“Why should I watch the conference online, then I will read the transcript of reports on Habré,” says a person who likes to read texts on Habré. “Why watch online if you can go live?”.

At least I asked exactly this a couple of years ago. Then I drove these questions to Google and did not find there anything intelligible. All that I could imagine at that time - since the organizers still write a video somewhere, they don’t have to put it on the Internet, right?

In fact, now, having a theoretical opportunity to go anywhere, I still sometimes prefer online. How did that happen? Let's figure it out under the cut.

Not all feed formats are equal.

We have a unique situation of love and respect for books. We can write well and deeply and then value the results of the labor of others. Recently on Habré there was a wonderful article "How Soviet scientific books became an artifact from physicists and engineers in India . " With the second comment, Keroro recalled that in Tokyo on Otianomizu there is a small shop that sells almost exclusively books by the publishing house "Nauka" in Russian ...

There is a demand not only for good books, but also for longreads on Habré. For several years we have been posting transcripts of reports, and they are being read and asked questions. Of course, such articles collect far fewer people than the HYIP news about new Google services , but everyone for whom they were originally intended is usually seen.

The problem is that not all reports are representable in the form of transcripts, and those that are representable often require too many resources. When you do not have resources for decoding (time, money) - decoding, obviously, does not work. Theoretically, it is possible, practically - no.

Imagine that we decided to decipher absolutely everything that Josh Long generates. Theoretically it is possible, he allowed me. That is, each new issue of Spring Tips for each week, each new report (which he has at least 5 at a time only from the “current” set), each presentation with live coding (that is, any with his participation), ... Oh no, not so much gold in the world.

A typical problem of super-increased complexity is “live coding.” The speaker goes to the laptop, dials and comments. How to show it in the text? It is possible for each new block of code to add a paragraph of text - but only if the set of code really goes in blocks. You know how the code is actually written - this is not the same as writing a piece of a poem by heart. Often the speaker comes back and forth along the code stream, builds it on the screen in parallel, uses jokes and puns in several languages ​​at the same time. In a word, everything that can be assumed from interesting live-coding.

And very few speakers are able to do good live coding. Those who succeed steadily well, make great sacrifices. For example, once Volker Simonis did live coding, but could not stand it and switched to slides with screenshots. His old reports are difficult to decipher, and new ones are already easier. An example of a new format:

Some reports are very difficult to record, because this is a show, you need to watch it. Sometimes even participate. For example, let's take a look at the Baruch report here:

Good article turned out? Yes, rather. Will it be better if you visit the report live, connect online or watch a video? Definitely yes. Here we were incredibly lucky that jbaruch sensitively alert new comments on Habré and can explain in time what “silo” is. With Thomas Würtinger such a trick will not work anymore, thank you for having had enough time to remain in the discussion area.

Or this wonderful interview with jbaruch and yegor256 . Initially, this is just a record from the discussion area. But I am not bringing it up to the fact that I need to go somewhere live, but I am bringing it up to online.

Netflix vs all

Probably everyone is already up to date with Netflix activities. As developers, they are interesting for us, first of all, for a unique approach to the development of services, innovations in Java development technologies, and crazy and successful experiments in devops. Once everyone wanted to be "like Google", now many want to become "like Netflix."

The human part of Netflix’s work is interesting because they managed to prove to the mass consumer that streaming services can be better than going to the cinema. The creators of the cinema on this occasion got a terrible bucha, everyone has different opinions. For example, Spielberg wants to ban pushing Netflix films to Oscars.

The main essence of the claims is that Netflix has a paranoid desire to instantly release everything that happens in cinemas online. If, in relation to conferences, the first question of “habrovchan” is “when you post all the free videos”, then in the world of big movies the question is different: why in general does Netflix allow itself to upload something. In 2017, as many as three paintings, released thanks to Netflix, took part in the Cannes Film Festival competition, and this turned out to be a big scandal. French cinemas are accustomed to the three-year window between the first release in film distribution and the appearance in streaming services. It ended badly: Netflix was thrown out of Cannes, and in 2018 there were no new films from the Cohen brothers, Orson Welles, Alfonso Cuaron, Paul Greengrass.

A natural question arises, if the streaming services hate everyone so much, why do they continue to expand and develop?

