[shioyama]

Sorry, I disagree with the reference to academia: the median quality of academic conference talks is abismal in my experience. Sure they are more technical, but they are also that much less engaging, and target a much more narrow audience. No experimenting with styles and flows, just cookie-cutter formats with lots of text and plenty of citations.

Programmer conferences may have a more open format and obviously that invites some low quality talks, but it also leaves the door open to really amazing, totally experimental formats and topics. I'm thinking of stuff like Gary Bernhardt's "The Birth and Death of Javascript" [1], which would never fly at an academic conference in my experience (or at least would not be appreciated), but was immensely influential in programming circles.

[1] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...