6 ms·

For the same reason that carpenters do not have conferences about saws and hammers. It's an old tool with well-known deficiencies and it doesn't attract an idea

For the same reason that carpenters do not have conferences about saws and hammers. It's an old tool with well-known deficiencies and it doesn't attract an idealistic, evangelical crowd that can write manifestos and narratives about it.

Cupertino95014 4y ago
I'm SO enjoying all the comments about "yes, there are saw and hammer conferences." I'll have to ask my HVAC technician neighbor if he's ever been to one.
- someweirdperson 4y ago
  I doubt it is a good idea to work on an HVAC with a hammer.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    Another pedantipoint for you. Save 'em, collect 'em, trade 'em.
casion 4y ago
We absolutely do have those conferences! I've been to dozens. Lots of idealists and evangelicals in the woodworking world as well, probably more so than any other world I've been in. Makes technology look fairly tame.
- SeanLuke 4y ago
  You've been to dozens of conferences about hammers?
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    They have hand held precision cnc machines that use computer vision to register to the work piece and compensate for human error and execute the file. I can't wait for people to start asking stable diffusion or dall-e for ideas. "unusual danish modern canopy bed 85mm" I'm sure they won't run out of advances to talk about. And people keep reviving old techniques that got ignored too, or ones from other cultures.
  - IgorPartola 4y ago
    A conference about hammers is closer to a conference on arrays. But a conference on carpentry is closer to a conference on novel algorithms and memory structures.
    - SeanLuke 4y ago
      But we're talking about neither. We're talking about a conference on C.
      - catach 4y ago
        Seems like this particular branch is talking about the suitability of using woodworking for the analogy.
        EddySchauHai 4y ago
        And this is why I love HN so much haha
  - SomeBoolshit 4y ago
    They're about to release Hammer 2, it's gonna be a subscription.
    - Forge36 4y ago
      We have so many handles. Wood, metal, plastic. A variety of heads! Sand-filled (dead-blow), brass, plastic, hardened metal, soft metal. A subscription to deal with the wear-and-tear is probably only needed for the larger shops.
    - brudgers 4y ago
      Did you mean "an AI powered cloud based subscription in Rust?" OK, maybe Rust isn't such a good idea here.
- vitaminCPP 4y ago
  Can you share more details? This is a world I know nothing about.
  - casion 4y ago
    Sure, here's one of the larger ones: https://handworks.co/ https://handworks.co/ There are many which are less modernly advertised (usually paper/newsgroup/email) that will draw 100+ people easily. Including planned events with participants in the dozens, Id say you could count at least 100 a year. I'd consider that since that's the population of smaller tech conferences.
    - arinlen 4y ago
      > Sure, here's one of the larger ones: https://handworks.co/ https://handworks.co/ Not to rain on anyone's parade, but that event is about hammers just as much as embedded programming is about C.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > I've been to dozens. Something like 'The 393rd International Conference on Hammers'? With people presenting about the latest developments in hammers and how they're using hammers in new ways? You've been to dozens of those? Not sure I believe you.
  - casion 4y ago
    The OP said saws and hammers, and there are conferences on hand tools which largely focus on saws, hammers and hand planes. If we want to be literal then I don't know of anything on _just_ saws and hammers, but in the quite adjacent space (one or two hand carpentry tools also a focus) - yes.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      Well yeah we do have general conferences on programming languages. But the point is we don't have a specific conference on C, like you wouldn't have a specific conference on a simple hammer.
      - adamdusty 4y ago
        But tech also has conferences on specific languages. Seems like a JS, C#, C++, Java, python, etc. conference could be analogous to hand tools for carpentry.
        chrisseaton 4y ago
        Exactly - and there isn’t one for C. That’s the whole point of the thread.
      - kryptiskt 4y ago
        Comparing programming languages to a specific tool is not the right analogy. A programmer can specialize in C, no carpenter specializes in hammering.
        4y ago
- agumonkey 4y ago
  Never saw handtools confs but surely the mechanical woodwork confs have surprisingly large and numerous amount of new tools to show. For hand tools I mostly saw japanese woodworker competitions.
asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
https://www.ulanetwork.com/calendar/association-of-wall-ceiling-carpentry-industries-of-new-york-wc-c-annual-convention https://www.ulanetwork.com/calendar/association-of-wall-ceil... Carpenters do have conferences. Even groups of carpenters as small as those in NY apparently!
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  Conferences about carpentry in general != conferences solely about hammers. There are plenty of systems programming conferences where the majority of work being presented is written in C. That is very different from a conference about C itself.
ducktective 4y ago
wow...the first comment from the last time this was posted is similar to this. He even mentioned hammer. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18505081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18505081 It seems like even HN comments could be estimated by an AI.
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  Not just HN comments. We are all sets of the same memes, recurring over and over. (A cool and weird experiment: try playing several shows all at the same time. There'll be eerie moments when the audio syncs up, or one show surreally reacts to another.)
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    That just seems like the birthday paradox rather than anything truly eerie: as you add more shows, the odds that two won’t have something going on at the same second decreases. (Also, ad breaks represent somewhat standard points at which shows would break up programming.)
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  The HN NPC.
- pjc50 4y ago
  I'd be very surprised if there wasn't at least one GPT bot practicing in the comments through a series of accounts being trained on upvotes.
- Uehreka 4y ago
  I remember back in 2012 or so someone made a really clever karma-farming bot on Reddit. Here’s how I (foggily) remember it working: - It subscribed to subreddits like /r/pics and /r/funny that largely consisted of posting links (not text posts) - When it calculated that a post was rocketing toward the front page, it would look at all the past times the URL had been submitted. - If none of those had made it to the front page, it would find the most upvoted top-level comment, copy the text verbatim, and make the same comment on the post that would end up on the front page. For the longest time, everyone just thought that this account was some super-interesting, super-funny person who always had the perfect joke or perfect comment for any given situation. Sure it was a bit odd that they never replied to anyone, but that also just felt like part of their mystique. Then someone got the receipts and outed the account as a bot and the show was all over. I wouldn’t be shocked to see someone on HN do the same thing, but I also think HN isn’t big enough for a grift like that to pass by unnoticed.
dc-programmer 4y ago
I’d assume the average practitioner who attends systems conferences uses C as one of their primary languages. It seems like it would be redundant to have a language specific conference when it would overlap so much in form and audience with the systems oriented ones
kevinmgranger 4y ago
There's definitely manifestos and narratives about it, but it's lumped under manifestos / narratives about "simplicity" and "the unix way". As for evangelicalism, you're probably right about its absence.
mhh__ 4y ago
Saws and hammers probably aren't the best example. We complain about our trusty old tools far more than I'd imagine most carpenters complain about an old chisel for example.
EddySchauHai 4y ago
Even old well known tools can be optimized and reimagined; just take the Plumbus and it’s recently upgraded Plumbus X! https://youtu.be/JGaBU5cKluU https://youtu.be/JGaBU5cKluU
kjellsbells 4y ago
Well, they both have vices, and offer plenty of opportunities to leak memory or blood, so I guess there's that.