The benefits of online

“Secret”, if this is a secret for someone else, is that it is very convenient to watch videos online for the viewer himself. For the manufacturer, these are sheer problems, but the viewer shouldn’t care. In the case of video from conferences, all these effects are amplified many times, now I will show why.

Saving

Cost of live participation

Everything connected with the “real world” is wild, insanely expensive. The most expensive "live" ticket for JPoint at the time of this writing is worth 39 thousand rubles with a 7 percent discount - this is a ticket for purchase by organizations, and for 23 thousand you can buy a personal one. This cost did not come from the air. For example, part of the problem is the size of the conference. Now big events like Joker, JPoint, DotNext and others have more than a thousand people, the next TechTrain is supposed to be about 4 thousand people. Places of this size even in Moscow and St. Petersburg can be counted on the fingers, and they are expensive. Everything is especially sad in Europe, where even a wardrobe attendant’s salary can cost disproportionately a lot. And still participants need to be fed, watered, and external organizations will do this.

Part of these costs in the online broadcast disappears, which instantly affects the cost of the ticket. But there are new expenses, because the organization of high-quality online is another task.

*** The question "with an asterisk" - how to organize a quality online?

Well about equipment issues told our unchallenged leader, Lesha Fedorov 23derevo , at DevClub in Tallinn. The video is highly recommended for viewing to all who make their meetings and conferences.

In short, everything is expensive, difficult and constantly prone to problems that need to be promptly repaired.

It would seem that the task can be given to contractors - but it was not there. Often, everything falls off and breaks where they are stronger, and employees have an understanding of the issue at the junior level. Contractors twice as expensive do not work twice as good.

The solution is to take the task into your own hands. We have our own equipment: everything starts with the iron from Kramer and further to our own Wi-Fi network with access to the external Internet. Video, light, sound, broadcast. I really look forward to and hope that someday Artem Nikonov and Maxim m1skam Zverev will write about it on Habré themselves.

But not everything can be done simply “as good as possible”, push the pedal to the floor and watch the result. There are a lot of compromises and requirements that conflict with each other. For example, the quality of the picture in the viewer is very much dependent on the brightness and location of the lighting on the stage. On the other hand, all this greatly hinders the speaker. When I spoke as a speaker at the JPoint, the lighting just roasted on the spot - so bright that even the hall was not visible, and the light was constantly confused. Ultimately, this compromise is transferred to the viewer: either you have a better picture in the browser, or the speaker is less confused.

Vanya Makovkin wrote about this well.

In general, you do not think that the online broadcast and video recordings are some kind of semi-free piece of the form "turned on the webcam, and let it be written." This is a great job in itself. Without all this, it would be possible to significantly save and lower the cost of the ticket - unfortunately, this is not an option at all. People want to watch an online broadcast, someone has already become accustomed to one free room, and absolutely all participants want to record. All this should be on top.

Travel cost

Even from St. Petersburg to Moscow (and vice versa) it is not so cheap to go to Sapsan, it is not so pleasant. I now looked at the schedule on their website - on Thursday you have to go to the JPoint (to be there on April 5), this is 4 hours on the road and at least 3 thousand rubles for the fare.

If you fly Aeroflot - it costs the same and slightly cheaper in S7. But at the same time you are participating in the traditional ritual of chewing the traveler in kilometer-long queues, the quest for passing Sheremetyevo (if Aeroflot) or Domodedovo (if S7), mocking “shake everything out of the suitcase, show the charge for the phone, now try to shove back”, and so several times. At the very end there is a chance to fly crumpled, tired and exhausted. So I will go by train.

But not all people in Russia were so lucky. No Sapsans go from Novosibirsk, a direct flight takes four and a half hours, and costs from 5 thousand for the Victory and from 10 thousand for the aeroflot (and this is rather 15 than 10).

All this is multiplied by finding a place to stay, food, and more. But it is not as scary as the time spent. The day of departure and arrival fall out of life, plus two days of the conference from morning to evening. Add here all the fuss about the design and report of importance to the authorities, and this is a minus one work week. This is especially costly for a single-time freelancer who can get all the work done, and lost revenue will be added to the cost of the tickets. You can survive - yes, nice - no.

