This year I've decided to storm the conferences as a speaker, since I have no experience of storming it in a different way. I really have never been to IT conferences as a regular participant. There are several reasons for this, but it’s not the topic of the article.
At the conference, I talked about what GraphQL is like under a high load, compared to the good old REST. As a result, we came to the conclusion that GraphQL itself poses some problems in standard “from textbook” cases, but in real life you can achieve a really very powerful increase in speed and ease of development from it. More details can be seen in the video of my report, which will be a little lower.
Road to Novosibirsk
I’m not a fan wasting money - if there is a way to spend less money without much damage to myself - I choose this method. Therefore the road from Ramenskoye to Novosibirsk cost me exactly 125.75 rubles, namely:
- 60.75 rubles - a trip by train from Ramenskoye to New Station
- 38 rubles - a trip by metro from Aviamotornaya Station to the River Station
- 0 rubles - a trip from Rechnoy Vokzal metro station to Sheremetyevo Airport
- 27 rubles - a bus from Tolmachevo airport to the SkyExpo hotel
The flight and the hotel were kindly paid by the conference organizer. A bus is a great way to get to the airport, and most importantly it’s cheap. In my case, it turned out to be free just because the bus was so clogged that I couldn’t reach the card reader and nobody helped me (so I had to go for free). My departure was at 6 o’clock in the morning and, therefore, I got to the airport at night by night bus N1, which goes from Kitai Gorod to terminal D.
When I got to the airport, I went a rather long way to terminal B, where I checked in and started waiting my departure. At 2.25 p.m. local time I had already been at Tolmachevo airport, where, 15 minutes after boarding, I got into a bus, paid 27 rubles to the controller and in 20 minutes got to the expocenter and the adjacent SkyExpo hotel.
Day 1. Novosibirsk and the weather
After setting in the hotel, I went to Novosibirsk to buy a charger (to go to Siberia and not take a charge - it’s ingenious) and see something interesting. I bought a charger, had lunch and... it started to rain. Moreover, the rain became heavy and I went back to the hotel. I moved everywhere exclusively by a public transport - a bus fare costs 22 rubles, and a minibus 30.
Back to the hotel, I decided to devote the evening to prepare a report for the next day run-through.
Day 2. The Run-through, a walk and the preparty
I foolishly hadn’t set my alarm and woke up at 8.50 a.m., 10 minutes before my run-through. Having applied all the skills of fast dressing, after 10 minutes I was already on the run-through. Runs are not quick and the lack of breakfast in the stomach could upset my body. So I asked for a breakfast. At breakfast I met with the host who led RITFest2019, where I also took part in (https://youtu.be/iiI5L6b0Uvo). After nice conversation and meal, I went to the run-through.
After my run-through and listening to other participants’ run-throughs I went again to the city and did it again by bus. This time I planned to see something that usually interested me in cities. No, that’s either excursions nor museums. This time I had chosen the thing that is constantly surround us – a transport. Nowadays, we are all tied to transport and it is incredibly interesting for me to see how the «circulatory system» works in other cities.
Metro
I began my journey from the Marx Square station. I really like to peer to things that are different from Moscow’s lifestyle, and here the first thing I meet is turnstiles. They are old-styled (that beat without pity) and they open by subway tokens... and PayPass, Google Pay, Apple Pay…
That is, to get to the Novosibirsk metro you do not need to have anything but a phone with Google Pay or just a credit card. No “Troyka” cards or other season tickets needed. I heard that in Moscow this is only being introduced, and in Novosibirsk, as one passenger of the train assured me, it had become a usual thing.
After the turnstiles, I immediately appeared on the platform and I was cordially greeted by a train of four cars (usually 8 in Moscow).
Having reached the river station, I went to the train stop. There are things that differ from our trains.
Trains
The first thing that catches your eye is low platforms. I have already managed to get used to the fact that the floor of the train is on the same level with the platform and there is no need to proudly climb the stairs of the train. I did not have to wait long for a suitable example - there were old women who found it difficult to quickly get into the train and cyclists who had to quickly pick up several bicycles to the car. This is definitely less convenient. The cars themselves are much more modern from the outside - on our Kazan branch, such cars travel only with expensive express trains – without tambour crossings and quiet running.
