Attending conferences

Geertjan Wielenga: Was your introduction to traveling to conferences via Heinz's JCrete unconference?

Rabea Gransberger: Yes, in 2011 I was invited by Heinz and did travel to the first JCrete unconference.

There I got in touch with other developers who traveled to conferences. They were always asking, "Why don't you go to conferences as well and give a talk?"

I would reply, "But I don't have any ideas for talks because what I do at work is in a very specialized domain."

I didn't think that a talk that I gave would be interesting for the outside world. When you completely understand what you're doing, you feel that it's very boring and nobody else could possibly be interested.

My first talk was at EclipseCon Europe in 2012, which I did with a coworker of mine. That came about because we attended one of the Eclipse demo camps that are held when some new Eclipse version is released.

One evening, we were traveling...