YAPC::Europe 2016 - Survey Results

Introduction

The following survey results are a simple presentation of the raw data. No attempt has been made to analyse the data and compare with previous years. See forthcoming PDFs for more in depth analysis.

Click on pie charts to view larger image version.

Demographics

These questions will help us understand who our attendees are.

Attendees:

Attendees: pie chart

CountDescription
89Responded
194No Response
283Total
31Response Percentage

Age Band:

Age Band: pie chart

CountDescription
0under 20
1620 - 29
3230 - 39
2440 - 49
1550 - 59
260 and over

Gender:

Although this question is optional, with your help we would like to monitor changes in attendance over time.

Gender: pie chart

CountDescription
74Male
12Female
1It's Complicated

Job Type:

Job Type: pie chart

CountDescription
4CEO/Company Director/Senior Manager
0Non-Technical Manager
4Technical Manager
8Technical Architect/Analyst
58Developer
4Engineer
4SysAdmin
0Student
0Lecturer/Teacher/Trainer
0Human Resources
0Researcher
1Recruiter
1Unemployed
5Other

If your position covers many roles, please base this on your most senior responsibility. Also base this on the role you perform, rather than your job title. For example, a 'QA Developer' would be a 'Developer' role, and 'Information Manager' would a Manager role (Technical or Non-Technical depending upon your responsibilites)

If 'Other' please enter your professional job role or title:

  • Analyst
  • Cartographer
  • Data Analyst
  • Developer/Architect
  • Self-employed/start up
  • Team Leader (faculty)

Industry:

Industry: pie chart

CountDescription
0Automotive
2Education
0Engineering
4Finance
4Government
29IT Services
20Internet/Web
1Legal
0Logistics
3Media/Entertainment
0Medical/Healthcare
3Property
4Recruitment
3Research
2Retail
3Security
3Telecommunications
3Travel
2Unemployed
3Other

If you or your company undertake work within mulitple industry sectors, please select the primary one you are currently working within.

If 'Other' please enter your industry sector:

  • SaaS
  • Space

Region:

Region: pie chart

CountDescription
13Romania
12UK / Ireland
45Western Europa
9Eastern Europa
5Southern Europa
4United States / Canada
0Asia / Australaisa
0South America
1Africa

Please note this is the region you were a resident in, prior to attending the conference.

The Perl Community, YAPCs & Workshops

These questions are designed to help us understand our attendees level of involvement in the Perl community.

How do you rate your Perl knowledge?

CountDescription
10Beginner
31Intermediate
47Advanced

How long have you been programming in Perl?

CountDescription
5less than a year
51-2 years
113-5 years
175-10 years
50more than 10 years

How many previous YAPCs have you attended?

CountDescription
23This was my first YAPC
Attended YAPCs123456789101112131415161718total
YAPC::Europe13135852-3131-1141--300
YAPC::NA41-1----1--------255
YAPC::Asia11----------------3
YAPC::Australia / OSDC::Australia1-----------------1
YAPC::Russia-11-1--1----------18
YAPC::SA / YAPC::Brazil1-----------------1

How many Perl Workshops have you attended?

CountDescription
30Never attended one
Attended Workshops123456789101112131415total
Austrian Perl Workshop321--2---------22
Belgian Perl Workshop1-1------------4
French Perl Workshop--12--------1--24
German Perl Workshop7-21---1-1--1-163
Italian Perl Workshop31--11---------16
London Perl Workshop88412-1--2-----77
Netherlands Perl Workshop4131--11-----2-62
Nordic Perl Workshop4123-----------24
Ukrainian Perl Workshop1-1------------4
any American Perl Workshops31---------1---17
any Russian Perl Workshops2-1-1----------10
Other Perl Workshops7641-----------35

Do you plan to attend a future YAPC/Workshop?

CountDescription
71Yes
15Maybe
1Don't Know
0No

If no, could you tell us why?

Particularly if this is your first YAPC, we would like to understand why you would not be able or interested in attending another event like it.

  • Mixed feelings about the content. Sometimes too deep with talking about library X or Y as for 1h speech at conference. Ok it is funny but really doesn't teach me a thing. Conference rooms too hot. Lack of place to sit outside the conference rooms. Romania.... mixed feelings.

Are you a member of a local Perl Mongers user group?

CountDescription
57Yes
30No

If not, do you plan to find one or start one?

CountDescription
5Yes
11Maybe
3Don't Know
12No

What other areas of the Perl Community do you contribute to?