Not that it was some very heavy enterprise. Many travel several times a month, for some of the speakers it became a real job. All these efforts fade away before the opportunity to live to participate in the conference.

But if for some reason you could not go, then always open the online broadcast at home and calmly watch it, lying on a cozy sofa. You can think of it this way: well, yes, I could not and did not go, but I avoided all these terrible journeys and saved a lot of money, time and energy.

freedom

Now we talked about the opportunity to watch reports and participate in the conference, and not to spend a lot of money on unnecessary things. But there are also qualitative differences in user experience.

At conferences last year, we started putting big televisions in demo zones. When no report is read at the demo-stage, they broadcast reports from the halls. On the one hand, this makes it possible to compensate for the loading of the halls: when in one of them all the places have run out, and people still want to get inside, they can safely continue to look outside. The situation of overload happens infrequently, and we are doing something for this. For example, a week before the conference we send letters asking them to note which reports you are going to go to - after that we count the number of potential participants and balance the loading of the halls. If you are going to go for something, check mail regularly.

But what is surprising is that even when the loading of the halls turns out to be completely uniform and there are plenty of free places everywhere, there are still people sitting at the demo stage and watching everything through the TV. I asked, and how many people - so many explanations why they do it.

A typical explanation, do not be surprised, you can eat outside the hall without fear of disturbing anyone. After all, there are so many people there, constant conversations and noise, nothing bad will happen if you are going to watch the report along with a pack of chips and a chocolate bar. Or loudly and furiously discuss what is happening in the next room with friends.

In this regard, the audience online is much better. You can eat whatever you want. You can watch what you want, and switch instantly. If the visitor, who came alive, understands that he likes the report in the next room much more - he must somehow squeeze through the rows, go outside, reach the desired hall, find a place (which may not be there already). Online, you can click a mouse a couple of times, that's it.

You can watch as much as you want. If you are tired (the reports are very warm in the brain) - you can go out on the balcony to air out or even lie down and sleep. Yes, the player can pause. You can invite friends to visit and watch together. Although this is not a particularly rewarding lesson, and as a company, it would be better for us to have everyone buy an online ticket - we understand that many still do it. The only serious limitation exists for organizations: for group viewing in the office, you will have to purchase an Online-Corporate ticket with ten simultaneously allowed connections.

The problem with Netflix is ​​that it’s very difficult for them to bring their films out of line. They need to buy cinemas and fight with the film mafia. And of course, they will never be able to achieve such a superjail so that their best series are broadcast at the same time with the shooting - although they certainly would have liked. It's the other way around - everything is fine in the offline, and now we are trying to give online visitors a feeling of being at a live conference. Reports are being broadcast live, opportunities like excellent video quality, full transmission of what is happening on stage, switching between rooms are already realized. Somewhere to the next DotNext (May 15-16), the standard video viewing page and so on will be significantly improved.

Records

And of course, after the conference you will have all the videos - just like the participant who came in live.

Interestingly, we have no issues with records like Netflix. Nobody demands to postpone recordings from the conference for three years, they can be released immediately after the appearance. Sometimes it is done this way: at first, the track with the recording of the entire hall for the whole day is laid out, and then it is carefully cut and laid out on YouTube in the form of a playlist - hello to the correct practices of DevOps and Baruch's liquid software . I now recalled only two exceptions - speakers who were categorically against recording their report (however, they were worth it). MPJ has its own YouTube channel , and maybe it’s somehow connected.

Think about this: Imagine that we have averaged 50 records of reports (I went to the JPoint program page and counted 51). There are 51 complete weeks in a year, and 2 incomplete. If you review one report a week, then this is just enough for a year.

By the way, here one more plus appears online: it is a way to motivate yourself to look at once a pack of reports at the same time, and not to postpone them for a whole year. But if you decide to postpone, you also have such an opportunity.

Results

Viewing the conference online is an interesting compromise. Online does not cancel textual versions of articles, but rather complements them. The main difference lies between online viewing and live participation.

You lose a living presence with all that it means, like talking to the best engineers in the world live, hang out on the after-party, find a new job or negotiate with new customers. Instead, you save a lot of time, money, effort, and you have a great freedom to do whatever you want.

For different moments and different conferences fits different. Sometimes you have to go live, sometimes it’s worth watching online.