My trip to the first Qt World Summit

published at 08.10.2015 21:55 by Jens Weller
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I visited my 4th C++ related conference this year, the Qt World Summit, the successor of the QtDevDays. Its the first event I visit, where I don't have a talk, except a lightning talk on integrating TinyMCE in QWebView. At the event I also could meet up with the second keynote speaker, Lars Knoll, who will give this years closing keynote. The details will be soon(TM) announced! Being in Berlin, gave me the opportunity to combine my visit with also making plans and meeting important people for Meeting C++ 2015, which is less then 2 month away.

Some of those people also attend the Qt World Summit, there is small, but important share between both conferences. Yet the Qt conference seems to attract a different audience from the Qt and C++ worlds, then the mainly C++ focused conferences like my own, but also C++Now or CppCon do. The QtDevDays have their own unique history, featuring a mix of C++, Business, Linux/KDE and a focus on multi-platform applications.

While the last 3 QtDevDays in Berlin were organized by KDAB, this time the Qt Company(aka Digia) was responsible for the event. The only noticeable difference was the new name though, the event was in the same place as last year, the BCC at Alexander Platz.

The event started with the keynotes, which went on for 3 hours. This is a difference to other events, the keynotes at the Qt event go for a certain time, but don't focus on a single speakers, you are watching a show about Qt. There usually is a non Qt-related speaker, this year this was the part on BigData, and some shorter talks either solutions build with Qt or new features/offerings in Qt. This year (for the first time?), the keynotes were also live streamed. For me as a developer, the keynotes reflected that the event isn't named Developer Days anymore, while it was interesting to see Qt in automotive and on smart TVs, I would have loved to also see a more technical, and Qt developer focused part in the keynote.

After the keynotes, the first day continued with lunch followed by the talks, which traditionally are a mix of technical and non technical talks. One focus of the conference was automotive, also embedded is a very hot topic in Qt. So you could see many of these talks, focusing on Qt and embedded, mobile or automotive. QML and touch based applications are a very important topic in Qt. Last year there also were talks on the ecosystem of Qt and security, I missed these topics/talks this year.

Before the second day, there was the party in the evening. A chance to socialize and have a few drinks. I had some interesting conversations on Qt, C++ and other, non technical topics. A very enjoyable evening. Yet this made the second day harder then expected. Maybe this is also because I'm still a bit jet lagged from CppCon.

So, entering the second day, I had that weird thought that Thiago would do a talk. Due to my hang over I wasn't sure, if I had dreamed that, or not. I hadn't spotted him at the conference the day before. I know Thiago talked on this topic last year, so I really was confused. Until I saw that he really seemed to give a similar talk to last year in the first slot of the day. The room was already very crowded, and Thiago directly announced at the beginning, that he would present almost the same talk as last year. So I decided to go ahead and see the two half hour sessions on the Qt Installer and QtCreator Wizards instead.

The second day offered a lot of C++ content, and had very good sessions, with "Effective Qt" there was even a session which will also be at Meeting C++ this year. Later, there was a half hour session, that was a talk last year at Meeting C++: value classes in Qt by Marc Mutz. In between was a very good talk on reactive programming by Ivan Cukic, which will also speak at Meeting C++ this year. Both speakers mentioned Meeting C++ in their slides, Ivan even did quote Hartmut Kaisers keynote from last year. This was a first, seeing Meeting C++ being referenced on slides and explicitly mentioned by speakers. Thanks!

Overall, the second day was full of C++ focused sessions, but also offered content on platforms or how to contribute to Qt. There were no keynotes, the conference ended with raffling prices from sponsors off to the audience. Then, there was it again, the "wait, thats already it?" feeling, the Qt World Summit ended, as in the previous years, it went by way to fast. The new name, World Summit hints at that the event will not be in Berlin next year, but I have not seen any announcements or heard of any plans where it is next year.

In conclusion, I had lots of fun in Berlin, saw many Qt related people, had the chance to finalize plannings for my own conference and enjoy my 4th and last conference to attend in this year. The 5th conference will be my own, looking forward to see some of you in Berlin in a few weeks!

Also, as I bricked my two other phones just before CppCon, I had only my N9 to take pictures and tweet at the event, so also here, no pictures. The N9 camera is good, but not good enough anymore...

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