CountDescription
42I'm a CPAN Author
5I'm a CPAN Tester
22I'm a Perl event organiser (e.g. YAPC, Perl Workshop, QA Hackathon, local technical meetings, etc.)
6I'm a board or committee member of a recognised Perl body (e.g. TPF, EPO, YEF, JPF, etc.)
7I'm a Perl project developer (e.g. Rakudo, Catalyst, Mojolicious, Dancer, Padre, etc.)
16I have a technical blog (e.g. on blogs.perl.org or a personal blog)
17I use or contribute to PerlMonks or other Perl related forums
31I use IRC (e.g. #perl, #yapc, #london.pm, etc.)
9I contribute to Perl mailing lists (e.g. P5P, Perl QA, etc)
9other ...
  • CPAN Pull Request Challenge
  • I am part of the perl5 core developer team
  • i buy t-shirts
  • I wrote many tutorials (Perl 5 and Perl 6) on a french developer site
  • planning to contribute to perl community
  • projects on GitHub
  • Release manager
  • soon I will activate www.perl.ba to try include more bosnian young people into Perl.
  • StackOverflow

YAPC Training Courses

Several professional trainers attend YAPCs and provide their courses before and/or after the regular conference. The following questions would help them tailor their courses to better suit the needs of attendees.

Would you be interested in attending training courses either before or after a YAPC?

CountDescription
42Yes
42No

Would you prefer the training courses to be before or after the main conference?

CountDescription
29Before
30Either
1After

How much would you expect to pay for a training course at YAPC?

CountFee
19€ 100
1€ 100-150
1€ 100-200
5€ 150
1€ 20
2€ 200
1€ 250
1€ 250-500
1€ 300
2€ 400
5€ 50
1€ 500
1€ 70
1€ 800

Are there any particular subjects that you would like to see in a YAPC training course?

  • "New features and how to use them" Modern web development Inclusive web design / web accessibility Comparison of perl web frameworks (how to write a common app across a variation of frameworks)
  • Building a Perl 6 web app with REST API, WebSockets & Single Page App (or something similar).
  • Explanation to beginners what to focus to learn, and what to practice. What modules are most in use today.
  • Logging, monitoring High loaded projects
  • Moose DBIC Professional practices - Version Control, Testing and CI
  • Perl 6
  • Perl6 Parallelization
  • Perl6
  • real world Perl6
  • XS

What should we offer to entice new Perl developers to attend the conference?

  • A beginner's track would help to bring also not very experienced people.
  • A clear "beginner's track" with presentations vetted beforehand to be with useful content for them.
  • A pathway towards enlightenment
  • As I am unemployed free attendance would be nice offer.
  • Assign a mentor to each beginner.
  • Beginners track
  • Money? :) I don't know actually - the existing Newbie program should be working quite well. I'm wondering why there were not newbies at this year's conference - or maybe I've missed them?
  • More talks about what is Perl used for by companies.
  • More talks generally how Perl could be used together with many other frameworks, applications and other pieces of software.
  • More things to learn from. Case Studies are the best for it. During the conference i heard a lot of stories/solutions but by listening to them i did not get the 'why' and 'why was that good/bad' and 'what it had given to the author of the speech' - what is the result, and what we as developers should do whit this knowledge. "hey guys - this is the Z library i wrote. Its cool. It can count to 100. Use it." is not really like encouraging ;) I can go to CPAN and read it myself, really...
  • Some non-Perl topics, keynote speakers from outside the echo chamber
  • The send-a-newbie works well. I'm not really sure what else we can do that to outreach more. Show conference highlights, attendee reviews... the usual
  • younger communities have a different vibe that yapc conferences don't

YAPC::Europe 2016

Regarding YAPC::Europe 2016 in Cluj specifically, please answer the following as best you can.

When did you decide to come to this conference?

CountDescription
37I'm now a regular YAPC::Europe attendee
12After YAPC::Europe 2015 in Granada
1After reading a YAPC::Europe blog post
11I was nominated to attend by manager/colleague
9I was recommended to attend by friend/colleague
0After reading the Perl Weekly
3After seeing a link or advert on a Perl specific website
0After seeing a link or advert on a non-Perl website
1After seeing a link on Twitter, Facebook or other social media website.
6After reading an email sent to a mailing list I was in
0After seeing other promotions online/in the press
6other ...
  • Dave Cross told me
  • Employer wants us to attend confs and this was the best fit in terms of location for me this year
  • heard about it from my colleagues
  • I don't recall.
  • Not quite sure -perhaps seeing Dave Cross' training
  • When I saw how awesome P6 is!

Were you a speaker?

CountDescription
40No
9No, but I have spoken before at similar conferences
34Yes, and I have spoken before at similar conferences
3Yes, and it was my first time as a speaker

Note that "similar conferences" includes other YAPCs, as well as Linux, Open Source or large technical events such as workshops.

If you were a speaker, would you have been able to attend if you hadn't been speaking?

CountDescription
33Yes
7No

If you weren't a speaker, would you consider speaking at a future conference?

CountDescription
28Yes
3No
23Ask me later

Were there any speakers not present, who you would like to have seen at the conference?

CountDescription
27Yes
47No

If 'Yes', which speakers?

