[sephware]

I think the core distinction is business-centric conferences vs developer-centric conferences. You've entirely named the former. Those are geared towards using platforms, and while developers are welcome, they aren't the entirety of the target audience, business professionals (eg MBAs) are just as first-class at those. But Ruby and Python and Swift conferences are going to entirely be geared towards developers.

I think the hammer analogy works better as conferences for building houses (business conferences) vs power tools (developer conferences) vs hand tools (no conferences), the distinction being how quickly can you get to a finished house. A power tool is something that can make houses quickly. A hand tool can be used quickly and efficiently by someone very experienced with them, but power tools can be used by almost anyone.