ChainReact 2018: Seeing the Bigger Picture

My lasting thoughts and takeaways from ChainReact 2018.

Hey everyone! It’s been a few weeks since ChainReact 2018 and the talks are all available online now. I felt it was a good time to talk about the personal impact the conference had on me, what my biggest takeaways were, and how I feel it helped me break some boundaries as a developer.

Foremost, the conference was awesome. You really get the sense that everyone at Infinite Red put their heart and soul into this thing. I went in expecting some swag booths and some technical talks, but was impressed to find a convention that was clearly born out of a deep passion for the library and its potential.

The speakers were superb, with talks that educated , entertained, and inspired. I’ve been making an effort to employ something from each talk in a project at work each week since the conference. Furthermore, the talks highlighted the diversity of the individuals who are working with React-Native. Everyone brought something different to the convention that was fueled by the underlying interests and experience of the presenter. More-so now than ever, I have the sense that the best thing I can do as a React-Native developer isn’t to follow what everyone else is doing, but rather follow where my own interests take me and then share that with the community.

This conference helped me to see the thought leaders of the community for what they really are: people. I got to talk to Twitter legends like Kent C. Dodds in person, and realized that with a little hard work, anyone can achieve that status. How to get there? Share everything. Share experiments, questions, and solutions with the community. I feel a call to arms to be more vocal online about my own views and experiences as a developer.

For some background, I have worked with React-Native almost every working day for the past year. I remember my first days working with it after transitioning from React web apps wrapped with PhoneGap. My first exposure was a single project we had in-house at a previous company. The best practices I learned were what was in that codebase. The only people I worked with in it were three other JS devs. Today, I feel like I have the tools and connections to be working with the minds at the forefront of the community.

I see now how diverse the backgrounds of developers are that come to React-Native. There are more and more developers coming into it from iOS and Android backgrounds, and they are forcing React-Native to be held to a higher standard. Likewise, those of us from JS backgrounds have an increasing responsibility to learn more about native architectures in order to be effective mobile developers.

Building off of the momentum of the conference, just a couple weeks ago I was asked to teach a crash course at a local community meetup. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to exercise some of the empowerment I experienced at the conference, and share with my local community. I’m teaching a crash course on React-Native here in Tampa, FL on Aug. 29.

See you there!