In the last two years ApacheCon (Stuttgart 2005 and Dublin 2006) I’ve given a tutorial in Apache Module development. The first one I presented jointly with Paul Querna, and my performance was not good (Paul’s was clearly better). The second one was basically solo (though Will Rowe made a contribution), and my own performance was much better, helped by the fact that I could use substantially-complete material from The Book as tutorial notes, as well as by my experience from the previous year. The Dublin tutorial was rated excellent in the attendee feedback sent after the conference by the ApacheCon organisers.

This year, I’ve just heard it seems to be dead, due to insufficient numbers of attendees. Actually I only heard I was giving it a couple of weeks ago when I signed up for ApacheCon and saw it listed amongst the courses available: I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

I’m not sure what’s changed. This year it’s had no publicity from me(!), but I’ve no idea how much it had from the organisers in each of the three years. I’m not aware of any great macroeconomic trends or major changes in the popularity of Apache likely to have had this effect. Could being earlier in the year have an effect? The biggest change is that the book is now in print (and has been favourably reviewed). Can it be that prospective attendees are buying the book instead of signing up for the tutorial?