Last week I went to That Conference. It was a great time, meeting other developers, getting some new ideas from the talks, and talking to other people in the industry.
I think the most informative talk for me was one about microservices using a service bus. The speaker had some interesting points and didn’t get too focused on the details that I was able to get a better understanding of the big picture. Another great talk was about Redux, which is something on my list of tools to learn but I haven’t quite dug into it yet. The talk gave me a bit better understanding of it’s advantages.
At each meal, I sat with a different group of people. I think the majority of attendees were C#/.NET developers, which wasn’t a surprise considering the sponsors included Microsoft, RavenDB, and local .NET-focused businesses. It was interesting to hear about their experiences at companies of various sizes. It gave me some more motivation to push my team to really embrace the agile workflow, rather than just talking about doing it and then getting swept in by the waterfall.
Speaking of waterfalls, it was held at an indoor waterpark, so that was pretty fun too. I don’t think I had been on an actual waterslide, other than some log rides at other theme parks. I’m sure there are some more intense rides, but these were actually pretty relaxing. It was nice to just lay back in the tube and listen to the flowing water as you slide down the pipe. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a “cool” adults-only pool. There was a hot tube in a section limited to adults, but all the regular swimming pools were about 3 feet deep at the most.
I’m still debating whether I’ll try to get back next year. I may try to get to one of the bigger conferences in the US or make an excuse to try an something overseas.