Subjective recap of Google Developer Days in Krakow
“Google Developer Days Europe” took place in Krakow, Poland on 5th and 6th of September 2017
I am writing this article while in the train from Krakow to Bydgoszcz, where I live. I’m trying to sort out in my mind impressions, memories and everything I have learned over the past two days spent at Google Developer Days. I’ve seen the photo gallery at the official website of the event, and I was surprised how many attractions and points of interest I haven’t even noticed at the conference. This is obviously because there were so many amazing things going on during all two days, that it was impossible to see, do and experience all of possibilities.
What I am the most happy about is that I got to meet dozens of amazing developers from around the world, both beginners and experts, and also my friends and mentors from Udacity scholarship times. We have shared ideas, knowledge, but above all — passion. All this reminded me, in what a wonderful era we live. And I’m sure I’m not exaggerating saying that Google Developers is one of the most significant authors of what is good in present times. Thanks to wide variety of Google products we have ability to use technology that democratize access to knowledge, improve quality of life, and last but not least — promote openness and equality in all possible dimensions.
For me, participation in this unique conference was primarily hundreds of inspiration and ideas. Everything I have learned about Firebase, Internet of Things, Cloud or Machine Learning trully blew my mind. And although I am not able yet to take advantage of this knowledge in any of current projects, it was a great inspiration to continue learning and broadening my horizons. Some of the knowledge however I am hoping to use very soon in the applications I am working on.
Let me just say for example, that when all the buzz around Kotlin arised I was fairly sceptical about the benefits of using this language, at least in my particular case. I am still very new to programming, and for now I mostly obsessively learn Java. You could say I live, eat and breathe Java. And now they are announcing the new language to be official for Android development? Very funny indeed. But after all these articles praising Kotlin, after numerous reviews of satisfied developers, I was determined to check it myself. I took part in the codelabs entitled “Taking advantage of Kotlin in your Android app” by Nikita Gamolsky and I finaly understood why everybody loves Kotlin so much. It is really easy to pick up and use, it gets rid of a lot of boring boiler plate code, and allows you to do what you like best — to build amazing apps. I am really looking forward to dive a little deeper in Kotlin and make a use of this language in my apps.
Another amazing training I attended was called “Deep dive into Constraint Layout” with Daniel Galpin as a teacher. Well, Dan himself is a good enough reason to attend his class — he is very likable, interesting and charismatic person. But what he told us about the possibilities of constrait layout really amazed me. I’m not a big fan of XML, to be honest, and design in the application is deffinitely not one of my greatest strength. Therefore, the ability to quickly and easily build the look of my application — using constrait layout — seems almost revolutionary!
I could share many more stories about what ispired me, or amazed me during the past two days spent among some of the smartest people in the world. But then I doubt anyone would want to read such a long article. There is however one more impression I wanted to share with you. During the closing Keynote Sowmya Subrama, engineering director at YouTube, was drawing our attention to inclusive desing and matters relatet to equality in general. In her powerfull speach she talked about how important it is to consider diversity when developing new products, and in this way influencing the world among us. I believe that putting this speech at the end of the event was really significant. After two days of programming and discovering the fascinating possibilities of technology, the message that really has to stay with us for longer is “be excellent to each other”, is to recognize diversity and to see in it the greatest value that the modern world has to offer us.
