{"id":305,"date":"2014-07-15T14:42:50","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T14:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurelio.audero.it\/blog\/?p=305"},"modified":"2016-06-04T00:26:46","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T00:26:46","slug":"my-experience-at-4developers-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audero.it\/blog\/2014\/07\/15\/my-experience-at-4developers-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"My Experience at 4Developers 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

In March I announced via Twitter my participation as a speaker at 4Developers 2014<\/a>. 4Developers<\/a>\u00a02014 was a single-day, multi-track and multi-language conference held in the lovely Warsaw on the Gromada Airport Hotel<\/a>. The tracks for the edition of this year were: Java, .Net, PHP, Python, Front-end (HTML5, JS, CSS), UX, Games Development, Mobile Systems & Apps, Mobile Games, Cloud Technologies, Application Architecture, Soft Skills & Business Relations, IT Project Management, and IT Security. At the conference I gave my talk\u00a0Modern front-end with the eyes of a PHP developer<\/cite><\/a>\u00a0in the PHP track.<\/p>\n

The aim of this post\u00a0is to describe my experience as a speaker and as an attendee.
\n<\/p>\n

Tl;dr<\/h2>\n

Great\u00a0organization. Lovely and friendly organizers. Nice people.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Since the day I received the notification that my proposal had been accepted, the organizers, in the person of Piotr Snarski<\/a>, have taken action to arrange my flights and to book the room at the conference hotel. I really want to give a shout-out to them because they are one of those conference organizers who cover all<\/em> your expenses, not just part or not at all. I know this may sound silly, but a lot of other conference organizers don’t act in the same way. In addition, they have always been at my (and I guess other speakers) disposal to address any issue or need.<\/p>\n

\"Logo<\/a><\/p>\n

The conference hotel, the Gromada Airport Hotel, was also the conference venue. The location was very nice and convenient to reach from the airport (not to mention from my room). I think it has been a very good choice.<\/p>\n

\"Attendees<\/a><\/p>\n

Before Party<\/h2>\n

I know it’s a bit unusual but the conference party was held the day before the conference at the\u00a0Warszawianka club, a bowling-pub. Having the party the day before the event was a risky choice because, you know, Poland has good beer, Polish people love\u00a0drinking, and the union of these two points can easily turn into an issue. As\u00a0the organizers confessed at the party, at the previous edition there were some speakers who weren’t be able to speak because they were too drunk or sick. So, my concerns aren’t just imaginary.<\/p>\n

Apart from this detail, the party went really good and I had a lot of fun. At the party (but also at the conference)\u00a0I was probably the only non-Polish attendee and surely the only non-Polish speaker. For this reason\u00a0a lot of people spoke Polish only, hence\u00a0it was not so easy for me\u00a0to chat with someone. Of course, most of them were surely able to speak in English but, you know, everyone usually tends to speak his native language if there is the possibility. Anyway some of the organizers have been so\u00a0kind to stay with me most of the time and I’ve really appreciated it. I had the chance to meet\u00a0Janusz Kamie\u0144ski<\/a>,\u00a0Jakub Kozio\u0142<\/a>, and Sylwia Wojtas<\/a>. We had a great time together and I really hope to meet them again.<\/p>\n

The conference<\/h2>\n

I think the conference has been well organized and what I liked was the informal time given to\u00a0help people socializing. If you’ve ever attended a conference, you’ll know that socializing is actually one of the most relevant factors to attend a conference or not. While it’s true that at a conference you can learn new tools, techniques, and frameworks, having the chance to build\u00a0new relationships is essential both from the human and\u00a0the business perspectives.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The speakers wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During the conference I’ve had the chance to meet and drink some beer with these nice guys:\u00a0Jakub Zalas<\/a>,\u00a0Kacper Gunia<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0Leszek Prabucki<\/a>. In regard of the beer,\u00a0one\u00a0thing that I really loved was the free beer offered at the end of the event. It created the ideal, informal environment to entice people to talk. Other people that I want to mention and thanks for their help are\u00a0Justyna Bie\u0144<\/a> and\u00a0S\u0142awomir Jabs<\/a>. S\u0142awomir in particular is a delightful guy and I had a couple of occasions to discuss with him\u00a0not only about programming but also about politics, economy, the IT community, and of our respective nations.<\/p>\n

One of the things that as a foreigner I didn’t like too much was that almost every talk was in Polish, so I hadn’t the chance to attend a lot of them. I discussed\u00a0with the organizers about this point and they explained me that the 2014 edition wasn’t really meant to be international. However, moving a step forward and pushing the conference over the edge of Poland is the goal of the 2015 edition. Having seen how they managed this year conference, I’m sure they will succeed in achieving this goal.<\/p>\n

Audience<\/h2>\n

I was located in one of two largest rooms of the conference because the PHP track was one of the most interesting topics for the attendees (how lucky I am!). The room was almost full and luckily nobody decided to leave the room. I felt that people who attended my talk were attracted by the topic and hopefully the presentation was also entertaining. I’m very happy of the final result because, as I said, mine was one of the few talks given in English and I felt people were focused on what I was saying. At the end of the conference I’ve been asked a couple of questions that I think I’ve addressed properly.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The audience of my talk Modern front-end with the eyes of a PHP developer<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I also received few compliments from people who attended my talk, both personally and via Twitter, as shown below.<\/p>\n

@AurelioDeRosa<\/a> presentation about moder frontend in eyes of PHP dev brought lots of useful tools #4developers<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Przemek K (@Kolemp) 7 Aprile 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

@AurelioDeRosa<\/a> great talk – I have a lot of things to think about \ud83d\ude42 for instance, now I don’t want to implement assetic \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\u2014 Leszek Krupinski (@leafnode) 7 Aprile 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Great talk by @AurelioDeRosa<\/a> about modern frontend at #4developers<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mateusz Sojda (@msojda) 7 Aprile 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n