React Europe 2016 Overview
React Europe 2016 started out as the go-to event for the European React community, but in the end it was a global celebration of modern application development. The sold-out event was packed with attendees from all over the world, looking to peek into the future of reactive application development and meet community peers.
The Omnipresent Redux
Redux was first announced a year ago at this very conference. The hype around this small, flexible, and incredibly powerful library is so real; there was hardly a presentation that didn’t mention it. I believe Redux has influenced the development community more in the past year and any other technology.
Although Redux needs no introduction, what Dan Abramov had to say was more than inspiring. A swift overview of the key benefits showed the audience how easy it is to extend and customize main components such as reducers and middleware.
Dan’s presentation wasn’t purely technical however. What he had to say next was even more far reaching.
Encouraging Open Source Initiatives
Maintaining an Open Source project means much more than writing clever code. Dan argued about the importance of avoiding vendor lock-in. This is an extremely powerful message that points us in the direction of collaboration to create a better environment vs competing by making it expensive to shift to another technology.
Christopher Chadeaux (Vjeux) shared his experience in keeping the community engaged. According to Christopher, it’s all about being out there and communicating with the community. Ask the right questions. Instead of How can / do we make this better? ask What made it difficult? Being on all social networks is not as efficient. Pick one or two and be visible and relevant.
React Native, GraphQL, and Developer Experience
While React Native and GraphQL were fairly new concepts last year, they are now ubiquitous technologies used in production worldwide. It was great to see so many talks focusing on these and many others that were announced only last year. Even the number of sponsors that have built successful businesses with the technologies over a year is impressive.
The Facebook team was very attentive to the needs of all community members, making life easier with improved performance, debugging, error messages, animations, etc.
Apart from the useful talks that you will surely get to see on the official YouTube channel, I found the adoption rate of these technologies beyond expectation. Almost everyone I talked to had some working experience with React Native and GraphQL, with most having built production apps based on them. It’s just impossible to ignore any part of this truly amazing stack.
Community
The entire React ecosystem is fantastic, but at this conference the technology becomes a secondary focus. Don’t get me wrong, we are all here to enjoy the news and witty techniques from the technology we make a living out of, but the true value is the community.
The whole event starts at the legendary Frog microbrewery, which is the perfect place to get the conversation started. The two days are also packed with pauses that make it really easy to mingle over traditional French food and drinks.
Most people want to shake hands with some of the prominent community members. The best thing about React celebrities is that they are so very humble and open to conversation no matter when or where. Their friendliness is mind blowing. Honestly, this approach is what makes the React community the happiest place to be.
Overall, React events are incredibly popular. There are already plenty of community conferences all around the US and Europe, but also many successful meetups. NovaJS http://www.meetup.com/NoVaJS/ (Washington DC), NYC.JS http://www.meetup.com/NYC-JS/ (New York City) and React JS http://www.meetup.com/London-React-User-Group/ (London) are just some that see conference-like turnouts every month. I highly suggest you become a member or even start your own meetup if you haven’t already.
Room for improvement
As usual at these events, the Internet wasn’t great, except during lunch when most have finally put their computers and phones down.
There were plenty of screens all over the place, but instead of all showing presos, I would personally prefer some of them show the video feed as well. This is particularly useful to those sitting in the back or behind the huge concrete columns in the middle of the room.
Many people I talked to complained about a lack of power outlets. In some way, I’m glad they are lacking, because then people tend to shut their computers down more often and network instead.
Should you come next year?
If your goal is to learn from the talks, you should probably stay home. Live feed and on demand videos are phenomenal and you can enjoy them from the comfort of your home or office.
If you want to meet this truly phenomenal community, match faces to Twitter handles and profile pics, and network, then by all means, consider purchasing a ticket for React Europe 2017. It will be worth it, guaranteed.
Special thanks to Patrick Aljord, Katiuska Gamero, and Christopher Chedeaux (Vjeux) for putting this wonderful event together. See you all next year!
