Breaking: C4 indie developer conference discontinued

Also... when did C4 become an iPhone development conference? I thought it was for the Mac... so that section wouldn't apply.

Anyone else up to start a new Mac conference in Chicago? Arstechnica are you listening... you would be a great host! As others said, WWDC sold out before I had time to buy a ticket... there is definite demand here.

If that is the real reason... then he needs to grow up. I don't know any real developer that would consider Flash a development tool. Development tools that properly support the Objective-C runtime are supported. Look at what Apple is doing with MacRuby. Wouldn't that be a nice thing for C4?

no one will miss that circle jerk "conference".

the real reason for him to closing C4 is because he has not made a fton of money with it.

This is difficult to understand. There must be more to it that what Rentzsch is saying.

With WWDC selling out in only eight days and Apple Design Awards becoming iPhone OS-centric, the need for Mac development learning and sharing opportunities outside of Apple is greater than ever.

Sounds a lot like whining to me... My guess is he's just making excuses and really doesn't want to put in the effort, which is his choice, but don't try to go out blaming something else.

When I read things in blogs, I like having things explained to me. I found myself uninformed by Rentzsch's post. For example, what can be improved with the existing developer tools? What language improvements should there be that you've been campaigning for that are seriously needed? In what way, exactly, is Apple not listening or getting it?

I wrote my first program 42 years ago and have seen scores of great languages and tools come and go. It may well be that further innovation is not what developers really need to move forward. I could write a whole piece on why I believe that's the case, and the real impediments to progress lie elsewhere.

In addition, I didn't understand the mention of Section 3.3.1, which applies to software development for Apple's mobile devices, not the Mac, so I was confused by that.

Well, the world is a-changin'. In a similar way to how Apple sees their brick and mortar stores as a far more useful alternative to, say, the MacWorld conference which is only accessible to the privileged few... programming conferences (even WWDC) are also only accessible to the privileged few. At least WWDC offers access to 1,000 Apple engineers, but Apple still makes all the conference's session videos available to everyone planet-wide in just a couple of weeks afterwards for those who could not attend.

What we are perhaps seeing here is the need for a new model. What about the smart people like myself with a lot to learn and a lot to offer, but are unable to make it to C4 conferences? How do I get to participate?

I have the internet in my pocket, on a tablet and on a screen. Bring C4 to me using these devices and maybe you'll generate so much participation you won't have time to complain.

It's relatively easy to schedule a meeting room and have people show up, but creating a continuously active online community that keeps it's focus and builds consensus is hard, but that's the next frontier. Think about it.

As a co-administrator of iPhoneDevForums.com, I know first hand that online forum software is one of the biggest and most useless anachronisms there is. Want to innovate? Start thinking of building a new tool in that category that's worthy of the 21st century.

Mark Hernandez
The Information Workshop

I honestly can't believe that there are readers here who are applauding -- or giving a big "whatevs" -- to the death of a conference that it is clear countless developers got enormous value from, and was a positive force in advocating for Mac development over the past few years. C'mon people -- this is a bummer, no matter if us end users have heard of it or not.

That said, the tenor of Rentzsch's letter doesn't leave one with the most favorable impression. If his bottom-up efforts haven't been succeeding thus far, and developers have not been as frustrated as he would have hoped, shouldn't this be a reason to redouble such efforts? Political campaigners don't give up when they lose an election; they continue forward to educate and inform; surely this is similar terrain.

But of course, that is quite easy for someone like me to say from the outside. At the end of the day, nothing but applause to Rentzsch for his efforts and advocacy.

So, Rentzsch is taking his ball and going home because the community doesn't completely agree with him?

Am I getting that right?

There must be a word for that… ah @ilkyone had it right—sour grapes.

The lack of outrage over 3.3.1 is due to the fact that Apple provides excellent frameworks, development apps, and profiling tools. Working in Eclipse after using Xcode is annoying at best, and dropping back to (God forbid) Visual Studio is just painful.

C4?

Never heard of it. Hmm guess it doesn't matter now.