Huge LAST Conference 2018 update

Posted on June 21, 2018 Updated on July 14, 2018

LAST Conference MEL Sessions Announced

If you’re the kind of person who wants to know what is on the program of LAST before you register, head over to ConfEngine to see the Accepted Sessions for LAST Conf MEL. You can also see the latest version of the Schedule Grid.

A large percentage of sessions will be run on both days, so you will have a second chance to catch a session, if it clashes on the other day. We’re playing tetris with the timetable right now, but should be finished in the next few days.

A lot of Registrations have already been snapped up. Hurry, we always sell out, so don’t miss out and…

Agile Developer Immersions (formerly Coderetreat)

We’ve run Developer sessions inspired by the Coderetreat format for a couple of years now. In 2018, we are back with not one, but two sessions and we’ve changed their name. We have felt that it’s Important to support learning in technical disciplines that are extremely important in agile software development.

Each session will be lead by three highly experienced senior technical leads/developers AND only cost $120.

The Immersions will run concurently on Thursday 19 July. Following the opening session, the Immersions will take the remainder of the day, with breaks synchronised with the main conference. This includes the opening keynote of the conf, breaks and lunch, plus drinks sponsored by Reece Tech, at the end of the day. If you wish to come on Friday, so you can catch some of the sessions in the main schedule, then please purchase a Friday only registration…you won’t pay more than if you got a 2 day rego to the main conference!.

The sessions will be:

Agile Developer Immersion – Fundamentals – Run by Sue Davidson, Supriya Joshi and Michelle Gleeson, it’s a beginner friendly, intensive practice event for developers, inspired by the Coderetreat movement. It focuses on the fundamentals of software development and design, including pair programming, test-driven development, OO and functional programming techniques, and new languages. Practicing the basic principles of modular and object-oriented design, developers can improve their ability to write code that minimizes the cost of change over time. It is suitable for those who have already attended similar sessions as we will be creating a tenpin bowling scorer rather than solving Game Of Life.
Agile Developer Immersion – Refactoring – Lead by Victoria Schiffer, Tomasz Janowski and Dan Prager, this is a Refactoring Developer workshop. Too many Agile and DevOps initiatives are stymied by code bases that are hard to change and understand. While disciplined teams who rigorously practice pair programming, test-driven design (TDD) and other technical Agile practices avoid producing new legacy code in the first place, cleaning up a pre-existing mess is notoriously difficult and dangerous. Without the safety net of excellent automated test coverage, the risk of breaking something else as you refactor is extremely high. In the Refactoring workshop developers learn how to build an initial safety net before applying multiple refactorings, and have lots of fun along the way!As with regular code retreat, we will practice pair-programming, rotate pairs, and continue to practice rigorous unit test automation, and share our learnings. Unlike regular code retreat you do not have to delete your code at the end of each sprint, and the TDD cycle is a bit more relaxed

Students and under-represented community members

We will soon be inviting applications for a number of free seats for students and under-represented members of our community. Please check our Tweets and your inbox for details of how to apply.

We have t-shirts!

As you know, we shy away from swag and don’t include the cost of a conference t-shirt in your registration. However, we do have a t-shirt available for you to buy on our Redbubble page. Returning for 2017, Bruce Taylor has designed an old school arcade game design inspired by the theme of “Level Up”.

Choose from 3 design variations:

Single Arcade Game

Hot Pink

Warholian

Also:

MEL edition poster/wall art

LAST Conf MEL Agile Band Charity gig

We are massively excited to announce that for the first time, LAST Conference will be hosting a number of bands from the amazing Battle of the Agile Bands. In case you don’t know, this charity fundraising event has run since 2013 and is organised by Nigel Dalton and Tammy Tantschev.

We thought, “Why practice so hard to only play on one night at the BotAB?”. So we are having an encore performance from some of the fabulous bands from the competition. The pressure will be off and they can have even more fun, and so can you. Bands playing are REA’s Hot Property (2017 champions), as well as The Manifesto (Common Code), Sparkle Motion (Thoughtworks), The Accounting Crows (MYOB), and Papercut

It will be a separately ticketed event, after the main conference drinks on Friday 20 July, and held in the band venue Untz Untz, which is above the drinks venue.

We’ll be giving proceeds to the fantastic Flying Robot School, a not-for-profit run by members of our LAST community, Pete Cohen and Paula Ngov (as well as Daryl Wilding-McBride)). FRS teach children in country areas STEM skills, by taking drones out to their schools and teaching them how to program and fly them.

Get a gig ticket

The LAST Conference band night will be a huge knees up to celebrate the agile community in Melbourne, and close LASTconf in style. It is going to be AMAZING!