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I think the value of (attending) WWDC has become far too overrated. With all the sessions, resources, and keynotes being make available online almost immediate

I think the value of (attending) WWDC has become far too overrated. With all the sessions, resources, and keynotes being make available online almost immediately , while a fun week, is hard to justify from a business perspective.

jamesrom 13y ago
I think you mean the value of attending WWDC is overrated. The resources made available (for free, essentially) are underrated IMO.
- supercoder 13y ago
  Yep sorry that's exactly what I meant. The resources are excellent and definitely appreciate the amount of effort that goes into producing it all.
atonse 13y ago
For me the value wasn't just the sessions, but really being immersed in this ecosystem for a few days without work distractions, and networking. But now I can watch session videos online, and have found a lot of value in networking at local Cocoa groups instead. So in that sense, the value is diluted. But the real gem of WWDC IMO is getting one-on-one time with Apple Engineers. If you are actually working on apps and are stuck somewhere, these can be a real boon.
- eddieroger 13y ago
  Absolutely the Lab Time. Being able to watch a developer talk about something live is arguably the same live or later on video, but then being able to go and sit with them afterward and ask questions is invaluable. I gained more from 20 minutes with two different engineers last year than sitting through most of the sessions.
- mikeho1999 13y ago
  Absolutely. I was building an enterprise app doing multiple simultaneous asynchronous HTTP calls, but was running into issues where certain connections would just die outright. The problem was that the dying connections seemed non-deterministic, which obviously made it very difficult to debug. I spent most of the week before WWDC trying to debug the issue (to no avail), but since WWDC was coming up (and since I was already registered), I made sure to set aside some time to go to the Framework labs to see if I can get some help. I went the first day it was open... and was able to talk to the Apple engineer who actually built the Foundation httpClient class. I sat down with him for about 20 min, where we actually went over my code, and he was able to explain what I was doing incorrectly. 20 minutes. And it was fixed. I probably would've had to spend at least another week banging my head against a wall, and even then, it might not have gotten fixed correctly. Given any reasonable hourly rate, that single one-on-one alone already paid for the entire conference. IMO, if you're going to just hobnob and go to the keynote and sessions, then yes, your money is probably going to be better spent elsewhere, especially since all the sessions are available online, and because most of the after-parties and networking events all throughout SF/SOMA don't require you to register for WWDC. But if you have projects you are actively working on and are encountering issues or anticipate that you will be encountering issues that will be time consuming to debug on your own, then if you spend some or most of your time in the labs, WWDC is absolutely invaluable.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> "But if you have projects you are actively working on and are encountering issues or anticipate that you will be encountering issues that will be time consuming to debug on your own, then if you spend some or most of your time in the labs, WWDC is absolutely invaluable." I don't disagree BUT for this to make sense you have to have a major bug in your app you're having trouble solving and have that happen at the same time WWDC takes place.
smackfu 13y ago
The hard part is finding time to watch the videos when you don't have a dedicated week for it.

jamesrom 13y ago

I think you mean the value of attending WWDC is overrated. The resources made available (for free, essentially) are underrated IMO.

supercoder 13y ago
Yep sorry that's exactly what I meant. The resources are excellent and definitely appreciate the amount of effort that goes into producing it all.

atonse 13y ago

For me the value wasn't just the sessions, but really being immersed in this ecosystem for a few days without work distractions, and networking. But now I can watch session videos online, and have found a lot of value in networking at local Cocoa groups instead. So in that sense, the value is diluted. But the real gem of WWDC IMO is getting one-on-one time with Apple Engineers. If you are actually working on apps and are stuck somewhere, these can be a real boon.

eddieroger 13y ago
Absolutely the Lab Time. Being able to watch a developer talk about something live is arguably the same live or later on video, but then being able to go and sit with them afterward and ask questions is invaluable. I gained more from 20 minutes with two different engineers last year than sitting through most of the sessions.
mikeho1999 13y ago
Absolutely. I was building an enterprise app doing multiple simultaneous asynchronous HTTP calls, but was running into issues where certain connections would just die outright. The problem was that the dying connections seemed non-deterministic, which obviously made it very difficult to debug. I spent most of the week before WWDC trying to debug the issue (to no avail), but since WWDC was coming up (and since I was already registered), I made sure to set aside some time to go to the Framework labs to see if I can get some help. I went the first day it was open... and was able to talk to the Apple engineer who actually built the Foundation httpClient class. I sat down with him for about 20 min, where we actually went over my code, and he was able to explain what I was doing incorrectly. 20 minutes. And it was fixed. I probably would've had to spend at least another week banging my head against a wall, and even then, it might not have gotten fixed correctly. Given any reasonable hourly rate, that single one-on-one alone already paid for the entire conference. IMO, if you're going to just hobnob and go to the keynote and sessions, then yes, your money is probably going to be better spent elsewhere, especially since all the sessions are available online, and because most of the after-parties and networking events all throughout SF/SOMA don't require you to register for WWDC. But if you have projects you are actively working on and are encountering issues or anticipate that you will be encountering issues that will be time consuming to debug on your own, then if you spend some or most of your time in the labs, WWDC is absolutely invaluable.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "But if you have projects you are actively working on and are encountering issues or anticipate that you will be encountering issues that will be time consuming to debug on your own, then if you spend some or most of your time in the labs, WWDC is absolutely invaluable." I don't disagree BUT for this to make sense you have to have a major bug in your app you're having trouble solving and have that happen at the same time WWDC takes place.

smackfu 13y ago

The hard part is finding time to watch the videos when you don't have a dedicated week for it.