The Perks of Coding in Brisbane
So… Hi, my name is Jack Glendenning ! I’ve never made a blog or done anything too crazy like this because I’ve been focusing on coding this year as a university student at QUT Garden’s Point (Queensland University of Technology). For me my semester has just finished, and with that out of the way, I’d like to dedicate this first time blog to the home of where I have developed and built my coding skills over the last year… