So Devoxx Belgium 2017 is over and it’s time to evaluate and write down my learnings.

I must admit that I was a little disappointed this year. As a frontend developer there was nothing special this year to discover. Luckily that I have a broader interest so I was happy to see some blockchain talks and workshop. I learned a bit about Quantum computing and got inspired by the CERN and “An ultrasonic adventure!” talk and will tryout project Malmo, AI for Minecraft.

And I bought a signed comic book of CommitStrip, http://www.commitstrip.com/en/?

About Devoxx, I was happy to see that there was breakfast even coming in late. The food in general is one of the minor sides. Because the lack of content I started a course on edX about the Hyperledger project. Now that they stream online and the lack of frontend content I am not sure that I will go next year.

Next you can find an overview of the talks that I followed with their video if available.

Day 1

Tensorflow and modern deep learning architectures, without a PhD

Which was a slightly adjusted talk of last year so not that new. I do like ML but as a developer I miss some development, what I mean is that the main chunk of work is creating and cleaning data sets, and then in a trial-and-error way add several ways to train your network. There is not that much of code to write and that’s what I miss in ML. I do understand that it will be used in all kinds of software now and in the future but still it’s not for me.

Building a practical Blockchain with Hyperledger Fabric and Composer BOF

The talk was good although they did mess up the documentation so the handout had errors and wrong versions. The goal was to build a smart contract(js) for a car insurance/accident workflow. The contract managed the assigned callcenter employee, the tow company, and the insurance.

Much Robots. Very Java. So IoT

This was a creative talk showing how you can create robot’s with java.

AI and Minecraft

I saw Lars last year when he had a presentation about “Visualising data in Minecraft” so I was curious what he would show this year. HE showed project Malmo the AI project from Microsoft which uses Minecraft as an environment. The cool stuff is that you can train inside Minecraft but use you trained model outside of Minecraft. I started to set it up but bump onto several issues so I am not there yet.

Day 2

Getting Started with Ethereum Solidity Development

I have looked into Ethereum already at home but a whole session would be more interesting. The main thing bothering me with ethereum is the use of gas to run dapps. My mother will not buy ether to browse the blockchain.

Zuse ♥ Heisenberg. Quantum computers for everyone!

This was an introduction into quantum computing, I learned about a qbit and Schrodinger cat. We played around with the IBM Quantum platform but half way I could not follow anymore. The multiple state is only until we measure the state, that is what I learned.

But there is no web component for that!

A talk about how to wrap a library into a polymer web component

30 Jenkins features and plugins you wished you had known about before!

Must use the pipeline

Day 3

Due to a major traffic jam in Antwerp I missed the Welcome keynote.

CERN, from an IT Perspective

But I was on time to be inspired by CERN ;-) MUST SEE

Move Slow and Mend Things — Overflow

Best line was the one telling to:

Flowchart until you think you understand the problem. Write code until you realize that you don’t.

Video Games are for idiots

This talk was great noting technical just lay back and get ready for the stereotypes.

Devoxx4Kids State of the Union

It was a gathering of Devoxx4Kids members and presentation about them to introduce new people. I had the chance to get an answer to:

How is the general skillset in EU? And everybody confirmed that that is very low with all kids. They all lack basic skills.

Besides that I also found something new in there catalog of workshops, http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/. App inventor gives you access to all the mobile functions. You can add sensors, media, social, drawing, storage and a lot more you can even add Lego Mindstorm controls. Looking forward to play with it with the kids.

Day 4

Digitizing your ((grand) dads) old films with a PI

Very inventive

Next Generation Asynchronous Patterns in JavaScript

A demonstration of promises, async/await and generators

Ally for Women in Technology

10 tips to make women part of the team

An ultrasonic adventure!

A just went because I saw his talk last year about flewbox and hew is a good/funny speaker. But this year he also showed that he has great ideas as well. It all started with a simple question : “Can I make two Web pages on two different laptops communicate without any server?” Yes he can and even more.

Angular vs React Smackdown

It was a funny talk but not realistic when they compared thing. They compared a full blown framework with a V library of the MVC. Just watch.

The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine

I wasn’t surprised because I had already listened to the podcast and watched the series Cyberwar on Viceland

Blade runner 2047

I don’t gonna start on this, let’s say it could be an hour shorter and more answers.

Day 5

Application Security in the age of Open Source

Blue Team Security. Actual Security work for Actual Developers

Note to myself: Validation, validation

Image Recognition with Deep Learning — From prototype to production

no video yet, the best part was when the web developer came up explaining he’s quest to create some kind of Iron Man holographic navigation.