I ran the Future Programming Workshop as a pre-conf at SL for 2 years. Was fun but not a perfect fit, and wasn’t invited back. The vibe at SL is highly accomplished hackers interested in advanced techniques. Dissatisfaction with the status quo is mostly expressed as a problem of structural inequity in society.

can you elaborate on that? So you presented some concepts and they didn't like it? What do you mean with the last sentence?

Any other recommendations for a north american conference that is a good match for the interests of FOC people?

Maker Faire?

I've been to lots of Maker Faires, mostly Canada but also Detroit. Those ones have been a good match to my interest in 3D printing and 3D modelling software, but I've never seen any other kind of software mentioned. I guess I'm interested in the democratization of programming, visual and live coding environments, and the revolutionary spirit of projects like NLS and Smalltalk. Dependent types don't make programming simpler or easier. Category theory could underlie a new paradigm for simple, easy and powerful programming environments. But no explicit category theory like in Haskell: don't want my users to have to understand Costate Comonad Coalgebras just in order to update a record field. I'll see what talks and workshops are advertised for Strange Loop.

Yes @Doug Moen, Category Theory has a long way to come yet from its obscure origins.