I've been to several development conferences at this point, but what made me not go before was cost. Or rather, cost plus paid time off.
For a fair chunk of my development career, I was a contractor. I did not have sick days, paid time off other than a few holidays, and my staffing agency didn't want to pay for much. I had to practically beg for them to cover the 20 dollar costs (seriously?) for a web design workshop downtown. I got them to pay part of the cost of an $800 dollar conference ticket that was specific to the work I was doing, but that took a lot of back and forth.
Most conferences since then, I've either been selected as a speaker (travel, hotel, costs covered by the conference). Or, I've had my now employer pay for it (which is still an uphill battle).
I have paid out of pocket to go to smaller, local conferences (Wordcamps, ELAconf, etc) but I realize I have the luxury of some disposable income and paid time off work. Both of those conferences posts the videos online sometime after, but I know me and realistically I'm not going to sit through a weekend's worth of conference videos. I'll pay into a conference if I know I'll get more out of it by attending in person (and that's paid off so far).
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
I've been to several development conferences at this point, but what made me not go before was cost. Or rather, cost plus paid time off.
For a fair chunk of my development career, I was a contractor. I did not have sick days, paid time off other than a few holidays, and my staffing agency didn't want to pay for much. I had to practically beg for them to cover the 20 dollar costs (seriously?) for a web design workshop downtown. I got them to pay part of the cost of an $800 dollar conference ticket that was specific to the work I was doing, but that took a lot of back and forth.
Most conferences since then, I've either been selected as a speaker (travel, hotel, costs covered by the conference). Or, I've had my now employer pay for it (which is still an uphill battle).
I have paid out of pocket to go to smaller, local conferences (Wordcamps, ELAconf, etc) but I realize I have the luxury of some disposable income and paid time off work. Both of those conferences posts the videos online sometime after, but I know me and realistically I'm not going to sit through a weekend's worth of conference videos. I'll pay into a conference if I know I'll get more out of it by attending in person (and that's paid off so far).