Top 10 reports of the Mobius 2018 Piter

In the spring, we held a Mobius mobile development conference in St. Petersburg, and until today, videotapes of reports have been available only to its viewers. But now it is time to share with the world, and in this post we present the top ten.

It was compiled according to spectators' estimates, so we had no effect, but at the same time a balance of platforms arose: four reports on Android, four on iOS, and two applicable for any platform. And the topics of the reports are completely different, from the nuances of ARKit and JobScheduler to reverse engineering and the approach to releases - a variety of developers will be able to find something for themselves.
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The reports in the list are arranged in ascending order of rating - so the further, the more interesting!

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Upload to Odnoklassniki

Platform: Android
Speaker: Kirill Popov
Presentation of the report

It may seem that there is nothing to say here: “send a file to the server” is a common task that developers have been implementing for years. But not all implementations are equally good, and there are some nuances that not everyone delves into. Who is especially motivated to delve into them? Developers of the service, where a very large number of users sends to the server a very large number of files. At Odnoklassniki just so - it is no wonder that they shared their experiences on Mobius.

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Layers of testing in iOS applications

Platform: iOS
Speaker: Ewa Ludwiczak, Aleksander Grzyb
Presentation of the report

Testing seems to be also spoken and negotiated, but Eve and Alexander do it their own way. They analyze different variations of testing in iOS not “in a vacuum”, but pushing away from specific problems in each case and turning to specific solutions: “there was an intricate code without obvious bugs, but with poor readability — we started using SwiftLint, and the situation was corrected”.

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Reverse engineering mobile apps: how, why, and now?

Platform: iOS / Android
Speaker: Michał Kałużny
Presentation of the report

The conference opened with a presentation by Felix Krause, recalling some security issues, and this report may seem similar. But there is a fundamental difference: here the speaker speaks not from the position of a cautious developer, but on the other side of the barricades. “Let's talk about how to do reverse engineering, why people like me do this with your applications, and how people like you can stop people like me.” And then descriptions of specific tools begin, which use “such as he” - and there is a close personal acquaintance with everyone.

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Avito Mobile App Releases

Platform: iOS / Android
Speaker: Alexey Shpirko
Presentation of the report

At the beginning of the report it says “in 2014, we had two mobile developers for each platform, and now we have twenty.” Avito is not the only project in this situation: it seems that by 2018 many applications had grown to the point that many people demanded.

In this situation, the “... and production” approach is no longer enough, and if you can devote all your attention to the specific feature code with two developers, then the question “how to organize the process in general” is equally important with twenty developers. Not surprisingly, at the conference, the audience attracted not only reports with words like “RxJava”, but also this report with the words “continuous delivery” and “release train”.

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How not to grow old during the assembly: Kapt and other adventures

Platform: Android
Speaker: Denis Neklyudov
Presentation of the report

Here is another question that becomes relevant for large and successful applications: build time. For beginners, this may seem like a “first world problem”: we don’t want to work here, and you’re talking about some kind of reduction of the time span, which is not so deadly. But the more it grows and the more assemblies behind it, the more willing to invest many hours to save minutes on each assembly.

Actually, Denis invested them, and on Mobius presented the result of the effort expended. But at the same time, he positions the report not as “the ultimate truth”, but as “information for discussion” - probably, the most interesting thing unfolded after its completion in the discussion area.

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The hard way to JobScheduler and back

Platform: Android
Speaker: Artur Vasilov
Presentation of the report

New Android applications are already required to set targetSdkVersion to at least 26, and from November 1, the same ones will take into account updates of old ones. This new Google policy means that now, with all the desire, you will not be able to sit under a snag with the old approaches, and you need to master modern ones - including JobScheduler.

What problems arise in connection with it and how can you act to make the transition as painless as possible? The report tells about the first and the second with a bunch of specifics: “The Jobsetfo on Android versions 5-6 has the .setPeriodic parameter hammered by the others. You are trying to say: "If there is a network and charging, perform every six hours." And the system responded: "Clearly, run every six hours, fine."

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Augmented Reality in Yandex.Maps

Platform: iOS
Speaker: Dmitry Trimonov
presentation of the report

There is a lot of hype around the mobile AR, but there is less real use at the moment. Still, most of us are not engaged in those spectacular projects that Apple proudly demonstrates in presentations, but in more traditional applications, so we don’t often have to try ARKit yet.

The more interesting to listen to those who have already implemented it on a large scale, and not in a small experimental project, but in an application for millions of people. A year ago, with the release of iOS 11, when new features became available, Yandex took one of the first opportunities - and shared its acquired knowledge at Mobius.

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How to fit a million start into iPhone

Platform: iOS
Speaker: Konrad Feller
Presentation of the report

Here ARKit is also mentioned, but not as the topic of the report: the presentation is devoted to optimizations that allow applications to have less memory and work faster. Behind the beautiful name “How to put a million stars in an iPhone” is hidden in practice “how to spend less resources”. What does the stars and ARKit mean then? Konrad demonstrates his theses with the help of a small application for studying the starry sky, made with the help of ARKit: there with a simple idea that “million stars” is required, which requires thinking about optimizations.

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We are preparing the application in the Playgrounds

Platform: iOS
Speakers: Denis Kirillov and Konstantin Yurichev
Presentation of the report

The appearance of the Playgrounds tool in Xcode has generated positive responses, but usually it is referred to as the “playground”. Like, beginners, he will help to practice in Swift, and more experienced people there can only indulge. In the context of "always use in the working draft," you usually do not hear about it.

But in the dating of Mamba, we tried “Playground-Driven Development”, found that, in general, in a large and serious project, we can draw significant benefits from the tool - and now we have shared our experience with Mobius.

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On the shoulders of giants: the languages ​​in which Kotlin studied

Platform: Android
Speaker: Andrey Breslav

And finally, the leading report. It is not surprising that at the conference, where many participants use Kotlin, Andrei Breslav is very interesting to many. But this performance received high marks not only because of the speaker’s name - it’s also unique. Can you recall another case where the author of a demanded programming language explained in detail what he borrowed from where? We also do not, and it is a pity, it would be interesting to hear this not only from Andrei.

In part, the whole report is an attempt to break the stereotype that using other people's good ideas in languages ​​is “bad.” And in part - just an interesting story that helps to better understand how ideas wander around the industry (this is not only with Kotlin, but with all languages).

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Did you like the reports, and do you want more in the same spirit? First, the link - a complete playlist. And secondly, the next Mobius will be held in Moscow on December 8-9, and when you attend the conference in person, you can not only listen to the reports, but also ask the speakers in the discussion area how to ask. On the Mobius website there are already descriptions of many reports, and you can also purchase a ticket there.

Please note that on October 1, the price of tickets will increase, and on the same day the deadline for accepting applications for reports. So, if you want to come as a spectator or act as a speaker, in both cases you should hurry!