Confitura 2013 - first time on the other side

I used to attend Confitura (formerly Javarsovia) or at least watch videos from presentations. I even had a chance to speak on it 4 years ago and share my reflections about continuous integration. This year I also decided to try to organize myself and prepare presentation about profiling Java Virtual Machine. Few days after submitting abstract, my chat window blinks with Tomek Dziurko saying:
 - "Hello! Confitura Organisation Commitee would like to invite you to join us. We don't give anything in return except satisfaction, but we take a lot of time. Are you in?"
Of course it's great honor but also we've to remember that with great power comes great responsibility :) Finally after exchanging a few words I've decided to accept challenge and put my shoulder to the wheel! Now I can say that it was definitely great decision! Guys - if you're reading this post please know, that working with you is a huge delight!

But I'm not going to sum up months of preparations and thousands of emails right now - I just want to share my feedback about conference.

Saturday, 6th July started for me at 6am, when I arrived at Warsaw University campus. We made finishing touch, provide some help for sponsors working on theirs booths and about eight o'clock first attendees appeared. Volunteers did really great job unloading registration queues (and also in many different things, helping us through whole conference). We've no more to do except get our aprons on, take big pot full of prizes and go straight for biggest lecture hall to open today's event! It was really, really nice to see so many geeks spending theirs free time to develop skills and help us making Confitura so unique conference!

Essential part began for me on... my own presentation ;) First time in such large hall with about three hundred people wanting to hear about performance analysis of the JVM. Later I received some good and constructive feedback so I think I did it pretty good, and hopefully next time it will be even better :)

Now I've transformed myself into standard participant and chosen such track:

  • Krzysztof Jelski about Using Lean Startup techniques - I have very similar to Krzysztof problems with defining requirements, setting priorities and co-making products. I enjoyed some presented techniques and added to my personal backlog few positions I'd like to make myself familiar with. Generally my feelings after that presentation are really good, but would be much better if Krzysztof will make it in more active way :)
  • Real Time Analytics with MongoDB by Ingo Dyck and André Peglow. Because currently at work we're implementing some NoSQL solutions I had high expectations. I had an opportunity to see how it works in tried environments and what was the pros and cons of this technology. Speakers told us a lot about different approaches to scaling and sharding Mongo clusters. I had some questions of some particulars of various solutions but unfortunately had to left before end... maybe I'll take my time next year.
  • Java Developer Career Unplugged - Wojciech Seliga. I had a feeling that it will be continuation of presentation about "How to be awesome on Java developer job interview" and I was not disappointed. A lot of accurate reflections about being a developer, choosing between different career tracks, technologies, etc. Full of humorous insets, gripping - like a good movie!
  • Talking about Test Driven Traps, Jakub Nabrdalik presented very mature approach to TDD. Many of us while starting adventure with this process tries to test everything - after all it's all about testing! In fact after some time we can't change anything without triggering an avalanche of failed tests. Kuba shows many examples of good (mature) and bad (callow) tests, proving that we can have well-tested application without blocking any future changes or refactorings - nice :)
After Jakub's presentation it was time to again apply organizer mode and prepare the ending. A lot of greetings, draw prizes and sum up whole day. I also had a chance to hand Confitura statuette to Jacek Laskowski. We've decided to make it to thanks Jacek for his outstanding involvement in building Java community in Poland - and one more time: Thanks Jacek :)

Finally it's time to party at Spoina! Fantastic event with a lot of beer, pizza, bowling and opportunity to talk to great people. We've to repeat this in the near future! :)

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