Three Reasons Why You Should Visit Web Summer Camp
Yes, I used one of those clickbait titles and no I'm not ashamed, not at all, because now that you've clicked you might as well read it, you obviously have no better things to do.
Web Summer Camp is a place where the nerds go to recuperate from all those Friday deploys, all those just make it work we'll rewrite it properly later, all those if it works don't refactor it doesn't matter it's written in Sanskrit moments or rather should I say decisions that we're left to live with.
At least here, you'll be surrounded by like-minded experts and aspiring professionals who yearn for knowledge and ways to improve their craft. It won't take too much time to find a shoulder to cry on about your legacy spaghetti-monster codebase that you have to deal with daily and if not you're one lucky bastard, you...
Web Summer Camp is that good of an experience that I'm a tad bit selfish about it, it is the only conference I'm a little afraid of promoting and talking about.
Knowledge
Rovinj Web Summer Camp has a really strong line-up. You will be able to attend workshops from industry experts on both software development and project management. You will get your hands dirty and go more in-depth than on regular conferences.
I attended the PHP track because having to deal with a legacy codebase at my job I caught on the DDD(Domain Driven Design) bug because I witness every day what happens when you go the SDD route. It's not a coincidence it sounds so similar to STD because it's as equally bad. I'm talking about Sales Driven Design. A code first - think later approach. Just glue the new feature on top, however you know, as long as we're getting new customers it's peachy. It doesn't matter it's making you're code unmaintainable, for Pete's sake it's increasing the sales! We will think about the maintainability later and this only ever happens when everything grinds to a halt and then, of course, the developers are the ones to blame it's the easy way out.
When it comes to greenfield projects (thanks Pim for learning me a new phrase lol) my feeling is that HDD(Hype Driven Development) is the prevalent approach. We need that new shiny thing to be successful otherwise we are doomed! We need the X framework or the Y complex technology because scalability and a certain Z unicorn uses it. Surely with it, we will be as successful as they are, just look at their valuation. There's no other way to solve that particular problem even though we have 1 000 000 times fewer users and a developer team of 3, but John is on vacation so basically it's 2.
Stefan Priebsch did a great job teaching us the core concepts of Domain-Driven Design and his workshop was my favourite. It was an eye-opening experience for me. People, we are doing it all wrong! We are doing the things in the reverse order, we are trying to model the domain so it fits the technologies we decided to use, instead of picking the technologies that fit our domain. Yes I know it's yesterday's news to a lot of you experienced guys and gals, but I'm new to this so bear with me and let me rant a bit.
Kevin Dunglas' workshop plays into the previous sentiments. He and the Symfony team have solved the complex issue of real-time app communication between different clients be they mobile or web by using already available technologies like HTTP's Server Side Events. I didn't even know SSE existed. You see, sometimes we don't need the shiniest new thing SEE existed before Web Sockets. You're welcome for the brief web history lesson lol.
Lastly, I really enjoyed the workshop by Tomas Votruba and Honza Mikeš. They built Rector PHP a great tool that automates the process of refactoring code. It's like meta-programming on steroids. I dared them to try and refactor an old method with lots of nasty if statements and nested array keys and they would've solved it if only the time had allowed it. You should definitely check their tool out or even maybe contribute if you're up to it!
Networking
I've met so many amazing people that I have to keep an excel sheet of their names and pictures because I suck at remembering names and I don't want them to get offended. Ask Pim Elshof if you don't believe me, I called him Tim like a gazillion of times. I'm joking about the sheet of course but I probably should do it.
As Mario Blažek said, "Where would you get the opportunity to play pool with core contributor of Symfony Nicolas Grekas" or when would I get the opportunity to have a romantic dinner* at the beach, on an island with Zoran, Pim Elshof, Claes my Viking half-brother and Honza Mikeš the co-creator of Rector PHP. When I say romantic dinner I mean eating like pigs and drinking beer under candles.
Web Summer Camp is that good of an experience that I'm a tad bit selfish about it, it is the only conference I'm a little afraid of promoting and talking about. I mean don't get me wrong I want them to become bigger and better or whatever the goal of the organizers is, I just don't like sharing things that are precious to me. Aside from knowledge, I like to share knowledge.
Truly, all three days I was feeling like I was visiting relatives at the seaside. I just felt at home somehow.
Fun, lots of fun
Web Summer Camp is a 3 day 24 hours a day event. Don't worry not all hours are mandatory, it's not an introverts hell. The organizers really go out of their way to make you feel welcome and not only facilitate the workshops but also entertain you after the workshops.
What really made an impression on me was the fact that, let's call him Chief Organizer, Ivo personally greets everyone and stops for a chat. The rest of the guys and gals are awesome as well and kudos to them because it must have been exhausting being available to the attendees 24/7.
The off workshop program consisted of:
- Beer powered panel with experts,
- Unconference,
- Two boat trips to nearby islands,
- 3 drink ups and
- Everyday exercises (morning swims or runs)
I mean come on now? Who else offers that level of attendee engagement?
Rovinj itself(bonus reason)
..as if the three previous reasons were not enough to make you start filling up your piggy bank. Rovinj is a go-to place for architecture fans. The old town is breath taking! As a matter of fact, I first found out about the amazing architecture of Old Town Rovinj on a beautiful places kinda Instagram page, as soon as I saw it I knew I had to visit it, and so I did. This was my second time here and still, I had to take pictures of every street, every corner, every building all over again!
I'll end this post with the words of a famous cyborg assassin: I'll be back.