The end of the HalfStack era
- 2 minsI’ve never been so sad to have a day watching fun talks, have conversations with friends, all whilst munching tasty pizza and late night bagels.
Why???
HalfStack London is fin. . . but it went out with the creative flair that I’ve come to love about Londons Tech Community. Over the past nine years, this conference has been a highlight of each and every year for a multitude of reasons.
Every talk added something to the event, with a few highlights coming via Jo Francetti, Eduardo Cardenes, Leo Rivera, Carly Richmond and Steve Goodwin. Combined, they served up sessions based around LLM assisted procedural generation, cutting edge APIs, Star Wars themed vector databases, advice on progressing through a company, with a dash of midi madness thrown in for good luck.
In all honesty, these were the standout sessions because they were the ones I caught. Every other talk would have made the list, but with so many interesting attendees to chat with, the hallway track was as popular as ever. Plans for 2026 were hatched, ideas for talks bounced around, and musical collaborations planned.
So why is this conference so special to me?
As a student, it was the first one I attended outside of the southwest and got to meet the people whose tutorials I was following. It was the conference that really sparked my love of tech events. It was a place where I got to meet future friends, collaborators, and speakers for my events. It’s the gathering that I wrote my most popular talk for, one which is still paying dividends all these years later.
It’s the event that opened my eyes to the broader tech industry beyond bashing out code.
Whilst the London outing of the conference is coming to a close. . . for now at least. . . the things it’s added to my life will remain until the end of time.
A massive thank you to Dylan for putting on the jewel in the conf crown, and for the support with various adventures over the years.