The Developer Camp 2017 took place at Z-Bau in Nuremberg on May 17th and 18th. 130 people gathered around 10:30 on Wednesday to plan the upcoming sessions.

The worst thing about barcamps: there are far too many sessions with great topics in parallel. So it is tough to pick the right ones for yourself.

34 sessions on Wednesday and 30 sessions on Thursday are a hell of a lot of topics.

So, which ones did I choose?

• Machine Learning with Apache Spark
• React Native
• Retrospective
• Agile Leadership
• Management Fuckups
• Typescript Primer
• Optimizing PhpStorm IDE
• Fighting Fear Driven Development
• JavaScript Refactoring Dojo
• From school to professional Developer
• MVP – minimum releasable crap?
• Bug handling across several teams

Machine Learning with Apache Spark

Dr. Philipp Brune from University of Applied Science of Neu-Ulm gave an overview about the Data Science Platform Apache Spark.

The core concept revolves around Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDD) a fundamental data structure of Spark. MLlib is Apache Spark’s machine learning library and you can access data via SparkQL a SQL dialect.

We discussed a couple of potential fields of application and came up with the idea to scan large code bases and apply machine learning to newly written code to assess its quality.

Not directly related book tip: Your code is a crime scene

React Native

Markus showed us how to build a tic tac toe game with React Native. The cool thing is that it compiles to native application either Android or iOS like Xamarin. Hot Reloading is a handy concept which updates the emulator every time when your code changes. So, if You like ReactJS You will certainly like React Native as well.

https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

Retrospective

Although I went to a scrum workshop and did some “scrum but” at work this session was quite inspiring. The easiest way to do a retro is the mad – glad – sad strategy: You draw 3 lanes on a whiteboard an everyone fills out some post-its an puts them into the corresponding lane. Voila!

Main Takeaways:

https://www.retrium.com/resources/techniques/mad-sad-glad

https://nomad8.com/a-5-why-root-cause-analysis-retrospective/

5 Phases of a Retro

• Set the stage
• Gather data
• Generate insights
• Decide what to do
• Close

Further rearding: https://leadingagileteams.com/2014/07/13/5-steps-to-an-effective-sprint-retrospective/

Vega’s Rule: What happens in a retro stays in the retro!

Agile Leadership, now for real

A great talk from Johann Hartmann, CTO of mayflower about the journey from classic management to transformational leadership in their company.

The talk was based on the Tribal Leadership book by David Logan et al.

Main Takeaways:

Levels of a scrum master:

1. Wolf in sheep’s clothing
2. Scrum scribe
3. Facilitator
4. Coach
5. Servant leader

Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo

Core Protocols

Return on Time Invested

Drive by Daniel Pink

Management Brainfucks

The second talk from Johann.

Main Takeaways

Cynefin Framework

Business value of agile methods

The complete slide set:

https://www.slideshare.net/johannhartmann/management-brainfucks

TypeScript Primer

Typescript is a language invented by Microsoft which is transpiled to JavaScript and the main language of several modern frameworks like Angular2.

http://devcamp.jenetic.de/workshops/TypeScript-Primer.html

Craft Beer Tasting

The last “session”  had nothing to do with software but nevertheless with craftmanship. The organizers invited brewsers to present their beers. Some guys from Z-Bau also brew the Z-Bräu

BBQ

Catering was provided by Haun Catering. They know their stuff!

Due to the nice weather we had the chance to sit outside and enjoy ourselves until the late evening. Stay tuned for the second day!

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