After the first-ever Mobile DevOps Summit
My reflections on Bitrise's 2022 event as well as top picks.
Originally published on my blog, kubilayerdogan.net. Cover image generated by DALL·E 3. Unfortunately, the event website is no longer available, so I had to remove broken links.
Last week, I attended Bitrise's Mobile DevOps Summit 2022. It was a one-day virtual event packed with dozens of talks from people worldwide. As someone who has spent more than ten years in mobile development and has a full-stack background, let me start by appreciating the notion of "Mobile DevOps" and Bitrise for taking it seriously. If I'm being honest, there were times in my career when the usual DevOps felt like force-fitting for the mobile, and it's great to see the shift in how the industry is approaching mobile-related operations nowadays.
Before sharing my picks below, I'll say a few words about the event. When I saw the agenda for the first time, with 25-minute back-to-back talks within almost 8 hours and in parallel, I wasn't expecting to survive after the first half. Things played out quite nicely for me, and I think the credit goes both to the speakers for preparing their talks short and concisely as well as to the moderators for being mindful of the time. Although sometimes the talks were just cut off after the 25-minute remark, there was usually enough time to wrap things up.
Here are my top 3 from the event
#1 - Best Practices in Automated Testing by Ron Diamond
Ever since I started to feel like getting a grasp of BDD and its potential, I never stopped thinking about the ways of implementing it. I believe it's a never-ending process - there's no one-size-fits-all way of doing it, and that's the exciting part. But what are some practices to apply on the fundamentals to make your life much easier as you invest more time on the upper layers of your test suite? Look nowhere else because this talk will give you lots of food for thought.
Bonus material: Blog post by the author
#2 - The Journey to Weekly Releases at eBay by Wyatt Webb
There are many "easier said than done" things in software engineering. The release process is one of them.
Have you ever worked on a project where you built the right thing, you built it well and it works and everyone's happy, you pop the cork in the champagne and then you find out that it's not going to be deployed for three months?
If you want to know what situation your company is in, try to deploy "hello world" and see how long it takes.
Talk by J.B. Rainsberger - The Economics of Software Design
Okay, this talk might not be about the example I quoted above, but I don't think it's too far away as it's for shortening the release cycle. How easy is it to reduce your release cycle by one day? Maybe fairly. Two days? What about three? If you are releasing bi-weekly, then what about cutting it in half!?
So, what I liked about Wyatt Webb's speech is that it's not a concept; it's a demonstration and an aftermath. I believe there's a lot to learn there, but thankfully for us, from the easy way.
#3 - Level up your CI for iOS and macOS by Philipp Hofmann
Can you avoid discussing automation and optimization in a DevOps event hosted by a CI/CD platform? (Why would you, anyway) This one is a bit more technical and iOS/macOS oriented - Philipp impressed me with great tips and tricks for getting the best out of Apple frameworks for your CI.
Bonus material: The decks
And finally...
Here are some other talks I enjoyed - I hope there's something for you!
How KPIs can drive your mobile CI transformation project by Jane McKay
Native development without double cost by Ivo Jansch
Analyzing iOS apps at scale by Phillip Tennen
Embracing Go for Mobile DevOps by Sameer More and Jamal Rogers