DevDay 2017 (Belo Horizonte)
As developers, we’re living in a moment that is both exciting and challenging. Broad access to information, along with a large number of emerging and consolidating technologies is making it difficult to keep up to date, at the same time it is very enjoyable. Without doubt, attending technological conferences and seminars is always a refreshing experience.
I’ve developed code for over a decade (since 2007 academically and since 2010 professionally) and over the years, I’ve noticed a lot of changes across the various development conferences I’ve attended. A few years ago, it was common to have a more commercial objective, aimed at presenting proprietary software; not to mention, the subjects used to be more homogenous, with conservative themes and technologies that had already been consolidated. Now, it’s more common to have panels with open source initiatives and a wide, diverse range of new technologies.
Last weekend (September 2), I was able to participate, both as speaker and as attendee of an event in my hometown, Belo Horizonte. The essence of DevDay — currently in its seventh edition — is to be organized by developers, for developers, with the motto “Code! Code! Code!”. The keynote was innovation and futurism, with lectures distributed across four tracks; as you can imagine, each time it was very difficult to choose only one of the four subjects being presented.
When I wasn’t presenting, I attended interesting lectures on subjects such as machine learning, kubernetes, Internet-of-Things and a very interesting open project that uses data analysis to identify suspicious behavior from Brazilian politicians, which is somewhat related to Auctus’ mission of applying technology as the solution to socioeconomic problems.
I was invited to present an introduction to blockchain technology. There were people in the audience with zero blockchain background, attracted by the recent rise of Bitcoin exposure in the Brazilian media; there were also more experienced developers that asked specific questions about smart contracts development in Solidity. In order to engage with people anywhere along the spectrum of “Blockchain knowledge”, I introduced Bitcoin, explained cryptographic hash functions and digital signatures and then presented Ethereum and smart contracts. I talked about ongoing projects being built using Ethereum’s platform and talked about the potential of decentralized applications using smart contracts. In the end, I used the online version of Remix IDE to present some simple smart contract code examples, debug the code and showing transaction outcomes. I explained some Solidity features and characteristics, such as data structures and function modifiers.
It was satisfying to have a packed room with full attention of developers from all different backgrounds (web developers, Java programmers, software architects, etc.). They were all interested in blockchain technology. It was the only lecture about blockchain during the event, so I felt it was very important to spread the word about this subject, which is by far the topic I am currently most interested in. In previous years, there were no presentations focused on blockchain technology, so this shows that interest levels around this technology amongst developers in Brazil is definitely on the rise.
Most of the Auctus Project team is composed of developers and engineers with programming experience. It is very important for us to keep in touch with the community and stay connected to our technical “roots”. We really appreciate seeing other teams from various projects on the Ethereum ecosystem, spreading the word and educating people about the technology. Because of this, we try to do the same whenever possible. As blockchain technology is still very new and relatively inaccessible to a large portion of the general public, we consider it an important and commendable responsibility to demystify some aspects of the technology and present it from a technical perspective, rather than presenting it as some magical or mysterious investment (the way it has been portrayed recently by the media). Code! Code! Code!