After I had reached a stop near the Bugrinsky bridge, I decided to walk on this bridge. For many people, this will be obvious, but I noticed that the bridge is constantly moving. I could even say staggering. I traveled on road bridges only by car and therefore didn’t know that he could stagger. Useless information, but curious.
After the bridge, I walked along the small streets with private houses and reached the bus stop, where I got in a trolleybus. I reached the "Marx Square" metro station again and went to the meeting place with the conference organizers, other speakers and activists.
Other details. Prices, traffic lights, etc
Prices for services are noticeably lower. The banner "men's haircut from 400 rubles" turns into a "men's haircut from 1200 rubles" in Moscow. And such difference with almost all types of services.
Some traffic lights work inappropriately. At first I thought that it was the driver who didn't stop on the red light, but it turned out that I had a green pedestrian traffic light, and the driver at the same time had the right arrow green light. I have not seen this for a long time.
By the way, there are traffic lights even on very small exits from the yards.
Preparty and food
I haven’t been a speaker in many places so far, but I can already understand that (http://ontico.ru) is very cool at organizing a preparty for speakers. This time we were fed in the «Siberia» restaurant. The meal was quite interesting - at first, as usual, salads and so on.
Then the local cuisine came into play - a raw food. Of course, I refused the first course of a raw fish. But when they gradually were bringing more and more raw dishes, I started trying it with everyone. It turned out to be almost tasteless, but the realize that you eat raw food gives you a thrill.
After the raw food, traditional dumplings and barbecue were brought. I went to the hotel as full as possible 🙂 Everything was delicious and beautiful, as usual.
During the preparty I managed to communicate with very interesting people. For example, Alexander Makarov, the core developer of the Yii2 framework, using which we have made the vast majority of APIs in projects. In general, such prepaties - an infinitely useful process from all sides - you eat tasty food, communicate with interesting people and learn a lot of new things!
Day 3. Highload Siberia and the road to the south
Stands, preparation for the report and the report itself
Waking up, I went to the hall of the conference. There were a lot of people and there were, in my opinion, more stands than at RITFest (which seemed strange to me). After going through all the stands, collecting various gifts and stuff, I went to get ready for my presentation. As usual, I felt anxiety an hour before my speech, but I tried not to show it... even to myself)
By tradition, I came to listen the presentation before my speech. The presentation was about machine learning - interesting and fun. Unfortunately that the topic is quite far (so far) from the field of Wormsoft. So a lot of things were not clear to me, but it was interesting to listen.
After the previous performance, the hall was empty and the final 15 minutes began before my speech. I was prepared for the report by presenter. I took a couple of different selfies and started to wait for my time to present.
The report itself was, as for me, pretty good. With the exception of one thing - the terrible drug word "WELL". Our motion designer immediately made a short video for instagram on this subject (https://www.instagram.com/p/BzLeYVAFogE). If interested, you can watch the recording of the speech right here or on youtube (https://youtu.be/_L_2HNXrTbI).
After the performance I was immediately taken to an interview. In the interview I told (https://youtu.be/pps9ua-IOMA) what my company is doing and answered questions specifically about GraphQL and its comparison with the REST API. Of course, I didn’t forget to often say the word “well”)) After answering all the questions, I started to get ready and faced with a problem.
Having collected all the things that I came with, I faced with the fact that there are still things that have appeared, namely gifts from stands and gifts from the organizer of the conference. If gifts from the stands could be held in hand luggage, then it is impossible to carry honey, jam and balm into hand luggage according to safety rules. Therefore, I had to take the usual cardboard box from the organizers and put everything in the box to place to the plane’s luggage compartment. I did not know earlier that handles are necessary for luggage that’s why I had to make a handles out of tape.
I had two flights - from Novosibirsk to Anapa with a transfer to Sheremetyevo. Everything went right, except that I was almost late for the plane from Sheremetyevo because of my stupidity. But still I wasn’t late.
I had been met in Anapa and I went to rest with my son, first we were in Taman, and then in the Crimea. There will be a separate post about this, because there is also something to tell.
