Last week, I attended two conferences in Wrocław: WROC# and, the following day, BoilingFrogs.
WROC#
WROC# has established a strong and recognizable presence in Poland, particularly within the .NET community. To the best of my knowledge, this was its fifth edition.
Over time, WROC# has undergone changes. The organizing committee has evolved (and is expected to change slightly again), bringing fresh ideas into the mix. What I particularly appreciated this year was the breadth of topics covered in the presentations. We had sessions on Kubernetes, AI, Continuous Delivery, DevOps, DDD, and more. I got the impression that these subjects represent the essential building blocks of a well-rounded software engineer. Perhaps algorithms and data structures could also be included in the future.
BoilingFrogs
BoilingFrogs (BF) has achieved a cult-like status and is considered by many to be the best conference in Poland. What I genuinely appreciate about BF is its technical diversity. Attendees include developers working with PHP, Java, C#, and many other languages. It was an excellent opportunity to exchange experiences, challenges, and ideas across different ecosystems (or “silos,” as I might call them).
BF featured three tracks. The main room (Audytorium) focused on topics I was already familiar with, so I didn’t find it particularly engaging—though the Gerontologia kodu session was fresh and innovative! Instead, I spent time networking :) Hala Stulecia is a fantastic venue for that. I had an especially interesting discussion about building MVPs—with or without tests and infrastructure setup from day one.
My thoughts
Reflecting on the MVP Summit and comparing it with these conferences, I have mixed feelings. There’s an overrepresentation of DDD-related content, a surplus of basic soft skills talks, and too many sessions based on generic use cases. On the other hand, there’s a noticeable lack of innovative content :(. I deeply respect the experts from Bottega and admire their work, but sometimes it’s refreshing to explore different perspectives :)
Friends
