DevFest Santiago de Compostela is an event organized by the Google Developer Group (GDG) for the city Santiago de Compostela, located in Galicia, in northern Spain. I had the opportunity to attend as a speaker, giving a talk on programming and comedy—because, let’s face it, JavaScript is pretty funny.

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I’ve visited Santiago de Compostela many times, as it marks the endpoint of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, a tradition dating back to the 10th century. This city holds a special place in my heart, having completed El Camino four times (and counting) along different routes. Each journey has been deeply fulfilling in unique ways.

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When I received confirmation to speak at DevFest with my talk, “Unsustainable Code: Crafting Code to Make a Goat Vomit,” I was thrilled. However, fate seemed to have other plans. On my way from Madrid, I got an email with unexpected news.

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Receiving news of the event’s cancellation last minute was disheartening. I know firsthand the struggle of canceling an event as an organizer; having to cancel so close to the day, especially for reasons beyond your control, is challenging. Since I was already en route and had booked my stay, I decided to carry on and hope for the best.

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And then… The event went from canceled to postponed. The organization managed to find a way to keep the event on track, rescheduling and re-organizing the talks so most of them could be held in one day instead of two. Props to the organization, their hard work and efforts made sure that the event was a total success!

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The event is self-organized from students of the university with support from the Google Developer Group (GDG) organization. I think it’s a great way to get experience organizing tech events with the financial and organizational support from Google. This initiative is present in hundreds of cities around the world, bringing together small communities and providing an engaging environment to develop ideas and connect with people that share the same passion about technology.

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Speaker’s dinner

Although the first day of the event was canceled, we still had the speakers’ and organizers’ dinner. This is always one of my favorite parts of attending events as a speaker. It’s wonderful to share a meal with people from all over the world who share a passion for technology and community. You get to network with people from different backgrounds, working for different companies, and you always find synergies and topics to discuss.

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Talks

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The next day, I headed to the Higher Technical School of Engineering, USC, for the four-hour event. I attended four different talks by six speakers in the university’s auditorium.

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The first talk was about creating a study buddy using AI, a novel approach to studying that showcased the benefits of applying large language models to learn various topics. The application allows users to upload a range of documents, training the model to answer questions by referencing sources within those documents. The speakers, a couple named Sara and Christian, were using this tool to help Sara study psychology more effectively. I had met them at Codemotion Madrid 2024, where they gave another talk on AI.

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The second talk, by Sara’s sister Inés, introduced VOGAL, a platform she created to help preserve the Galician language by providing movies and TV shows in Galician. This talk was a reminder of how technology can support important causes with a positive impact on society.

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The next talk focused on using AI to facilitate conversations between clients and technical and non-technical roles, enabling more clear and effective communication. The speaker, David Martínez is also the organizer of GDG Ponferrada!

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David Puente gave the next talk, about creating robust code using best practices like DevSecOps and CI/CD in order to make your application safer and protect it from hackers.

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The last talk was mine, it’s a talk that I originally gave almost 2 years ago in JSDay Canarias. It’s a talk that I always have fun giving. In this talk, using satyre, I give clear examples on how to create bad code or introduce bad practices in your applications. Because if only you know what the code does, then they cannot fire you. This talk also opened the opportunity to write a book using the same idea, which will be published shortly. I think humor can be used in a didactic way to have fun while learning.

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The event was a great reminder that there’s people in the tech community that are all about creating spaces to share and learn. It doesn’t matter if the event has thousands of attendees or just a handful, to me the spirit is the same, and that’s my takeaway from GDG Santiago de Compostela.

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About the author

César is a Senior Front-end Architect & Software Crafter from Spain with over 10 years of experience. Freelancer obsessed with best practices, architecture and testing.

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As an international speaker and Digital Nomad, he shares my tech adventures around the world. Active in the Codemotion community as a committee member and ambassador. Host of Colivers Club Podcast. Check out his website for more information.

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