I was excited to attend the CodeLand Conf 2021. It’s a conference for new developers that was held online on September 23-24, 2021. Even though I am not a brand new developer, it was a great experience.
I discovered it while listening to the Code Newbie podcast. It was organized by Code Newbie and Dev.to. It was really easy to register for and they let you decide how much you want to pay for attendance. You can even register for free!
It was a good conference for people who have been learning to code. They didn’t get into how to start training to become a developer, so it wasn’t targeted at complete newbies. As someone who has some experience writing software, I was able to find value, especially in the CSS and accessibility talks.
The conference was remote-only for the second year, due to the pandemic. It included features to make it interactive and encourage networking. Though there was some interaction, it was limited to comments — there were no direct messages or live chat rooms.
Most of the talks had their own web page, where you could post comments or questions. The presenters responded and gave written answers in the comments. There were also live panel discussions where the presenters answered those questions in streaming videos. The presentations covered topics like feedback, coding for good, new developer experience, imposter syndrome, web accessibility, equity and diversity, mentors, learning in public, CSS, contributing to open source, problem solving, documentation. The presentations are available on a Code Newbie YouTube playlist, but it’s better to access them from the conference website, which has a page dedicated to each presentation that includes the video plus slides, notes, and a conversation thread.
The keynotes, panel discussions, and lightning talks are not available separately but you can find them within the 6-hour videos, which are also posted to the conference page (or also on the Code Newbie YouTube).
On a personal note, I was able to post comments to some presentations during the original broadcast and my questions were answered around 4:13:00 and 4:56:00 of the day 2 videos.
In summary, I have to give kudos to the Code Newbie team for generously putting together this valuable resource, at an amazing price (FREE!). Like everything in life, some things could have been better. Considering how accessible it was, and the quality of the presentations, attending was a great experience and worth the time.
