My name is Parth Upadhyay and I’m a Server Side Engineer on the LINE Shop Team, currently working in Fukuoka. I had the chance to attend our most recent Developer Meetup in Osaka, see some presentations by LINE Engineers, and connect with the developer community there. Today I'd like to share some of what was discussed and my general impressions from the meetup.
Session Overview
The theme of this meetup was mobile, and we had engineers from across the stack give presentations about things they have been exploring or working.
1. New Java Things Mobile Developers Should Know - Kishida Naoki
Structured as a journey through time, Kishida gave us a brief overview of the relationship between Java and Mobile Development, starting back as early as 1992 with Green Project, going on to Java’s relationship with Android, and even covering newer mobile frameworks in Java. As a newer developer, it was interesting to learn about the evolution of the relationship between Java and Mobile.
2. Let’s Have a Look at Apple’s Metal Framework - Freddy Vogel
Apple’s Metal Framework gives “near-direct” access to the IPhone’s GPU, allowing developers to maximize performance of their graphic or computation-intensive applications. In this session, Freddy took us on a whirlwind tour through a history of coding for the GPU on iPhones, and introduced Metal and how to use it. As someone without a lot of exposure to mobile development, it was interesting to learn about this perspective.
3. Create Your Own DSL With Kotlin - Freddie Wang
Kotlin has seen a surge in popularity recently, including its support by Google as an official language for Android Development. In this session, Freddie gave us an introduction to making DSLs in Kotlin and where they can be used. Kotlin is being used by many Android teams at LINE, and some server-side teams (including mine!) are also starting to try it out, so this talk was particularly interesting and relevant for me.
Post-event Networking
With equal importance to our presentations, there was time before and after where participants and LINE Engineers had the chance to meet one another and network. This would, of course, not be complete without food and beer.
It was the first developer meetup I'd attended since I joined the company, and I was surprised most by the wide range of backgrounds of the attendees of the meetup. There was everyone from veteran engineers, to new grads to first year college students studying engineering. It was a good chance to meet and connect with other developers, and learn more about their backgrounds! I used to work in California as a Software Engineer, and attended meetups periodically there as well, but it was really interesting for me particularly to meet other developers here in Japan, and learn more about their backgrounds and experiences, and see the ways in which this environment is both similar and different to the environment I was used to in America.
LINE hosts developer meetups periodically in Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Tokyo, and even overseas! Follow our blog to keep up with the latest events.
Also, we're hiring! Please check out our careers page for more information