I can't wait for this. The first conj was a great experience. I hope this years will be bigger and better than last, and there's no reason to believe it won't be.
Because it's awesome! Microbreweries, a wonderful community, excellent food, and you can cross off the #35 place you must visit in 2011 according to the New York Times!
(I recommend Scratch for breakfast, Toast for lunch, and Dos Perros for dinner…)
(currently waiting for my visa to come through so I can join my wife there, so forgive me for waxing lyrical about the place :))
Durham, a wonderful community?! You ever get more than a block away from the American Tobacco Historic District?
I live there. Excepting a mile and a half wide strip that follows I-40 and a couple pockets near Chapel Hill, Durham is filthy, overrun with crime, totally lacking in services and someone important on the city planning commission thinks a Spirograph set makes a handy addition to one's drafting tools.
Between American Tobacco (where I lived for 2 years before moving to SF) and the Warehouse District, you've got most of downtown covered. Then factor in the restaurants and bars up and down Main and Ninth streets and that's a safe and clean downtown. Durham's a great town and it's events like this that keeps raising its profile.
knieveltech, I'm moving to Durham from North Raleigh next month. Raleigh is definitely "safe and clean". If you are looking for safe and clean in the Triangle, there is always Cary. It has received many accolades for its family-friendliness.
Safe and clean is not really what I'm looking for in a city though. I'm more interested in the culture: food, music, art, interesting people and companies. Also, my wife and I were looking for a cool neighborhood to live in and found ourselves overwhelmed with great options: Trinity Heights, Trinity Park, Duke Park, Watts-Hillandale, Old West Durham, Forest Hills, Burch Ave, West End. Can I walk a mile in any direction and not encounter any sketchy streets? Nope. Durham is a little more integrated and not quite as homogenous as other communities. And I consider that a plus. :-)
If you're into live jazz, there's an awesome set every Thursday night at Whiskey starting at 10:30. Really talented musicians from NC Central's Jazz program show up and jam.
Durham is definitely not without its flaws. There are areas that are unsafe. There are also areas that are suburban wasteland, such as near Southpoint. But the downtown is increasingly alive, filled with people, walkable, and gritty. I'm looking forward to the grit and being around to see Durham continue to change!
I'd even say it's cleaner than almost all of San Francisco and SF's worst parts (eg, the Mission, Bayview, Hunter's Points) are more violent than Durham's worst parts.
Every urban environment of any size is going to have its problems but there is a definite reality distortion field surrounding how violent and dirty people think Durham is.
My first visit was in January 2003 (I was studying at UNC-Chapel Hill at the time), and it looked like a neutron bomb had hit the centre of the city. If you'd told me then that seven years later, I'd be getting married in the open air of the city centre, I would have laughed in your face. It has improved hugely, and yes, there's still a-ways to go, but I'm looking forward to being there for more than a month at a time! (not a paid shill on behalf of the Durham Tourist Board, I assure you! :))
I am not very knowledgeable about Clojure, so I would not be attending anyway.
But from what I know about Rich Hickey, and the language specs he designed for Clojure, and the HDD and other talks he has given, I would be extremely happy to be able to attend Clojure Conj.
I may be a bit of a homer -- most of my family members are still in VA/NC and it is rare that a conference for a respectable new language would ever happen in Durham.
Obviously Rich has a reason for it, I don't know if he lives near there...but I would expect that Clojure Conj would be 1000X less self-absorbed, and anyone who would lower themselves to travel to Durham might be more interested in the language and the author's views than the hype on HN.
It's pretty much a requirement that the conference be run in the same city as the organizers. It's a huge headache to try to coordinate something like that when you're not local.
Agree with that 1000%. I helped organize DevNation (http://devnation.us/events) for a few years, and it was a traveling conference. It was such a pain to have to book venues and caterers remotely. It helps so much to organize locally.
My only complaint is that it'd have been nicer if it was downtown instead of close to the airport (apparently Durham doesn't have any large event space downtown, which is why it wasn't--or so I was told). I'd have maybe liked to explore Durham a bit more.
This is definitely something we are planning to address this year.
Yes, Clojure/core is headquartered in Durham. We think Durham is a great place to host this event. We also feel we could provide a much better conference by hosting it here. That's not to say in the future we wouldn't consider alternative locations; when it makes sense from a planning point of view.
Durham does have plenty of space we could use for this event. Last year there were other events going on that had most of the local hotels booked, and we could not get a reasonable block of rooms reserved. As another poster mentioned, we are taking care of that problem by nailing these things down earlier.
Downtown Durham does have culture; and we're hoping to enjoy the city with some of our Clojurian friends.
Hmm, there's the Marriott Conference Center in town (where the Full Frame documentary festival is held every year), but I guess that might be a little too big…(or booked out)
