• NDC Sydney 2016 Reflections

    Now that I’m home again, it’s a good opportunity to think back over the last week. What were the highlights, lowlights of attending the first NDC conference held in the southern hemisphere?

    Overall

    WOW!. I had a great time, learned a lot, really enjoyed the sessions as well as meeting and chatting to lots of other developers. I’ll say it again.. WOW 😀

    Depth of speakers

    Scott Hanselman's opening keynoteThere were a lot of “big name” international speakers. I was going to name some, but that’s not really fair. Go have a look at the list.

    That is definitely a plus. You don’t get many opportunities to see these people in Australia, let alone all in the one place. And not to mention the quality local talent.

    A nice variety of presentations, and a chance to talk to all these people (and in my case asking “would you be interested in doing a Skype talk to our user group in Adelaide?”, to which the answer was almost always “yeah, sure I’d love to do that”.

    The other nice thing is that even though you might regard some of them as having “celebrity” status in the software development (or even just the Microsoft software development) realm, the reality is that I didn’t find anyone who was so caught up in their own ‘fame’. They’re just regular people – they only have walk outside the conference to get a reality check if there was any doubt. No one walking past would have any clue who they were 😀

    Venue

    Sydney Hilton was excellent. Great rooms, helpful staff, yummy food. Full marks.

    Weather

    Rain on the windowIt was wet. I guess that’s the risk of holding a conference in early August – you’re going to catch a bit of Wintery weather sometimes. Not an issue for the conference itself, but maybe a little disappointing for foreign speakers who were hoping to do a bit of sight seeing during their visit.

    There wasn’t a specific theme for the conference, but I did notice some topics that came up a few times in the presentations. In particular some that stood out to me were:

    • Micro services
    • F# and functional programming
    • Don’t get hung up on chasing new stuff all the time

    Volunteer crew

    Volunteers at the registration deskIt is quite an easy job –

    • Get rostered to look after a particular breakout room for half day blocks.
    • Pass around a cordless microphone for attendees to ask questions (so questions get picked up in the session recordings)
    • Count all the eval votes after each session and give the totals to Information Desk.

    For doing this you get to attend the conference and participate in all the activities for free (and get a couple of bright green ‘CREW’ t-shirts).

    Voting slipsThere weren’t enough volunteers (a few apparently failed to turn up), which meant extra shifts for the rest of us. Hopefully next time there are enough so that everyone gets a fair share of shifts and free sessions.

    Session recordings

    In the next few weeks, expect to see all of the sessions uploaded to Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/ndcconferences

    Next year

    The dates have already been announced - 14-18th August, 2017. Mark your diary, talk to your boss, manager, colleagues, social secretary and/or spouse. This is THE developer event in Australia.

    I hope to be there again next year, and I hope you will be too!

  • NDC Sydney–Day 3

    Friday, the final day of NDC Sydney. I was rostered in Room 2 all day, so got to see these speakers/presentations:

    Roslyn is @filip_woj’s middle name #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/cUe4msM4Xr

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    Micro services with @rachelreese. Did she fly here with https://t.co/JycJa6pQXP :-) #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/5Fk6Rribz4

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 5, 2016

    Micro services are the next big thing @samnewman #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/xkW3DcoUbc

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 5, 2016

    This talk from @JamesNK could make a good serial #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/QYevNUNVDp

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 5, 2016

    Me, me, me, me with @hhariri #ndcsydney

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 5, 2016

    And then a late flight home to Adelaide Friday night.

  • NDC Sydney–Day 2

    Thursday sees me spending rostered the entire day in room 1. This was actually my preference, as the majority of the talks were already on my wish list. One slightly ‘down’ side of doing room 1 is that the bigger crowds mean counting much larger numbers of eval votes after each session.

    Watching @troyhunt getting his son to do all the hard work :-) #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/Nw6tXfcVsA

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    Cloudy in Sydney, but no rain on @shanselman #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/27yjcfrlCp

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    Cloudy in Sydney, but no rain on @shanselman #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/27yjcfrlCp

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    Cloudy in Sydney, but no rain on @shanselman #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/27yjcfrlCp

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    Cloudy in Sydney, but no rain on @shanselman #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/27yjcfrlCp

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    ES6 with @rob_rich. It is not 45 degrees C in Sydney today! #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/GjrNUPLY6a

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    He’s being frank, but isn’t his name @shanselman ? #ndcsydney pic.twitter.com/zTO5LMLRDM

    — David Gardiner (@DavidRGardiner) August 4, 2016

    The evening finished off with a hilarious talk from Assoc. Prof. James Mickens, followed by a social evening of food and drinks in the hotel bar – a good chance to meet and chat with other attendees.

    One more day to go!