KotlinConf 2023 Experience

Just finished the KotlinConf 2023 journey, my heart is surging with excitement. While the feeling is still fresh, I'm recording what I saw and heard. In just two days, I gained numerous life experiences I'd never had before. The conference's agenda arrangement, booth setup, high-quality attendees and content sharing, even the peripheral support like food, coffee, and Party band were all top-tier.

Note: This is a quick note written on my phone, so please forgive any formatting issues.

Venue

This year is the second time KotlinConf is held in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The last time was before the pandemic. The location is Beurs van Berlage, a historical building that has been renovated and now serves as a venue for conference rentals.

The main hall blending history and modernity carries substantial content and memories.

Many people from other countries said this was the most beautiful venue with the best food. Of course, since it's held in Europe, most of the on-site audience, including booth staff, came from European countries like UK, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy, etc. The rest felt like they came from North America, plus a small number from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Overall, there were various languages being spoken on site, and since most people aren't native English speakers, there's not much pressure when chatting in English together.

Agenda

Kotlin language is naturally the theme of the conference, but the Kotlin ecosystem has developed to the point today where it's far more than traditional JVM content. We see topics like Android, Backend, Multiplatform, Infrastructure & Tools, QA and automation, etc. Besides the Opening Keynotes every morning, the rest of the time has five or six events running in parallel, requiring you to make choices between multiple Sessions — this is actually a good thing, because judging conference quality is extremely subjective. When topic sharers find the right audience and audiences find the content most suited to their taste, the best chemistry happens.

(Some bookmarked topics)

For example, I mostly chose topics related to Kotlin Multiplatform, Kotlin Compiler, Compose for iOS, and ecosystem tools, leaning toward the novel or hardcore.

Two most important takeaways from listening to sessions on-site:

1. As often said, you can chat more with the speaker after they finish. For example, after listening to K2 Compiler Plugins, I chatted a bit more with Mikhail privately. He explained that "documentation has been released" mainly refers to API docs, not Tutorial docs. Then he opened Kotlin source code on-site and we looked together at where the public interfaces he just mentioned are located — the code is well-standardized with clear comments, so the generated documentation is naturally good. Combined with this session's video and several official real cases, I believe KCP will spawn more community ecosystem under K2's boost.

2. As mentioned earlier, parallel sessions have already diverted the crowd, so the people you meet in this breakout room must be well-matched to this topic. Taking K2 Compiler Plugins as an example again, although the topic is niche and the breakout room isn't large, when the Speaker did research asking how many people had written a Compiler Plugin, surprisingly 30-40% raised their hands, and there were four or five people raising hands during the Q&A session. So this small room has many new friends worth meeting — seize the opportunity!

Offline Networking

Continuing from the previous sharing, as the last questioner, due to limited English skills my expression was a bit wordy, and the speaker seemed a bit confused — so we ended that session. After he stepped down, we discussed with several other developers nearby about the pros and cons of K2's KCP plan to cancel the Gradle SubPlugin setting. Among them, I met a young guy from Belgium who had just graduated but was already quite skilled discussing these topics. We successfully exchanged contact information on the way back to the main hall.

Right after that, at the detekt session I met two friends who felt like kindred spirits — Nicola and Chao from the detekt core maintenance team. Chao and I even went to participate in recording "Kotlin Fireside Chat" together just an hour after meeting.

(Nicola, Chao, me, Shengyou)

Besides extending connections from breakout rooms, I also started chatting with people in the hall or lounge starting from breakfast on the first day. In fact, you can even sacrifice a bit of session time to participate in this once-a-year face-to-face moment. For example, if you've listened to too many sessions today, leave the remaining hour's session for later when the replay is online!

The people above are both industry experts and one-way online friends I've followed for years. The last two are even co-presenters. Since social media profiles use real photos, they're easy to recognize on-site. Get some water, approach, first listen to what others are chatting about, then slowly introduce yourself and learn more. For example, topics I first heard included: Maven Central publishing process being cumbersome, cycling from Paris to Amsterdam, side projects they're working on, etc. During second and third encounters for deeper chats, you can discuss more like career planning, technical questions.

(My E-ink phone attracted many people's attention / opened conversations)

The third way to approach people is going directly to Booths. For example, after Google's sharing, Jeffrey took me to Google's booth.

There he introduced me to Ivan. Ivan is one of the developers of AS & AGP tools. He answered many of my questions about current API design, version iteration, bug submission and fixing. Most importantly, he looked at the English table of contents of the book I'm writing on-site, and after discussion gave me multiple practical suggestions.

Then I saw Marton at Google's booth. He's one of the organizers of Android Worldwide conference, and we had online exchanges before when I was a speaker there. Recently he's been organizing and publishing KSP and Android development information (as shown above), so we even searched together on-site for my KSP sharing video from back then (forgot the sharing title, we searched for a minute or two, almost awkward).

There were also evangelists like Florina on-site. Due to limited time, we just said hello and shared what work we're doing, etc.

Booths usually have lots of swag. Here's a portion of stickers, pins and other swag I got. Later I hope to share them with local developers at other events, passing on KotlinConf's grand occasion and enthusiasm. Of course, there's also Kotlin's booth and swag, plus their staff and engineers.

Special thanks to Shengyou for helping me meet more friends from JetBrains, and for attending the evening Party together where we took photos with several German friends and chatted for nearly an hour. For more conversations with Shengyou, follow Kotlin's official account and "Kotlin Fireside Chat" podcast!

The final Easter egg is — a photo with Jake Wharton:

(YOU KNOW WHO)

Others

I haven't attended many offline conferences before. Earlier years I attended some GDG events in mainland China, and in '18, '19, '22 I attended several Google and DroidCon events in Singapore. From my discussions with friends on-site about tech conferences, this KotlinConf is still noteworthy among many conferences.

Communicating with the most interesting people in the same industry worldwide, meeting new friends, absorbing new knowledge and generating inspiration in a relaxed atmosphere. After experiencing Covid-19, I think everyone cherishes opportunities to talk face-to-face more. If I hadn't booked this early bird ticket a year in advance, I would definitely regret it.

Next year, see you again!