Conference Report #

Droidcon London 2017 took place on 26–27 October at the Business Design Centre in Islington and once again brought together a large part of the international Android community. With speakers from Google, Square, Uber, SoundCloud, and many other companies, the conference delivered two days packed with Android engineering, architecture discussions, tooling, and plenty of humor.

Having already attended Droidcon London before, expectations were high. Fortunately, the conference largely delivered again.

Venue and Atmosphere #

The conference took place at the Business Design Centre in London, which provided multiple stages, sponsor areas, demo zones, and social spaces.

Compared to many smaller Android conferences, Droidcon London felt much more international and professional. Developers from all over Europe attended, and the event had a strong community atmosphere despite its size.

One memorable detail was the drone area in the main hall, where drones were flying around during breaks and demonstrations. There were also Android Things showcases, including IoT demos and experimental hardware projects.

The overall atmosphere felt energetic and playful, which matched the Android community quite well at the time.

Keynotes #

Android: A Retrospective – Chet Haase & Romain Guy #

One of the highlights of the conference was the opening keynote by Chet Haase and Romain Guy from Google.

The talk looked back at Android’s history and evolution, covering:

• old UI components
• animation issues in early Android versions
• strange historical APIs
• lessons learned from Android framework development

The presentation was both technical and entertaining. Chet and Romain had excellent stage chemistry and mixed engineering insights with humor in a way that made the keynote extremely engaging.

Compared to many modern conference talks that focus heavily on marketing or trends, this felt refreshingly authentic and deeply connected to Android engineering itself.

Developers Are Users Too – Florina Muntenescu #

Another standout keynote came from Florina Muntenescu, who focused on API design and developer experience.

The talk emphasized that developers are also users and that APIs should be designed with usability in mind. Topics included:

• consistent parameter ordering
• avoiding overly complicated interfaces
• testing APIs before release
• understanding developers’ mental models

It was a practical reminder that good engineering is not just about functionality, but also about usability and maintainability.

Sinking Your Teeth Into Bytecode – Jake Wharton #

The closing keynote by Jake Wharton explored what actually happens after Android code is compiled.

The talk covered:

• Kotlin and Java compilation
• bytecode transformations
• desugaring
• conversion into Dalvik bytecode
• internals of the Android toolchain

While technically dense, it was fascinating to see how Android code moves through the full compilation pipeline.

Technical Talks and Themes #

The conference covered a broad range of Android topics, but several themes repeatedly appeared across talks.

Architecture and Modularization #

Architecture discussions were everywhere during Droidcon 2017.

Talks around modularization, clean architecture, MVP patterns, and dependency injection reflected how Android development was maturing at the time.

Some recurring ideas included:

• splitting monolithic apps into modules
• improving Gradle build performance
• reducing merge conflicts
• clearer separation of responsibilities
• better testing strategies

This was also the period where many teams were trying to scale larger Android codebases and development teams.

Kotlin Adoption #

Kotlin had officially gained Google support earlier that year, and it quickly became one of the central conference topics.

Several talks focused on:

• migrating from Java to Kotlin
• interoperability between Java and Kotlin
• Kotlin extension functions
• pitfalls of automatic conversion tools

At the time, Kotlin still felt relatively new in many companies, so there was a lot of excitement around it.

Performance and Android Internals #

Some of the most interesting talks were those going deeper into Android internals.

Topics included:

• memory management with RxJava
• Android rendering pipelines
• vector drawable optimization
• profiling and debugging
• app linking and deep linking
• Android security and SafetyNet

Compared to broader “technology trend” conferences, Droidcon clearly focused more on practical engineering challenges.

Humor and Community #

One thing that made Droidcon stand out was that the conference did not take itself too seriously.

Bad Android Advice #

A particularly memorable session was “The Baddest Android Advice in All The Land”, where multiple speakers intentionally gave terrible Android advice in a humorous format.

The talk was both funny and educational because it highlighted common anti-patterns through exaggeration.

F.A.R.T. #

Chet Haase and Romain Guy also presented their joke programming language called F.A.R.T., which used emojis and absurd syntax rules.

It was completely ridiculous and one of the funniest moments of the conference.

Social Side #

Beyond the talks, one of the best aspects of Droidcon London was the accessibility of the speakers and attendees.

Unlike larger corporate conferences where speakers often disappear immediately afterward, Droidcon felt much more open and community-oriented.

It was possible to casually talk with well-known Android developers during breaks or in the evening. Conversations with people like Jake Wharton or other speakers felt surprisingly natural and relaxed.

The evenings in London pubs were also a memorable part of the experience. A large part of the value of conferences like Droidcon comes from these informal discussions and shared experiences outside the scheduled sessions.

Personal Impression #

Droidcon London 2017 maintained the very high quality level of earlier editions.

The conference may not have felt dramatically “better” than previous years, but it successfully stayed consistently strong, which is difficult enough for recurring conferences.

The speaker lineup was excellent, the technical depth was solid, and the atmosphere balanced serious engineering with humor and community interaction.

Especially compared to more commercially driven conferences, Droidcon still felt very developer-focused.

Conclusion #

Droidcon London 2017 was one of the strongest Android-focused conferences in Europe at the time. It combined deep technical talks, experienced speakers, strong community interaction, and a relaxed atmosphere in a way that few conferences managed.

The event showed how mature the Android ecosystem had become by 2017, with topics evolving beyond basic app development into architecture, tooling, modularization, performance, and developer experience.

For Android developers, it was not only a place to learn new technologies, but also a place to meet the people shaping the ecosystem itself.