/dev/world/2015

[A photo posted by Joshua Holmes (@joshua.d.holmes)](https://instagram.com/p/7Bs5c6gN58/) on Aug 30, 2015 at 4:50pm PDT

I recently travelled to Melbourne for /dev/world/2015 hosted by the [AUC](http://auc.edu.au/). It was held on campus at RMIT in their Swanston Academic Building. First of all, I want to point out how cool the design and architecture of that building is. So many right angle triangles!

 [#RMIT has such awesome buildings. #DevWorld #melbourne #architecture](https://instagram.com/p/7FRyESAN4y/)   A photo posted by Joshua Holmes (@joshua.d.holmes) on Sep 1, 2015 at 2:10am PDT

/dev/world was held over two full on days filled with talks, presentations and demonstrations of anything and everything to do with iOS development. It is the largest and longest running event of its kind in Australia. In between these events were delicious food breaks, pointed out by some on point GIFs.

Next (3:25 PM) at #DevWorld: AFTERNOON TEA! SCONES! CREAM! JAM! YEAH! SCONES! pic.twitter.com/DqIQztJUTk

— AUC (@AUC_ANZ) August 31, 2015

The first day I attended talks on best practices and tools for maintaining your sanity and code within remote working teams. This was highly insightful and led by [Bogo ](https://twitter.com/giertler)from Dropbox (ex Spotify). Next up was a great presentation on developing multiplayer games in Unity. All within 40 minutes. And yes, it was a success. This, of course, was presented by the wonderful [Jon Manning](https://twitter.com/desplesda) of Secret Lab. Then there was [Developer Steve ](https://twitter.com/DeveloperSteve)with a fantastic look into APIs available from Braintree. He has clearly put a truck load of effort into his powerpoint, with animations and stories galore. Think King Arthur cross with modern technology. Interesting, I know. Maybe one day you will get a chance to take a look. I love the simplicity and beauty of Braintree and hope to one day have a reason to implement it.

Thanks @DeveloperSteve for an interesting way to present on @braintree_dev APIs. #DevWorld pic.twitter.com/tQ6lMTj4fm — Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) August 31, 2015

[Katie McLaughlin](https://twitter.com/glasnt) followed with a brilliant talk about [#LABHR](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23labhr&src=typd), an [initiative by Leslie Hawthorn](http://hawthornlandings.org/2015/02/13/a-place-to-hang-your-hat/) in which she asks why we don’t thank and recommend each other more often. If you are great at something, you should point it out. If you know someone who is great at something, you should tell them. And make it public. LinkedIn, GitHub, Twitter… And it made a lot of sense. So, thanks Katie. And thanks Leslie.

Thanks @glasnt for being visibly frustrated at people not accepting they are awesome. #LABHR #DevWorld pic.twitter.com/nkWq2GnTeg

— Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) August 31, 2015

[Nic](https://twitter.com/nicwinton) from Canva then spoke to us about user testing. Doing it often, responsibly and easily. He covered types of tests to complete, how to complete them and some tricks we can use to do it. This will be highly useful down the track.

Encourage your users to explore and use features so the data you get back is useful. @nicwinton #DevWorld pic.twitter.com/dSiiUEEEBG — Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) August 31, 2015

[Josh ](https://twitter.com/DrJosh9000)from Google then gave an interesting demo on using Go to develop iOS apps. It was surprisingly easy and provided quite a bit of power, but Google warns they aren’t promising long term support.

There exists a game in which you need to jump cacti to deliver a quesadilla. Written in Go. @DrJosh9000 #DevWorld pic.twitter.com/4VgGHX2lOV

— Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) August 31, 2015

We then had an excitable chat with [Tim](https://twitter.com/The_McJones) about great uses of physics within apps to improve your users’ experience. He used Swarm as a fantastic example of this implementation.

“A UI that is fun to use will make people want to use it.” @The_McJones #DevWorld — Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) August 31, 2015

That night we had the dinner and trivia night (and ***freeeee***booze!) but not before an absolutely enlightening talk from the one and only Paul Fenwick on the FUTURE. He posed some very interesting questions related to AI ethics and had us all thinking, laughing and pondering our very existence. If you ever get the chance, attend one of his talks.

Generally we replace low skilled jobs with technology & gain a higher skilled workforce & education. @pjf #devworld pic.twitter.com/ZMo9xx8hWW

— Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) August 31, 2015

The rest of the night was very interesting networking with numerous people from many varied backgrounds, all having come together to share their passion for iOS development. The next day we were back at it with a keynote from [Betty Sargeant](https://twitter.com/BettySargeant) on developing interactive storybooks for children. She is clearly a very passionate and dedicated developer and is doing some great things in that space- how do we merge modern technology with the old way of parents reading to children? [Zac ](https://twitter.com/zefcan)from Eat More Pixels then gave us a great look into designing modern UI’s and great experiences for users in modern apps. A very engaging presentation and I got a great list of books to hunt down.

.@zefcan is unsure about some of Apple’s human interface guidelines. #devworld pic.twitter.com/TD1LrVyKed — Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) September 1, 2015

Judit spoke to us all about iBeacons and their uses beyond retail, followed by Thomas and his look at surveillance and data retention in a modern world. This caused some hot debates.

That afternoon we blazed through several lightning talks… and they were all BRILLIANT. I love lightning talks, they are varied in content, straight to the point, usually hilarious and always insightful. Honourable mentions go to Sam, Anthony and Louis.

“If you have any secret information, hide it behind an information button. No one will find it.” #DevWorld pic.twitter.com/2UA9UxY27a

— Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) September 1, 2015

Finally, [Luke ](https://twitter.com/luketoop)from Sportsbet took us for a walk through his world in developing and running apps at scale.

To paraphrase @luketoop: analytics and crash reports will tell you all of the things. #devworld pic.twitter.com/436gaKAqkI — Joshua Holmes (@JoshDHolmes) September 1, 2015

Then it was time to get to the airport and fly home before finally collapsing into my bed for a long sleep.

This post is intended as a quick look at a selection of the talks that were on during /dev/world. Remembering that every one that I attended had a different one running simultaneously. If you are interested in iOS development in any way, I highly suggest getting to next years conference. It is well worth the journey.

I want to thank everyone who pulled this together. The speakers, organisers, sponsors and of course the attendees. Your hard work does not go unappreciated.

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