CocoaConf DC 2016 Recap

Had the pleasure to attend and speak at CocoaConf DC this past weekend.

CocoaConf is a touring training conference for iPhone, iPad, and Mac developers. We bring some of the best authors, trainers, and speakers to the most passionate, engaged developers in a region—together, they make magic!

CocoaConf draws anywhere from 100-120 developers. It’s a very nice, comfortable size. Large enough to host a diverse collection of personalities and ideas, but small enough not to feel overwhelming. People actively mingle and you get to meet lots of new faces without much effort.

This was my third CocoaConf, and first as a speaker. My own talk was at the end of the first day and I spent ample time the previous weeks preparing to avoid the need to do last minute slide updates and miss sessions — and I’m glad I did so.

The sessions were really good at this CocoaConf. Sure it helps that iOS 10 is just out and there is still lots to learn, but even the talks that were version agnostic, covering patterns, architectures and bug hunting skills all got my brain spinning with ideas.

One cool benefit of my work scheduling is now I have a week of stay-home vacation and I can hopefully direct that post-conference enthusiasm towards my side projects and some extra experimentation. Specific items on my list:

• Do more interactive prototyping of my side project and follow up with some user interviews.
• Do some experimentation with Perfect to build a simple Swift API and host it on Linode.
• Continue to polish up my RanchWeather app and start a blog series reviewing the code patterns.
• Do some experimentation with Twilio authentication in preparation for a web app project.
• Inspired by the journalling abilities of MarkD, dedicate the vacation week to a journaling experiment: Daily Journal, Project Journal, Tool Journal.

As for my talk, I think it went very well. One thing I really like as a speaker is the conference not only has a session review system but they encourage submissions of reviews with a raffle for prizes at the end so you get a lot of feedback. Most of my talk’s feedback was very positive and I appreciate the criticisms, both good and bad. Always room for improvement.

So yeah, if you are considering attending or speaking at a CocoaConf, do it. It’s very rewarding and worthy of your time. If it’s on the east coast you’re more than likely to see me there too — and if so, say hi!