Developer-focused events play a crucial role in fostering innovation, collaboration, and knowledge sharing within the community. They provide a platform for developers, engineers, and industry leaders to connect, learn from each other, and stay at the forefront of the rapidly evolving tech landscape.
In February 2024, Daytona's team had the opportunity to experience the significance of these events firsthand by attending two major developer conferences: DevWorld, a new conference with the tagline "Disneyworld for developers," and a Playoff of Code 100, WeAreDevelopers' "ultimate coding competition."
Attending these events allowed us to showcase Daytona's capabilities, demonstrate how our platform can improve developer productivity and streamline development processes, and connect with a diverse and enthusiastic community of developers, engineers, and tech enthusiasts. We went there to share our product and business mission, deliver an engaging talk, and support the Code100 competition by providing contestants with a standardized development environment.
In this blog post, we will dig into our experiences at both DevWorld and Code100, highlighting the importance of supporting developer-focused events and the insights we gained that developers will find useful. We will also discuss how these events contribute to the growth and advancement of the tech industry by fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing, and a sense of community.
Toma Puljak (Backend Developer), Fabjan Vucina (Frontend Developer), and myself, Luke Bryant (Support Engineer), represented Daytona at these events, where we played significant roles; at DevWorld as an exhibitor and speaker, and at Code 100 as the Official Development Environment.
DevWorld 2024: Day 1
The DevWorld Conference 2024, held at the RAI Conference Centre in Amsterdam from 29th February to 1st March 2024, brought together some of the brightest minds in software development. It created a dynamic platform for knowledge exchange, networking, and exploring the latest industry trends.
As one of the premier events in this year’s tech calendar, the conference showcased groundbreaking innovations, emerging technologies, and expert insights shaping the future of software development. The event provided attendees, speakers, and exhibitors ample opportunities to network and exchange knowledge in a relaxed atmosphere.
This was Daytona’s first major conference where we could truly demonstrate our technology and its capabilities. Our main goal was to share our product and business mission with other companies and speak to as many developers and engineers as possible. We set up our booth, placed our draw prizes—a Lego Darth Vader or a 22’’ Samsung Monitor—front and center, and employed our collective English-Croatian charm to attract as many people as we could.
We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of traffic we received, and even more so by the quality of the conversations we had. It was gratifying to hear from various developers and software managers that they were experiencing the same issues that Daytona aims to solve—security and control of code, efficient onboarding and offboarding of team members, managing multiple projects simultaneously, resource management, and standardizing the development process and environment.
One of the main takeaways from this conference was the interest we received not just from visitors but also from other exhibitors and speakers. Drawing attention from peers means you are doing something right. To sum up, Day 1 was busy, but it was fun seeing the reactions of our visitors when we told them we have the answer to the eternal question: “It works on my machine, why not on yours?”
DevWorld 2024: Day 2
The second day of DevWorld was even busier for our team. Part of the reason was the Code 100 competition held on the evening of Day 1, where Daytona provided the Development Environment (more about that later). We received many requests to trial Daytona so people could get a real feel for the tools.
Since we are an Enterprise Grade platform, our primary focus is B2B and large teams, so this wasn't possible. However, it wasn't all that bad since we have plans to launch an Open Source version of Daytona in March. This will allow all software professionals and developers to use Daytona to improve their development process, and we were happy to share the news with all of the visitors of our booth.
The other reason Day 2 was very busy for the Daytona team was our colleague Toma’s talk on one of the stages. Titled Deep Dive into Development Environment Configuration Standards, Toma’s talk covered various points such as Inner vs. Outer Loop, What is a Development Environment?, an overview of SDEs, DevContainers, DevFile, Nix and NixOS, how to choose the ‘Right Environment for you’, and of course, a brief Daytona plug at the end.
There was a great turnout for his talk, with many people actively taking notes and later visiting the Daytona booth to discuss his points. Witnessing this only strengthened my initial impression of DevWorld’s audience—a mix of student developers, enthusiasts, and business people, all eager to connect, learn, and innovate.
CODE100: Play Off
Code100 by WeAreDevelopers encourages some of the best developers from across Europe to compete in a series of events and playoffs that include coding challenges and tests of technical knowledge in various coding languages. Aside from the technical challenges and skills required to compete, the events also feature high-energy evenings with great conversation, music, food, and of course, a few beers.
The Code100 Challenge is still in progress. The event in Amsterdam represented the third stage playoff with 16 contestants and several unique and exciting challenges, enjoyed by an audience of around 500 people. Each stage of the competition serves as a knock-out playoff, gradually narrowing down the competitors to identify Europe’s Ultimate Coding Champion.
Daytona was proud and excited to be included in this great event as the Official Development Environment used for the coding challenges. Our standardized development environment provided a clean and level playing field for the contestants, ensuring they all had access to the same tools and features.
Daytona provided real-time coding, collaboration, and automation throughout the competition, empowering the developer contestants to focus on the challenges in front of them. Our preconfigured workspaces allowed them to skip the tedious configuration process and maximize their valuable competition time.
Needless to say, the pressure was on for Daytona to deliver. This was a competitive stage with high expectations from the audience, comprising hardcore coders and industry enthusiasts. There was no room for error on our part—it was imperative that Daytona performed flawlessly.
And we didn’t disappoint! All required environments were set up before the event started and were ready to go. The contestants could focus on their tasks, knowing that Daytona provided them with a lag-free and standardized coding environment.
To illustrate the event and Daytona's impact, I'll leave a quote from the Code100 Amsterdam winner, Martijn Imhoff: “Daytona really sounds like something nobody knew they needed, but once they use it, they do not want to stop using it.”
Conclusion
Attending both DevWorld Conference 2024 and the Code100 Playoff in Amsterdam was an enriching experience for the Daytona team. These events allowed us to showcase Daytona’s capabilities and connect with a diverse and enthusiastic community of developers, engineers, and tech enthusiasts.
The DevWorld Conference 2024 was a resounding success, fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing, and innovation. It provided valuable insights into how our platform could be used by other businesses and developers, and reinforced the importance of staying at the forefront of the rapidly evolving tech industry.
The Code100 event demonstrated how Daytona enables developers to focus on their code by removing drawn-out processes and standardizing development environments. This high-stakes competition highlighted the benefits of standardized tools in improving performance, ensuring team alignment, security, and efficiency. It brought together coders of all levels in the spirit of learning and competition, emphasizing the importance of supporting events that foster knowledge sharing and a sense of community.
Both DevWorld and Code100 exemplify how developer-focused events can drive innovation and collaboration. These events not only allowed us to demonstrate Daytona’s potential but also reinforced the value of community and continuous learning in the tech industry. We look forward to future events and continuing our mission to support and enhance the developer experience.
