I attended an ng-conf 2023 workshop online - Was it worth it?

Two weeks ago, the “World’s Original Angular Conference” was held in Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

Well, that’s a fancy way of saying ng-conf 2023. 😅 

I would have loved to attend the conference in person, but for various reasons, I couldn’t. (hint: travel and accommodation expenses)

Then I thought, why not attend a session online?

Now, as far as I know, a lot of the general sessions are eventually published on YouTube. That’s why I decided to attend one of the workshops.

Here are my thoughts and takeaways.

Choosing a workshop

A workshop should either teach you something new or improve your current knowledge.

There were 8 workshops to choose from — half of them on “Day 1” and the other half on “Day 2”.

I noticed that on “Day 1” workshops were more beginner-friendly, while “Day 2” had workshops about more advanced topics — probably a convention they have.

Workshop descriptions have the topics that will be covered. This helped me eliminate a lot of options. However, one or two descriptions had me having second thoughts.

My goal was to learn something new. Paying to listen to stuff I already know would be a bummer.

In any case, picking a workshop about performance optimization from “Day 2” seemed like the safest option — which is what I did.

The outcome?

I was surprised in a good way and learned a lot of new things.

Quality of the workshop

I want to focus on two points here — the material and the delivery.

The material was top-notch. We were given access to everything — from presentation slides to source code.

This was actually meant for more than one session, but the instructor did his best so that we can get the most out of a single session. 🙏

Delivery was excellent.

The instructor was friendly and humorous while maintaining a professional level.

Apart from the great presentation, he answered all of our questions (which were quite a lot).

In case you are wondering, the workshop I attended was “Performance at Scale High-Speed Angular Applications On Any Device” by Michael Hladky.

Simply put, it exceeded my expectations.

Overall organization and support

Regarding online attendance, the procedures were simple and effective — ng-conf is well organized on this part.

Support was also very good — a dedicated panelist supervised our session. The panelist transferred our questions to the instructor, posted the links to the respective material, and helped the participants with technical issues.

The session was recorded and a link was sent to us the next day.

Can’t recall some of the details?

Did something unexpected happen? (e.g. network issues)

Fear not!

You can re-watch the recording for a limited time (30 days from the day they send you the link).

Engagement and interaction

Finally, I want to cover one last thing so you have the whole picture and know what to expect.

If you enjoy engaging and interacting with other people, you may feel a bit left out. Like you are missing part of the fun — and truth be told, you do!

Yes, the panelist will transfer your questions.

Yes, the instructor will answer them.

But, it’s a different story being there in person.

I was very much aware of this — it was a conscious decision. Because I’m used to the whole remote thing, I didn’t mind.

Conclusion

Attending a workshop online was a great experience. Not as great as being there in person, but still a good one.

The topics fueled my interest to study and learn even more on my own.

A lot of the things we learned apply not just to Angular projects but to web applications in general.

It was definitely worth it!

Thanks for reading.