Apologies if this has been discussed already but what do you guys think the current situation will impact some of the initiatives you are working. Right now is possible this will drastically change the prevalence of working remote. Does this change the way we work ?

When you say "the way we work", do you mean... • Programmers or people in general? • This community — things like meetups and confs? • Us as individuals, each working on our own projects?

it’s super interesting … because my life has only changed like 10%. I’ve been working remotely for almost 5 years for a fully distributed team (which I just left), across 4 different cities (now settled into Boston / greater area). So basically I feel like everyone now is experiencing (for better / worse) what my working world has been like for the last 5 years

let's narrow it down to programmers

I can share my predictions: • I think some teams & companies will start to embrace remote more, b/c they saw everything worked just fine. However, I think the % of teams that will feel that way is overstated (by pro-remote pundits). • I think many teams, because they’ve been forced to go remote quickly … while their business is experiencing added volatility (SaaS companies pride themselves on predictability of revenue) … while they haven’t had time to experiment with different remote working styles will actually conclude that working remotely actually sucks and they can’t wait to get back together in person. While I’m talking about teams, I’m kinda making an assumption here that most programmers / engineers work on teams and have limited influence on if their employer goes more / less remote!

Going back to answering the original question/OP, it hasn't changed how I develop my own project at all. Except, on the plus side, my contract is not being renewed due to financial constraints, so I'll be working full time on it for a bit!

1. My FoC project is on github, and I have always collaborated with remote people while working on it. So for me, that doesn't change. I have more time to work on it now. 2. Programming 2020 was cancelled. I was looking forward to the Convivial Computing Salon. I like that face to face stuff. We need to start organizing more virtual tech conferences ASAP. 3. The current situation won't fully end until we have a vaccine/herd immunity. Could be 18 months before full normality is restored. During that time, I think we will undergo a cultural change. Part of that will be to normalize remote working to a greater extent than in the past. A lot of people in my social sphere are now using Zoom videoconferencing for the first time. That is being normalized now.

The nature of my work remains practically the same. I do miss playdates and preschool being a thing.

My wife, 1yo, and I live in a house in the woods. We all work from home. So no change there. One half of my company does in-person training, and is totally fucked. The other half does online training, and is blowing up. The net is a bit negative, but that's just a matter of time, I think. I run the online training part, and now spend all day answering customer emails. So.. my FoC R&D project is on hold until... um... I... um... 😭

what kinda online training do you do @Ivan Reese? Just curious, I just got out of an online learning business (not quite training though)

https://www.lunchboxsessions.com Main customers are resources, manufacturing, logistics, colleges, and a little bit of aerospace. "Training" is a bit of a misnomer, it's just a collection of resources that can be used self-directed or by a teacher in a class. Our specialty is interactive system simulations, and I mostly develop the tooling our artists use to build those. I also built the web site (all design, frontend, backend), since I'm the only actual dev in the company. The FoC project I'm working on (Hest) is something we're planning to use internally to make interactive simulations, though I'm designing it to be general purpose.

Well, I just got laid off, so I hope the current situation will let me pair up with someone here on FoC and do a project!