My thoughts on JSConf.eu 2018 and my takeaways from the conference
This year JSConf.eu 2018 has just ended and my overall impression is that it has been a really great conference that had a lot to offer! It is my first JSConf to attend and even though I have heard a lot about it, my expectations were not let down.
The venue called Arena was really impressive, a big industrial building normally used for concerts where a nice location for the conference, it was dimmed because of the very few windows and it gave it a cool vibe and most importantly made it possible to make some impressive visuals on the main scene!
JSConf.eu is different from other conferences I have been to in that there are round tables that allow you to sit down a potentially talk with others in between the presentations, however my biggest pet peeve was that the music was so loud that I never did it myself or saw it happen sadly, I really wished they had tone a lot down, but I can understand it can be difficult for the DJ’s having access to such a big sound system :)
There were two teams and others as well, called Nested Loops and {Live:js} and they have some really impressive live Chrome Browser WebGL visuals along with WebAudio, you can an excerpt from the experience here.
Focus on making it great for all
There were a big focus on making it a great conference for all people and it was inspiring to see and definitely sets a good example, 15% of the people attending did on a scholarships ticket, impressive to see companies doing this!
The food was all without any animals or animal-derived products and it tasted really great, there were a great variation with among other things burgers, rice, Italian gnocchi, and pasta. There were also childcare available and screens with subtitles next to the presenter. All small details that all matters and something to overlook easily if you aren’t a person that normally need it!
The presenters
There were a lot of really great presentations, it was clear that the people who presented had put a lot of work into their projects. Just to mention were there two tracks with one being the main scene and one sidetrack in another building close to, so the talks very really focused and well attended.
I was impressed with Charlie Gerard (twitter) who had made a project with EKG that it still a really young technology and can be difficult to figure out and she had made a c++ binding and made a working demo! I have looked at it myself because I thought it was interesting, but not actually done anything with it, so really inspiring to see people in the community push the boundaries.
I should really highlight everybody because all the presentations was a great mix about the focus on making products that involves everybody, improving ourselves and our products, impressive WebAssembly demos and meeting the people who participate in TC39 who builds the future of JavaScript!
Big props to everybody who spoke, I hope you all will do it again! 🙌
I also appreciated Ryan Dahl talk about Node.js and his “regrets” when making Node.js, it was a fun talk with a lot of technical references that maybe not all got. Some of his points where funny and some I don’t agree with, but there should be space for reflections especially from the creator, but the project has grown so much since that it is not the same project as it was back then. The node.js project has been on a long journey with lots of turns and the project and organization around it are every more stable now and it is fantastic to see!
The sponsor and community area
Mozilla had put up this impressive interactive LED wall where people could make their own colorful animations and submit.
The sponsors also did theirs to make it a fun conference and there where even given a small IoT node.js microcontroller with wifi to everybody who attended! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/539787304/neonious-one?lang=de
The community lounge was a great place and there were interesting talks and friendly people there. It was a bit hidden but I think most people found it! Andrès Cuervo had an impressive WebVR art installation made with Aframe that people could try where the idea was to collect everybody's movements and combines them in the end!
Looking forward to next year
It was really great to experience and I meet and talked with a lot of cool people that I hope to see again at some point! They already announced next years conference on the JSConf EU 2019 that will be on the 1st and 2nd June! https://2019.jsconf.eu/ and that will be the 10th anniversary so it will definitely be something special!
One thing I hope they will add next year is a concept I saw at DockerCon about Docker Pals and Hallway tracks, it is basically a website where you can pair with other people so that you know a few persons before you come to the conference, as even I who has organized a few meetups, and therefore should have experience meeting new people, can have it a bit difficult sparking up conversations with strangers, I hope I can help with that next year!
Thanks a lot Impact for the ticket! I really appreciated it!
