At Rootstack, we attend numerous events every year related to Open Source, software development, consultancy, and any other topics aligned with the services we provide. This time, I attended the OSCON 2024 in Austin, Texas. Here’s a summary of my experience:
Basic Information about the Event
- Audience: The event hosted about 1,000 attendees.
- Who Attends:
- Developers working with or interested in Open Source software.
- Companies selling products.
- Service-based companies offering support, but not consultancy or development services.
First Impressions
- Technologies on Display: There were a variety of technologies represented at the event, both in specific tracks and on booths. Some were even featured on stickers and badges.
- Lunch Themes: A cool aspect of the event was that each lunch table had a specific theme, such as Ruby, PHP, Node.js, Angular, Data Guys, Apache, and MongoDB. It encouraged networking with like-minded people in the community.
Notable Tracks I Attended
- React: Everyone is using React and React Native these days. The track I attended, titled React Properly, provided great insights into best practices for React development.
- Prometheus: This is an exciting monitoring system, and I plan to test it out on a couple of projects. The session Prometheus: The Next-Generation Monitoring System offered a great deep dive into how it works.
- General Sessions: Most of the other sessions I attended weren’t focused on specific technologies but explored broader topics in Open Source and software development.
Interesting Booths
Several companies had booths at the event, and here are a few that stood out to me:
- Red Hat: They had a cool vintage Mustang at their booth.
- IBM: As soon as you entered the event, you were greeted by IBM. They showcased impressive work in integrating sectors and creating standard APIs for diverse markets.
- Datadog: I’m excited to try out their API monitoring solution—it offers a range of features.
- SendGrid: We’ve used SendGrid in some of our projects, so I made sure to stop by and chat with their team.
- Indeed: They had a raffle for a drone, which definitely got a lot of attention and excitement from the crowd.
Enrichment / Knowledge Gained
There were several valuable sessions that offered new insights:
- CI Integration: A few sessions on Continuous Integration (CI) were particularly interesting, discussing how to integrate different CI tools and manage large projects. While Rootstack has used these tools, it’s always helpful to deepen our knowledge.
- AngularJS to Angular 4: As someone who has worked on AngularJS projects, the session on migrating to Angular 4 was especially useful.
- GraphQL Query API Solutions: The concept of mapping types and fields with multiple APIs was fascinating. This is a critical need for companies looking to reuse queries and analyze data in a more consistent way. I’m excited to explore the potential of GraphQL in our projects.
Observations on the Event Structure
In my opinion, the event had a fairly balanced mix of technical and non-technical tracks, probably around 50% technical and 50% non-technical. It was a bit of a surprise, as I’ve attended other events that were more heavily focused on technical topics.
Also, it was cool to see Symmetrics, a new technology we’re using, featured on the sticker table.
Overall, OSCON 2024 was a great experience. It was a fantastic opportunity to see how different companies and developers are contributing to and benefiting from the Open Source world. Stay tuned for more feedback on the various events Rootstack participates in throughout the year.
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