It was the middle of November when DConf 2018 was announced here on this blog in a Q & A session with Andrei Alexandrescu. Since then, the DConf train has slowly been building up steam as things have been happening behind the scenes. Now it’s full steam ahead!

The venue

DConf 2018 is being hosted at the NH München Messe hotel. They’re offering a discount (single room, breakfast included) to all conference attendees. If you’d like to cut out the commute time between your hotel and DConf, everything you need to take advantage of the discount and get to the hotel is over at the DConf 2018 venue page.

The registration fees

The cost of general admission to DConf 2018 is US $400. A 15% early-bird discount is available from now until March 17. This year, there’s a special deal for past attendees. If you signed up for DConf 2017, the 15% discount doesn’t go away in March. For you, it applies right up to the regular registration deadline. Whenever you’re ready to sign up, head on over to the DConf 2018 registration page where you can pay via PayPal or Eventbrite.

The invited keynote speaker

The D Language Foundation is excited to announce that Martin Odersky, the inventor of the Scala language, a professor at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a founder of Lightbend, is this year’s invited keynote speaker. He’ll be presenting a talk titled, “How to Abstract Over Context”, in which he’ll “argue that implicit parameters as they are found in Scala are a canonical way to express context and that implicit function types are the right way to abstract over it.” We’re looking forward to it!

The partners

The time around, the conference is being hosted by QA Systems, a provider of tools for automating unit testing, code coverage, integration testing, and static analysis, in conjunction with HLMC, a company specialized in the organization of IT events. They’re working hard to ensure DConf 2018 is a success. We know it will be.

The call for submissions

Don’t forget, we’re taking submissions for D-language related papers, talks, demos, panels, and research reports until February 25. We’re eager to hear about what’s happening out there in the world of the D programming language. Put your proposal together and send it to foundation@dlang.org for consideration. If you’ve never submitted to DConf before, please give the guidelines a look over before you do so.

The uninitiated

We’re eager to see new faces this year, especially those who know little or nothing about the D programming language. If you or someone you know hasn’t yet figured out what all the fuss is about, we want a chance to show you. The D language community are a friendly bunch, happy to partake in engaging and intelligent conversation well into the night. And we love to meet new people! Every DConf is a chance to reinforce old bonds and forge new ones. You may arrive as a stranger, but you’ll leave as a friend.

The months ahead

As May 2 draws closer, keep an eye on this blog for more DConf 2018 updates, including posts from our partners, scheduled speakers, and the D Language Foundation.