Joining the Vue.js Community: Reflections on my First VueConfUS

Hello, Friends!

If you’re a Vue developer, attending this year’s VueConf US in New Orleans was a no-brainer. And seeing as I am a Vue developer, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Being surrounded by so many other developers who shared my passion for great code & reusable components was fantastic. This was my first developers conference, and as a primarily creative/ design focused developer, I was worried about fitting in with other developers. I'll be sharing my reflections on VueConf and how I plan on taking advantage of this new community moving forward.

As a newer developer, and as a human in the current timeline, there haven’t been as many opportunities to attend conferences for our team. Between COVID and our merger last year, the stars didn’t align correctly to give us the time or safety for a conference. David, our CTO and fellow Vue fan, had been to several conferences and felt confident that I would be just fine. Turns out he was right, because I had a blast!

Here’s a short breakdown of all of the things that I loved and things I didn’t love this year at VueConf US:

Loved -

• Going to a workshop the day before! Because I am a creative; I barely skim the surface of Vue’s functionality, instead I mainly focus on the styling of components in reference to the overall design. My “Getting Started with Vue” workshop (Led by the brilliant Adam Jahr of vuemastery.com) was a perfect fit for getting comfortable with more of the complex “basic” features of Vue and bringing my focus back on being a developer and out of the design.

• Getting to connect with so many incredible developers. Everyone I met was kind and genuinely interested in what Gearbox does & how we utilize good tech - and everyone really seemed to embody the collaborative developer spirit. Tips & tricks were shared, problems were solved - it was beautiful.

• The location - HELLO, It’s New Orleans!

• How many folks were focused on accessibility! Great technology changes lives! We need to use good semantics in our html to make sure we’re making it easy for ALL bodies to use.

• Watching our CTOs lightning talk about how we used Jamstack & Nuxt on our website!

Didn’t love - 

• Not knowing what to expect was really and truly the thing I liked the least about my experience. Once I arrived and got into the workshop, I really felt at ease with the people and the entire conference.

• Networking - it’s hard! Many of us in the tech industry work remotely and for those of us that don't get out much, the thought of having to talk to so many people can be overwhelming. I found it was really helpful when I got a bit overwhelmed to utilize conference breaks by:

  • Drinking water instead of caffeine

  • Standing up & wandering a bit - movement helps to calm the nerves.

  • Finding a familiar face to chat with or just telling one of the speakers they did a great job. I find that showing gratitude to others helps to put me at ease.

• I would’ve loved to see more UX/UI presentations or had a deep dive session on accessibility. As a front end developer, I frequently found myself a bit lost during some of the back-end heavy presentations.

• Some of the presentations needed some design love. A lot of slides were hard to read / follow  because they were walls of tiny text.

How would I rate my first conference?

Between the beignets, the fabulous hotel, and the new friends that I made in New Orleans - I give VueConfUS 2023 a full five stars. I also found that the smaller size of the conference gave me a chance to be myself and truly get to know so many other fabulous devs in a way that wouldn’t have been possible at a bigger venue.

If we connected at the conference and didn’t get a chance to exchange info - use our handy contact form to send me a message! Even if we didn’t connect and you just liked my newbie recap, give us a shout. We’d love to talk with you about your next Vue / web project.