This weekend I had the privilege to attend the biggest ReactJS conference in the world - React Amsterdam.
Day 1 - Meetup Fail
My trip started on the wrong foot. I was planning to attend the GraphQL Community Meetup, but my flight got slightly delayed and I ended up missing it. To be fair, it's entirely my fault as I was way too optimistic with the time it would take from landing at Schiphol Airport to getting all the way to the city centre, specially going through the immigration queues.
Day 2, part 1 - The Workshop
One of the things that attracted me to this conference was the chance of attending workshop with top class developers in different fields.
The one I attended was the GraphQL Workshop with Kitze, beautifully located at the Royal Industrieele Groote Club.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwGx6k7nTKs/
Apart from a few issues with the lack of chargers and slightly cramped room, the workshop was excellent. Kitze managed to get a room filled with developers with different backgrounds and experience levels working with server side GraphQL in no time.
Personally, I'd rather spend more time on that area, but the agenda for the day was quite busy so we quickly moved to client side GraphQL, from barebones fetch to libraries like Apollo.
Day 2, part 2 - The Meetup (again, this time for real)
Just after the workshop, there was another meetup happening - The Official React Amsterdam Pre-party Meetup. Which I manage to attend this time.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwH9THGnUCj/
This was a classic meetup format: free pizzas, networking and presentations. We heard from Alessio Di Crescenzo talking about his project React-Imago3d, and Jessica Leach telling us all about ReactJS lifecycle methods.
Day 3 - The Conference
I was happily impressed by the quality of the speakers. This is the first conference that I attend where every, single, talk was great. I took so many notes I might need a day off to sort them out.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwJaVGdlyNV/
The highlights (and this was hard to pick) were Sid walking us through how to refactor your ReactJS applications and get rid of code smells, followed by Elizabet Oliveira who showed us the power of combining SVGs with React. She also freestyled mid presentation which was simply awesome.
There was also a party with open bar, food, DJs, etc., and of course they had their own beer - React Blonde, brewed by Brouwerij de Prael
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwKYB1NlO8F/
Conclusion
Every conference has its own issues and React Amsterdam wasn't an exception. Food was a bit of a problem, queuing was another, but honestly, these things don't take the shine away from the organizers who clearly put a lot of effort and managed to create a brilliant conference.
I, for one, will be looking forward to next edition.
🎥 Live on YouTube
The event was broadcasted live on YouTube and the recording is available for anyone to watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KfAS3zrvX8 . You can also find the React Native track on the channel.