of Community Feeling

What would Umbraco be withough its community events? Every year, Codegarden attracts hundrets of developers, there are meet-ups and festivals in various places. And in the last years, there have also been more and more exclusive developer events initiated by the creative community. One of them: “Codecabin” to which byte5 developer Marcel Wege was invited this year. In our interview, he shares what he experienced at this England event.

What made you apply to Codecabin?

The idea mostly originated from my first participation at Codegarden where I got to know the Umbraco community for the first time. I learned about Codecabin then, which is a yearly metting of Umbraco developers in/at an English cottage. This personal setting made participating appealing to me, as well as the fact that England is a very successful market for Umbraco so a lot of knowledge would get together at this event.

Only 20 developers can participate, you were the only German.

The majority of participants was actually from Great Britain, just like the initiators of the event – Lee Kelleher and Matt Brailsford, who have been solid pillars in the community for years now, not only in the British one. In addition, there was a Dutch person, a Swede, a Dane and me, who all made the event a tad more international.

20 developers, three days, many ideas: How do you come up with a good programme at such an event?

Codecabin is mostly an un-conference and is deeply rooted in the Umbraco spirit which is a most interesting mix. It is essentially about the people, getting to know each other and exchanging experiences. Of course, on the first evening, we created a supporting programme where we suggested topics and democratically decided on some of them as a group. From this, the programme emerged which consisted of four sessions of discussion a day. For example, one of the main topics was the issue of security, which plays a role on various levels. It is highly exciting to interact with experienced developers and talk about your own experiences, even though a hackathon would have provided more technical depth in the short amount of time we had – which would have been rather the idea I had in mind.

Especially comparing to Codegarden where hundreds of developers gather, events such as Codecabin have a much more intimate setting. What makes this concept so special?

The mix of a clear concept and the general Umbraco community’s mindset makes events such as Codecabin one that has no equal amongst similar events. Right after arriving and the first encounter with the others, there was a homey and family feeling which lead to the participants wearing track-suit bottoms and pyjama bottoms and t-shirts all weekend long. A friendly togetherness dominates Codecabin and it was – certainly not only for me as a newbie – an exciting experience.