Walks with Fedya or programmer vacations

Vacation - this is the time for which traditionally many plans. Go to the sea, learn to ride a windsurf, clean up the balcony, etc. Traditionally, only a small part of these plans is fulfilled. Last year, the sea and the beach got bored on the 4th day, surfing in early June suddenly turned out to be a very cold event (at least in the Sea of ​​Japan it is), and the balcony brought me sadness. It was decided to break the system and this time to spend time with benefit. I am engaged in mobile development, and by a lucky coincidence, the Summer Festival of Developers, in particular, the 2016 Mobius 2016 conference, was held in St. Petersburg at that time. people and networking at all. It is said - done, and in early June we arrived in St. Petersburg.





')
Mobius held the traditional format for large events at the Park Inn Hotel on Victory Square. The theater begins with a hanger, and the conference with pointers. In this case, the organizers went further, and identified a special pleasant young man who told in detail how to get to the library in the conference room. For the first time in my memory I did not have to ask the local hotel administrators. As it turned out later, I entered on the other side of the building, but the road was easy to find. Offset



All the new arrivals met a colorful and very talkative character called Robot Fedya. Fedya moved on 3 wheels, turned his head in all directions, took away the children and begged for candy and argued that the apocalypse could be avoided if everyone listened carefully to the reports. Most of those present agreed that Fedya was a great guy. This is a very entertaining feeling when you perceive as an interlocutor exactly the object that you see in front of you (regardless of the implementation details). The effect is greatly enhanced when the dialogue is spiced with humor: instant sympathy arises. It is quite possible that in the near future our understanding of robots and communication with them will change dramatically (hello, Mr. Lem!).

- Fedya, and who are your parents?
- The robot has no parents.
- And who is there?
- Manufacturers!

It is no secret that in the modern world, technology companies are one of the main engines of progress. Free access to the source code and rights to use becomes common practice, and it is not altruistic. Specific technological ideas start to matter much less than groups of people who are able to generate these ideas. Similar attracts like: if a developer sees a team of talented people who have provided an impressive solution, he wants to join them - learn new things and contribute. I am very pleased that the understanding of this fact is increasingly reflected in modern Russian conferences, and Mobius was a vivid example. Rambler & Co, SberTech, Badoo and many other Russian and not-so-many companies represented their solutions. In between the presentations, the conference sponsors automatically became the focus of attention: zones for companies Odnoklassniki, Epam Systems, Kaspersky Lab and Luxoft were highlighted. The most cunning ones arranged something like a lottery, where a mini-test on mobile development was used as a ticket. Classic Win-Win: a lot of people came to the conference who want to develop and try themselves on new horizons, and companies need developers.





I got acquainted with the program in advance, then I made an approximate “route” through the halls. Initially, I was afraid that I would have to choose a lot between parallel reports (I’ve been working mostly with iOS lately), but it was pretty easy to choose. It turned out that it was no coincidence: the program was specially distributed in the directions of iOS, Android and cross-platform. I have had the opportunity to engage in quite diverse tasks: elements of UX, architecture, testing automation and coding itself. Perhaps only this feature of the work made me hesitate in choosing, for example, between the reports of “MVVM Reactive” by Evgeny Rtishchev from Sbertech and “Typography in iOS” by Irina Dyagileva from Rambler & Co. In most cases, visitors knew for quite some time what next report they were planning to go to. For myself, I learned some interesting cases from the world of reactive development (“ReactiveCocoa in mobile development”, “The Art of Rx”, etc.), somewhat revised the attitude towards the Swift language (it turns out that it really is already used in production - reports from Avito guys ), met a very interesting approach to the design of extensible architecture ("Leaning Mobile Development Tower").
Of course, there were reports in which I understood nothing and made notes, where it is worth filling the gaps in knowledge, at least superficially. From the experience of attending such events, I can say that this is completely normal, moreover, it is not always worth rushing into the unknown. It often makes sense to wait until the hype subsides. But for an adequate assessment, what is just hyip, and that the future of the industry, you need to communicate! In my opinion, this is the main task of any conference: to organize effective communication between colleagues in the workshop, an intensive exchange of ideas and contacts. Practice shows that this is best achieved in the intervals between presentations: at lunch, coffee breaks, after-parties, etc. With a specific technology, you can watch videos on YouTube at home, or even better, immediately read the documentation :)

- Fedya, your voice is hoarse! Did you miss a cold hour? Maybe you tie a scarf?
- Nothing, I'll warm up soon.
- What if you rust?
“Peter doesn't spare anyone ...”

Special attention is given to the organizational decision, which I had not previously observed at other conferences. This is the so-called speaker zone, which solves a very common problem of leaving the schedule of reports.
Usually at conferences, going beyond the allotted time occurs through no fault of the speakers or problems with the equipment. A failure always follows the same pattern: an interesting (as a result, often provocative) report is guaranteed to lead to holivar. Questions from the audience can be divided into three categories with three different motives. The first is to clarify the details: the informer really needs information, he plans to further dig in this direction and wants to clarify a number of points that will help in further searches. The second is to add a report and show that "I am also in the subject." The third is to prove that the speaker is wrong :) Traditionally, the organizers rely solely on questions of the first type: they can be planned in the style of “we have 10 minutes, we will have time to ask 5 questions”. In practice, in matters of the 2nd and especially of the 3rd type, “bison” regularly collide, the duration of which is no longer predictable. It does not mean that it is bad: the audience often watches the process with interest, because it has the opportunity to see an alternative point of view. In the case of Mobius, the organizers acted slyly: all questions of this kind can be asked in a specially designated place, and not in the mysterious "sidelines".



A couple of days ago I received a letter referring to the very high quality video materials from the conference. Everything is laid out on the shelves, a clear installation and sound, in general, it is clear that a lot of work has been done. I generally like quality in detail, and this final touch served as the impetus for writing this article. It is very pleasant that conferences in Russia have reached such a level. Such moments in many ways inspire work and creativity. I wish the Mobius team success on the chosen path, and all readers Friday without releases. Thank!