Sign for Monash UniversityLast weekend I was privileged to be able to attend my second DDD Melbourne conference. I flew over Friday afternoon and had an uneventful transit from Melbourne airport to the motel, via the Skybus and a train connection. I stayed locally near Monash University’s Caufield campus, the venue for this year’s event.

Welcome and intro to DDD Melbourne

Around 350 people were there. Monash was a great venue, with all lecture theatres having excellent AV facilities, so no problems watching presentations or hearing speakers. It was also really nice to catch up with a few familiar faces.

Paul Fenwick with slide of 1970's sci fi robotsThe day started with a thought-provoking keynote from Paul Fenwick, making us stop and think about what kind of future we’re creating. That slide with the strange robots – I had that book as a child! 😀 Morning tea break

After that I caught the following sessions:

  • Thinking in React with Mohammad Helmy
  • Deploying Straight to Production: A Guide to the Holy Grail with Damian Brady
  • The Actor/Model pattern in .NET: Akka.Net vs Orleans for the curious with William Tulloch
  • Better APIs with GraphQL with Josh Price

Lunch break

After lunch I also got to present 10 tools and libraries to enhance .NET Unit Testing.

Audience before closing presentationThe final talk for the day was from Shawn Wildermuth. An inspiring and personal look into the life of a developer, and a great way to end the day.

Shawn talking about active listeningOne key point Shawn made was how critical it is if you want to be a good developer, is to really work in your listening skills – not just “hearing” but actual ‘active listening’, because as it turns out, good communication skills are more important that good technical skills.

And with that DDD Melbourne was over for another year. Off to the airport for the flight back home late Saturday night to be back at home with family and my own bed.