Cupertino95014 4y ago

I'm SO enjoying all the comments about "yes, there are saw and hammer conferences." I'll have to ask my HVAC technician neighbor if he's ever been to one.

someweirdperson 4y ago
I doubt it is a good idea to work on an HVAC with a hammer.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  Another pedantipoint for you. Save 'em, collect 'em, trade 'em.

casion 4y ago

We absolutely do have those conferences! I've been to dozens. Lots of idealists and evangelicals in the woodworking world as well, probably more so than any other world I've been in. Makes technology look fairly tame.

SeanLuke 4y ago
You've been to dozens of conferences about hammers?
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  They have hand held precision cnc machines that use computer vision to register to the work piece and compensate for human error and execute the file. I can't wait for people to start asking stable diffusion or dall-e for ideas. "unusual danish modern canopy bed 85mm" I'm sure they won't run out of advances to talk about. And people keep reviving old techniques that got ignored too, or ones from other cultures.
- IgorPartola 4y ago
  A conference about hammers is closer to a conference on arrays. But a conference on carpentry is closer to a conference on novel algorithms and memory structures.
  - SeanLuke 4y ago
    But we're talking about neither. We're talking about a conference on C.
    - catach 4y ago
      Seems like this particular branch is talking about the suitability of using woodworking for the analogy.
      - EddySchauHai 4y ago
        And this is why I love HN so much haha
- SomeBoolshit 4y ago
  They're about to release Hammer 2, it's gonna be a subscription.
  - Forge36 4y ago
    We have so many handles. Wood, metal, plastic. A variety of heads! Sand-filled (dead-blow), brass, plastic, hardened metal, soft metal. A subscription to deal with the wear-and-tear is probably only needed for the larger shops.
  - brudgers 4y ago
    Did you mean "an AI powered cloud based subscription in Rust?" OK, maybe Rust isn't such a good idea here.
vitaminCPP 4y ago
Can you share more details? This is a world I know nothing about.
- casion 4y ago
  Sure, here's one of the larger ones: https://handworks.co/ https://handworks.co/ There are many which are less modernly advertised (usually paper/newsgroup/email) that will draw 100+ people easily. Including planned events with participants in the dozens, Id say you could count at least 100 a year. I'd consider that since that's the population of smaller tech conferences.
  - arinlen 4y ago
    > Sure, here's one of the larger ones: https://handworks.co/ https://handworks.co/ Not to rain on anyone's parade, but that event is about hammers just as much as embedded programming is about C.
chrisseaton 4y ago
> I've been to dozens. Something like 'The 393rd International Conference on Hammers'? With people presenting about the latest developments in hammers and how they're using hammers in new ways? You've been to dozens of those? Not sure I believe you.
- casion 4y ago
  The OP said saws and hammers, and there are conferences on hand tools which largely focus on saws, hammers and hand planes. If we want to be literal then I don't know of anything on _just_ saws and hammers, but in the quite adjacent space (one or two hand carpentry tools also a focus) - yes.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    Well yeah we do have general conferences on programming languages. But the point is we don't have a specific conference on C, like you wouldn't have a specific conference on a simple hammer.
    - adamdusty 4y ago
      But tech also has conferences on specific languages. Seems like a JS, C#, C++, Java, python, etc. conference could be analogous to hand tools for carpentry.
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        Exactly - and there isn’t one for C. That’s the whole point of the thread.
    - kryptiskt 4y ago
      Comparing programming languages to a specific tool is not the right analogy. A programmer can specialize in C, no carpenter specializes in hammering.
      - 4y ago
agumonkey 4y ago
Never saw handtools confs but surely the mechanical woodwork confs have surprisingly large and numerous amount of new tools to show. For hand tools I mostly saw japanese woodworker competitions.

asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago

https://www.ulanetwork.com/calendar/association-of-wall-ceiling-carpentry-industries-of-new-york-wc-c-annual-convention https://www.ulanetwork.com/calendar/association-of-wall-ceil... Carpenters do have conferences. Even groups of carpenters as small as those in NY apparently!

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
Conferences about carpentry in general != conferences solely about hammers. There are plenty of systems programming conferences where the majority of work being presented is written in C. That is very different from a conference about C itself.

ducktective 4y ago

wow...the first comment from the last time this was posted is similar to this. He even mentioned hammer. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18505081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18505081 It seems like even HN comments could be estimated by an AI.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
Not just HN comments. We are all sets of the same memes, recurring over and over. (A cool and weird experiment: try playing several shows all at the same time. There'll be eerie moments when the audio syncs up, or one show surreally reacts to another.)
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  That just seems like the birthday paradox rather than anything truly eerie: as you add more shows, the odds that two won’t have something going on at the same second decreases. (Also, ad breaks represent somewhat standard points at which shows would break up programming.)
avgcorrection 4y ago
The HN NPC.
pjc50 4y ago
I'd be very surprised if there wasn't at least one GPT bot practicing in the comments through a series of accounts being trained on upvotes.
Uehreka 4y ago
I remember back in 2012 or so someone made a really clever karma-farming bot on Reddit. Here’s how I (foggily) remember it working: - It subscribed to subreddits like /r/pics and /r/funny that largely consisted of posting links (not text posts) - When it calculated that a post was rocketing toward the front page, it would look at all the past times the URL had been submitted. - If none of those had made it to the front page, it would find the most upvoted top-level comment, copy the text verbatim, and make the same comment on the post that would end up on the front page. For the longest time, everyone just thought that this account was some super-interesting, super-funny person who always had the perfect joke or perfect comment for any given situation. Sure it was a bit odd that they never replied to anyone, but that also just felt like part of their mystique. Then someone got the receipts and outed the account as a bot and the show was all over. I wouldn’t be shocked to see someone on HN do the same thing, but I also think HN isn’t big enough for a grift like that to pass by unnoticed.

dc-programmer 4y ago

I’d assume the average practitioner who attends systems conferences uses C as one of their primary languages. It seems like it would be redundant to have a language specific conference when it would overlap so much in form and audience with the systems oriented ones

kevinmgranger 4y ago

There's definitely manifestos and narratives about it, but it's lumped under manifestos / narratives about "simplicity" and "the unix way". As for evangelicalism, you're probably right about its absence.

mhh__ 4y ago

Saws and hammers probably aren't the best example. We complain about our trusty old tools far more than I'd imagine most carpenters complain about an old chisel for example.

EddySchauHai 4y ago

Even old well known tools can be optimized and reimagined; just take the Plumbus and it’s recently upgraded Plumbus X! https://youtu.be/JGaBU5cKluU https://youtu.be/JGaBU5cKluU

kjellsbells 4y ago

Well, they both have vices, and offer plenty of opportunities to leak memory or blood, so I guess there's that.