Dear Handmade Folks,

The first ever Handmade Boston begins this Thursday!

Whether you attend the physical or online track I hope you have a good time with our instructors, learn something new, and make friends with programmers like yourself: those who care about building quality software.

Note: Handmade Boston is an experiment on forming mentor-pupil relationships; the software industry is in dire need of apprenticeships (even if they’re informal.) While I can’t guarantee an instructor will become your mentor after the conference, I’m helping create the fertile grounds for it. You may even discover a fellow audience member, a seasoned expert, who willingly decides to teach you things.

If you’re comfortable in any systems language and are not a complete beginner this conference is for you. We’re here to help you grow if you’re feeling stuck.

P.S. This conference is a more intimate affair compared to Handmade Seattle. Think of “dozens” instead of “hundreds” in attendance.

The Schedule 🕰

The Boston page has been updated with the conference schedule for both tracks. Make sure to keep it bookmarked for quick reference.

Unlike Handmade Seattle, the physical track in Boston will not be live-streamed. However, fret not, as I will be recording all the sessions exclusively for ticket holders. You’ll have the privilege of accessing these recordings a number of months before they’re made available to the public.

While the online track awaits these recordings, tune in for a special livestream show featuring our online instructors. Keep an eye out for masterclasses with a Twitch logo, as those are designed specifically for the online track. While this show will be streamed to the public, take-home assignments will remain private just for ticket holders.

Door Prices 🎫

Yes, tickets can still be purchased on the day of the conference! Rest assured, there will be no increase in prices. I firmly believe in maintaining the early-bird sale indefinitely for 2023. We must assist the financially disadvantaged; it’s been a tough year in tech. 

We have a sponsoring pool from fans who donated some cash to spare. If you or someone you know needs a discount, or even a free seat, send Abner an email and briefly tell us your story: abner@handmadecities.com

Demoscene Masterclass Postponed

Andreas Fredriksson has had to deal with a family illness, preventing him from contributing to Handmade Boston. Naturally, family comes first, and his well-being and that of his family are the priority.

We apologize for this inconvenience. However, Andreas has graciously agreed to turn his lecture into a Handmade Seattle talk this fall, so I hope you will join us there!

Mitchell Hashimoto

My friend Mitchell, founder of HashiCorp, has always been a hacker at heart. Mitchell has recently developed a keen interest in Handmade, just like many of you!

We both independently embarked on creating terminal emulators from scratch, looking to innovate in this somewhat barren landscape. During our countless hours of project comparisons we stumbled upon a fun idea: to record a conversation dubbed The Future of Terminals. Mitchell and I agree on a bunch of things but disagree on others, so this discussion should prove entertaining and insightful.

This will be streamed for the online track: we should treat it as bonus content to compensate for the cancellation of the demoscene masterclass.

And don’t forget that by joining Handmade Boston you’ll be enrolled into the closed beta for Terminal Click – taking place later this August.

Private Forums

Forgive me if you’re still waiting on an invite to the private forums. I had promised to send them a week in advance, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to meet that timeline.

You should still receive an invite ahead of the conference, but we might be coming in clutch! Note that the forums are for:

• Accessing take-home assignments
• Accessing recordings once they’re available
• Downloading any files the instructors post during their masterclass

Which means it’s not strictly necessary for you to be in the forums right away. Stay tuned for further updates and your forum invite.

Discord Chat 💬

Unlike Handmade Seattle, we’re not self-hosting a private chat server. It’s only the private forums. However, the Handmade Network has a public channel called meetups-boston for anyone looking for things to do around Boston 🙂

If you ping me there and I don’t respond immediately, please be patient! I’m the sole organizer of this conference so my bandwidth will be a bit saturated. (I generally prefer that you email me instead.)

Closing Notes: Sponsoring Tickets

If an individual wishes to donate to the sponsoring pool, please use our Donorbox and in the comments write in “Sponsoring Pool” or similar.

If you mark yourself as an anonymous donor I won’t be reaching out to you. Otherwise, I’m happy to report progress on how your donation helped the cause!

Finally, if you don’t trust me to handle this, you can always buy a seat and use the transfer button in the ticket email to gift it to a friend or loved one. For me the best feeling in the world is to run conferences that are independent and powered by individual engineers, not corporations.

Thank you for helping,
Abner