  • brian d foy, chromatic
  • brian d'foy
  • Damian Conway Brian D Foy Paul J Fenwick
  • Damian Conway
  • Damian Conway / Tim Bunce / ribasushi / Brian D Foy
  • Damian Conway and Mark-Jason Dominus.
  • Damian Conway, Mark Dominus, Stevan Little
  • David Golde Peter Rabbitson
  • Johnathan Worthington
  • Jonathan Worthington Ricardo Signes
  • Jonathan Worthington
  • Jonathan Worthington, Carl Masak, Damian Conway
  • Jonathan Worthington, Reini Urban
  • Mark Jason Dominus
  • MJD
  • Paul Fenwick Stevan Little
  • Paul Fenwick, MJD
  • Rik Stevan More perl 5 porters
  • Stevan Little Peter Rabbitson Marc Lehmann Sebastian Riedel Damian Conway Any of the last year's Japan guys

What kinds of talks would you prefer at future conferences?

CountDescription
4More beginner level talks
18More intermediate level talks
20More advanced level talks
34It's about right
9No preference

Are there any topics you would specifically like to see featured?

  • - Generally Perl 5 to Perl 6 talks in real-life applications - Using Perl 6 to drive a task worker (in cloud for instance) - Building a cross-platform GUI app with Perl 6
  • Advanced testing (integration tests, mocking, BDD, etc.).
  • Deployment / Packaging Dependency Management Perl6
  • docker continues delivery/deployment internal cpan & dependency management
  • Enough for the beginner to not feel left out, and for newer speakers to have easier topics. Some more not perl topics for variety.
  • General architecture with a perl flavour. How to apply new tech in perl projects
  • I would like to see more (lightning) talks on how individual companies are using Perl and the problems they overcome.
  • If I am aware of a topic, I'll likely Google it and learn all I want to know, so the most interesting topics come from left field and catch you by surprise.
  • MoarVM
  • MongoDB, NoSQL
  • more talks with an educational content: which bring beginners a bit further in their every day's live. For instance, a Moose course, an overview of popular modules, the features of Exporters.
  • Not really, I like the surprises.
  • Other languages, I think that what the guys from YAPC::Asia did with the conference is great
  • Perl for GIS
  • Science: pdl
  • Should strive to get an equal balance between practical ("can improve my code at work tomorrow") and theoretical (future features, design principles, and - sorry to say - Perl 6).
  • Solutions with Perl, Big data, queuing problems, case studies,
  • Some non-Perl topics, keynote speakers from outside the echo chamber
  • System administration with perl
  • War stories - actual implementations of real world problems
  • What to practice, to be accepted into Perl Team.

How do you rate the conference?

How would you rate your overall satisfaction of the following areas of the conference?

Choices 1 2 3 4 5
Newsletters/Updates 50 28 5 - -
Website 41 34 9 1 -
Registration process 55 21 10 - -
Directions/Maps 58 23 5 - -
Content of the talks 29 44 13 - -
Schedule efficiency 36 39 10 - -
BOFs 13 7 2 - -
Social events 61 16 7 1 -
Parking 10 2 - - -
Facilities 51 27 4 - -
Food service 70 13 2 1 -
Accommodation 42 22 - - -
Staff 77 8 - 1 -
Overall experience 69 17 1 - -
Value for price 73 8 1 - -

Key:
1 = Very Satisfied
2 = Somewhat satisfied
3 = Somewhat un-satisfied
4 = Very un-satisfied
5 = N/A

Conference Attendance

In order to help future organisers gauge an appropriate conference fee, how much would you (or your company) have paid for a conference ticket? Feel free to provide an answer for all rates, where corporate rate would be paid for by your company (including a Master Class place), standard rate would be the regular price paid by attendees in paid employment, and lastly the concession rate for anyone who holds proof that they are in fulltime education or are unemployed.

Corporate Rate:

CountFee
2€ 120
1€ 1200
1€ 150
1€ 160
4€ 200
5€ 250
8€ 300
1€ 300-500
1€ 345
3€ 350
1€ 360
4€ 400
1€ 500

Standard Rate:

CountFee
14€ 100
3€ 120
1€ 145
9€ 150
1€ 160
7€ 200
1€ 80

Concession Rate:

CountFee
6€ 100
1€ 120
1€ 25
1€ 30
10€ 50
2€ 60
1€ 65
1€ 70
1€ 75
2€ 80
1€ 90

Would you pay more for a YAPC if we could exclude sponsorship advertising?

CountDescription
5Yes
62No

If so, how much?

CountFee
1€ 100
1€ 150
1€ 250

How did you pay for the conference fee?

CountDescription
27N/A - I was a speaker
2N/A - I was a sponsor
35My company paid
15I paid out of my own pocket
0I wasn't able to attend

If your employer didn't send you, did they give you time off to attend?

CountDescription
24Yes
13No

Does distance prevent you from being able to attend some YAPCs?

CountDescription
25Yes
45No