a little. It's such a fancy synonym for "Now".

Anyway, I love ballet myself. I did ballet when I was a little boy (for about 8 years). I like going to ballet. Especially when my sisters perform in it. BUT this might be too much of a good thing. But, pff, who cares right? I hope you guys enjoy it! Fok all them haters.

"Contemporary dance" is actually the name of the dance technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_dance

My first thought was, "What does this have to do with Rails?"

Then I realised that at 44Con[1] we have a daily Gin O'Clock break with Gin and Tonics all round. To be fair, the purposes of Gin O'Clock are to give us time to join the two theatres for the final talk of the day, to promote networking in the sponsor area and also to provide something very quirky and British at the conference.

The bottom line is that the organiser wants to put it in, let them put it in and try it. If the attendees like it, great. If they don't, then they should say so. If it puts you off attending you should tell them (as long as you were going to attend originally).

[1] - http://www.44con.com/

It's a day before the conference for those who are in Krakow (where the conference take place) and want some alternatives. We're really thrilled to share art and part of our culture with everyone who's willing to experience more.

One more reason not to attend Rails-related stuff.

Contemporary dance is to now what 'modern dance' was to the 50s and 60s, just bad dancers putting on really bad productions everyone wants to forget as soon as possible.

I for one absolutely love this initiative. If I wasn't bootstrapping my company I would fly over this weekend just to be there.

Issues of gender are generally really hard to capture in words and lend themselves much more to being relayed through the other senses, like voice and body language.

I'm sure it will be a learning experience for everyone who decides to attend.

THANKS! And it's really just fun & a better alternative to "just" exploring the town / eating /drinking on a day before the conference (not that there's anything wrong with those, we just like to think people have good alternatives.)

Near-naked women hanging from ropes at IGDA? It's all in good fun! Booth babes on conferences floors? Get over it, that's marketing! Interpretive dance not at all even associated with the event, just being encouraged because it's something worth seeing and it's somewhat-related to gender issues? Stupid, worthless! Way to objectify women more! Jesus christ you guys.

Thanks for encouraging the arts, Ela :)

Just more proof that feminism has infected the tech community as well. What a joke.

This doesn't seem to be about feminism specifically (although your classification of an equality movement as an infection would certainly demand extraordinary evidence).

It seems to be more about gender, and gender roles. There's a really big question here that I find interesting as a hacker: how much of what we call gender is biologically constructed, and how much is socially constructed? Obviously, say, having a penis is a direct function of biology, but what about something like girls' supposed preference for pink? This is almost certainly a social construct, and one that only arose in the early twentieth century [0]. And yet dressing little girls in pink has certainly influenced generations of us - do you know many guys who would be comfortable using a pink wallet?

The big question becomes important when we look at an issue like girls being the minority in engineering/technology/business leadership/etc: how much of this is due to some inherent biology, and how much is due to a lack of role models or social expectation for young girls to show interest in these areas?

[0]: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2831/was-pink-origi...

There's a particularly strong brand of post-modern, third-wave feminism that uses words "equality" and "egalitarian" as pejoratives.

Really. I'm not even talking about the self-labeled "radfems"—the ones who say that no heterosexual sex is truly consensual. Though those monsters clearly exist, too.

Hackers don't know foolish it is to give in to third-wave-feminist bullying. They have no idea what they're getting themselves into.

My remarks aren't commentary on this particular contemporary dance; I'm simply responding to the labeling of feminism an equality movement.

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