A return to in person conferences looked a little different for me but I really enjoyed travelling down to Manchester to see lots of friendly faces and learn more about what's new in Umbraco.
As I wrote about in a recent blog, being part of tech community looks a bit different for me since going off on maternity leave. It certainly takes a whole lot more effort to make happen nowadays but myself, my husband and wee girl made the journey to Manchester for Umbraco in the City and I am so glad we did. Spoiler alert for the rest of the post, but as community events often do I was left full of enthusiasm to learn more and contribute more!
The morning started off with a walk to the venue with my wee one joining me to say hello to some friends before she left and I was able to leave mum mode and go in to techy mode for a few hours.
The day started with a wonderful welcome by Phil Whittaker and Rachel Breeze setting us up for the day with some Manchester facts and an intro to what to expect from the day. I liked the insight to their sustainability focus: no unnecessary tech swag and recycled lanyards among other things was a refreshing change.
Then was on to "(What's the Story) Umbraco 17" by Lotte and Seb from Umbraco DevRel team. This talk went through the main differences from the last Long Term Support version (13) to 17 which will be the new LTS we use soon. I like the version by version walk through of key changes - particularly helpful if you were off on maternity leave for a few of those versions!! I personally am really looking forward to v17 being the LTS, it feels like a big milestone having a LTS that has both the "new"(not really new any more!) .NET architecture as well as the new Umbraco backoffice (goodbye Angular 👋). The release candidate is out now and we were all encouraged to go and explore - the bugs can't be fixed before the full release if they aren't found!
There were many other great talks throughout the day including some AI themed talks discussing how our day jobs have/ will change with the developments in generative AI. This included a talk on vibe coding by Matt Wise and a discussion on Spec Driven Development by Matt Brailsford. I have been exploring spec driven development recently so this talk was particularly useful - especially with Matt's great way of telling the story as well as the hand drawn slides 👏
During the lunch break I was lucky to be co-hosting a live podcast with my fabulous co-hosts Emma, Laura and Lotte. This is the first time we have all been together since June 2023, so it was a lovely excuse to catch up and hopefully a good conversation for those in the audience too. We discussed how open source contributions may have a different impact now that Umbraco HQ has grown significantly over the last 10 years. We also had some guests join us to share their contribution anecdotes -thank you to Paul, Michael and Kieron.
We have recorded the session and it's available here (or your favourite podcast platform) if you'd like to listen along!
On the theme of contributions, I really enjoyed Jonny Muir's talk "Fixing a Tabbed Interface: A Story of Accessibility, Inclusive Design, Potato Peelers and Intestines" where he discussed how a Pull Request looking to fix accessibility of the tabbed interface in Umbraco took several iterations and taught him new things about the UX and accessibility of tabs. He also shared the example of an accessible potato peeler that was so user friendly beyond it's original intended customer base that it's a best seller - a good metaphor for UX design online too.
As well as the talks, the event was such a good chance to catch up with the community - both tech and life updates were discussed over a cuppa looking out at the lovely view from the venue. I had the realisation throughout the day - this is the bit you can't get from online events or discord chats.
Unfortunately, I had to leave a wee bit early which meant I missed a talk I really wanted to see: "Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion" by Jamie Taylor. I have heard great things - hopefully I will have a chance to catch it at another event soon!
As we mentioned during the podcast recording - attending these events is the bit AI can't do for us. Getting the community energy and motivation is something the Umbraco community has always done well. Recently there has been chat of how the community has dispersed a bit online due to platforms changing and how people communicate being different, but for me this new event has proven that the community definitely has it's spark and is going from strength to strength!