ngConf 2017 Day 2 Review

Read review of Day 1 here. Read review of day 3 here.

Day 2 of ngConf is called Fair Day. Fair Day is when a single track conference goes multi-track. Not only do you get another day of great content but there are activities happening at all times of the day.

Multi-track format

Presentations today are in multi-track format. There are three rooms with speakers so you have to choose between speakers. The schedule is somewhat unusual in that you might have a presentation that runs from 10AM — 11AM but the presentation in the next room runs from 10AM — 10:20AM.

It appears that presentations today are one hour, twenty minutes or 5 minutes long. You would not expect that you can get much out of a 5 minute presentation but you would be surprised with what you can learn.

Speaking at ngConf

Several months ago the organizers at ngConf had their CFP (Call For Papers) process to apply to speak at ngConf. I have spoken at multiple conferences but have never spoken at a conference of this size and status. I prepared and submitted two proposals to speak at ngConf.

Several weeks after the close of CFP, I am working on a project at home one evening and I got an alert that I had received a new email from ngConf. I read the email and it was the form letter basically saying that they get thousands of entries and they cannot accept everyone and thanks for applying but you were not accepted. I go back to work on my project and several minutes later I get a second email from ngConf. It was the same form letter but it said that my proposal to speak was accepted!

Using Components in Angular 1.5

My speech was on “Using Components in Angular 1.5”. I provided a brief overview of the new component feature in Angular 1.5 which draws from the same functionality in Angular. The later part of my speech was a live programming demo that shows how to create components by duplicating the functionality found on the homepage of www.caranddriver.com which is my company’s Hearst Auto’s product.

Here is a video of my speech:

Speaker Content

The content presented by speakers was top notch just like it was on day one.

I was able to sit sessions that showed how easy it was to use Node.js and JavaScript to control a drone. It was quite amazing to watch him write the code and then have him control the drone as it flew all over the room.

Since we use Docker at work I was able to sit this session. Evidently there are quite a few companies that are also using Docker because it was full with people standing in the isles.

Another interesting session was using Alexa to create an voice activated chat bot. I was able to attend a workshop on creating Alexa content at the JazzCon Conference in New Orleans several weeks earlier. Learned how to apply my newly learned skill by creating a chat bot.

Using Voice User Interfaces in Angular was another session that easily demonstrated what can be done with this technology.

I have heard quite a bit about Firebase so I was pleased to attend a conference on Firebase/Cloud functions. This session provided hands on experience with Firebase.

There was a session Progressive Web Apps. Interesting topic because it allows you to convert your website into an app without having to depend on the Apple or Android App Store to approve your app for availability. Plus if you monetize your PWA then you don’t have to share the revenue with Apple or Android either.

Another session was on memory leaks in applications. This was an invaluable presentation because it showed you the steps to take to find out where the leaks are located and how to resolve them.

Overall there were great content on the second day.

Extra-curricular activities

Every time I left a presentation and walked down the hall there was something happening.

Almost every hour there was a prison escape bus. You could jump on a bus with a bunch of strangers and you had one hour to solve a series of puzzles to escape.

There was a virtual reality room. They had quite a few different VR devices on hand that you could try out and use. It was quite an experience to see all the differences in the different VR devices.

If you needed to work on code there was a hack room. This room also doubled as a lounge but every time I dropped by everybody was heads down writing code.

They had chair massages and a guy playing music with a wood flute and bowls.

Have you ever watched combat bots on TV? They had the professionals bot handlers doing combat bots. They created a bracket of different programming languages they fought it out in the arena and everyone could fill out a bracket to predict winner. I had COBOL fighting GO in the finals. Well GO did make it to the finals but it fought it out with Fortran (who I did have going all the way to the quarter finals and losing to COBOL).

Access to Experts

At ngConf you were given direct access to the developers at Google as well as all the speakers. This was invaluable. Attendees were bringing code examples that they were having difficulties with and having the programmers work with them to solve the issues.

All day they conference had 3 different areas that you could drop in to get assistance. Here are the 3 rooms they had available and what was offered in each room:

Ask Me Anything

Every thirty minutes throughout the day there was a Ask Me Anything session. These sessions involved 5 speakers. During the 30 minute session you could literally ask them any question.

People would ask questions from new features in Angular, how to implement something or basic questions about how do you get started learning how to use Angular. You could just check out what speaker was scheduled for which panel and then walk in and ask them questions.

Tour of Heroes

This tour happened every hour on the hour all day. In this room you could walk through a tutorial on Angular put together by the Google developers. There were Google developers present all day to help you out as you walked through the tutorial

Experts Room

This was the place to go for help with anything Angular. During the day they had different members of the Angular team as well as the speakers on hand to answer any question that you might have.

As a speaker at this event I was scheduled for an hour to help attendees in this room. I got a chance to help a lady out on writing tests for her Angular application. The next person asked about NativeScript and since I have never used it, I found somebody else to help him.

Then I got to spend a long amount of time with a gentleman that was a .Net developer and their company was rewriting their application from .Net to Angular. I had recently gone through the process of rewriting an application from .Net to Angular so I was able to share our experience with him and provide assistance and direction.

Patches on Hoodies

Attendees were given a swag bag at registration on Day 1. The swag bag included a gray hoodie which is clearly the perfect present to give to a programmer.

The event sponsors made available patches at their booth. These patches are embroidered patches not stickers that you would put on the lid of your laptop. They had machines available that could iron on the patches onto your hoodie anywhere you wanted to put it.

My Review of Day 2

Luckily for me my speech today was early in the day from 10:30AM to 11:30AM. Then I was able to relax and enjoy the content for the rest of the day.

The content today was outstanding as usual. Having access to the developers at Angular as well as speakers was invaluable. This access clearly sets apart ngConf Conference from any other tech conference that you might attend.