Are you interested in presenting a 45-minute talk on some Domain Specific Language (DSL) related topic? It doesn’t matter which platform or OS you’re targeting. It also doesn’t matter whether you’re an author, a vendor, a professional speaker or a developer in the trenches (in fact, I tend to be biased toward the latter). We’re after interesting and unique applications of DSL technology and if you’re doing good work in that area, then I need you to send me a session topic and 2-4 sentence abstract along with a little bit about yourself.

I’ll be taking submissions ’til February 9th, 2009, but don’t delay. Passion and a burning story to tell count twice as much as anything else.

And don’t be shy about spreading this announcement around! I’ve got good coverage in the .NET and Windows communities, but don’t know very many folks in the Java or Unix or hardcore modeling worlds, so if you’re in that world, let those guys know! Thanks.

The DSL DevCon itself will be in Redmond, WA on the Microsoft campus April 16-17, 2009, right after the Lang.NET conference. Lang.NET will be focused on general-purpose languages, whereas the DSL DevCon will focus on domain-specific languages. The idea is that if you want to attend one or the other or both, that’s totally fine. We’ll have 2.5 days of Lang.NET on April 14-16 and then 1.5 days of DSL DevCon content.

Oh, and the cost for both conferences is the same: $0.

We’re only accepting 150 attendees to either conference. Every one of the five previous DevCons have sold out, so when we open registration, you’ll want to be quick about getting your name on the list.

Submit your DSL-related talk idea!

This year, we’re thinking very hard about putting the Lang.NET conference and the DSL DevCon at the same venue (the research center on the Microsoft Redmond campus) in the same week. The idea is that people interested in general-purpose language design and development can come to Lang.NET and the people interested in domain-specific languages can come to the DSL DevCon and for folks interested in both, the DSL DevCon will start right after Lang.NET, so folks can stay a little longer and come to both. Also, the conference chairs on both conferences will make sure to keep the content unique across the two conferences.

 

We think that’s a good way to make sure the conferences complement each other and helps keep people’s schedules sane and their travel costs lower. However, I have two questions for you:

 

1.      Traditionally, Lang.NET is 3 days and a DevCon is 2 days. Because of the overlap of the content (languages), we were wondering if folks thought it would be a good idea to do 2.5 days of Lang.NET and 1.5 days of DSL DevCon this year instead, doing both conferences in 4 days instead of 5. What do you think?

2.      If we linked these two events like this, will you attend just Lang.NET, just DSL DevCon or both?

 

Post your comments on this blog entry. Vote early, vote often!

I’m thinking it’s time for another DevCon. I know it’s been a while since the last one (in fact, I hear there was some kind of petition to have another one? : ), so we’re long past due.

This one will be on all things data-driven, model-based and/or DSL enhanced. I’m thinking March or April of 2009.  Who’s interested?

I’m thinking about doing a DevCon before the end of the year (likely October) in a pleasant environment (likely the Skamania Lodge) on a topic that’s *not* XML or Web Services based (we’ve done that topic to death). The soul of the DevCon will remain the same, i.e. to cut away all the unessential conference baggage and concentrate on why we’re spending time at a conference in the first place — the talks by industry experts and experienced practitioners.

If I organized such an event, would anyone come?

Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.

P.S. I imagine the DevCon come back in time, but it may well be a while…

125 attendees and speakers from 6 countries (US, Canada, England, Malaysia, Netherlands and Peru), 21 states and 60 companies, ranging from vendors to expert practitioners and even a few poor souls trying to learn XML. 24 hours of talks and events spread over two days. 44 bloggers and 247 blog entries about the event itself (not including warm-up to the event or my own blog entries), nearly all of which were over-whelmingly positive, including one eWeek piece and one entry from Tim Bray of Sun Microsystems that called me “a charming, welcoming, amusing guy.” (I didn’t pay him a cent, I swear! : )

 

In general, day 1 was dark and brooding, shouldering the brunt of the vendors who knew the technology inside and out and were feeling the pain of the downsides that they felt were holding them back. Day 2 was filled with hopeful stories of practitioners able to take what the vendors have given them, mix it with for their own secret sauce and really make it shine.

 

My very most favorite talk was Whitney Kemmey from the DOD with his unexpectedly captivating look at mixing XML with 10-year old technology and his endless submarine pictures, although Jeff Barr from Amazon continues to mesmerize me every time he takes the podium. Also, I really dug Doug Purdy’s enthusiasm and forthrightness. Oh, and when Neetu Rajpal shut down Don for derailing her talk, I fell in love.

 

Inexplicably, the DevCon seems to just get better and better. I blame it on the community willing to listen to a variety of sources to hear what’s really going on, some of it good and some of it that needs some work, whether it’s from professional speakers or nervous amateurs, for-profit vendors or seasoned practitioners. Thanks for letting me participate.

Here. Holy cow! I knew people liked the DevCon, but I’ve never seen a blogging response like this. I've found 44 separate bloggers and 247 posts related to the event itself (not counting the warm-up to the event). That's almost 6 posts/blogger or 2 posts/attendee! Good lord, but these were a prolific bunch...

Here. I got so tons of positive feedback during the DevCon about the talks, the venue, the format, etc, for which I thanked each person sincerely. However, the huge number of DevCon-related posts on the web, including a reporter’s piece on DevSource, was overwhelming.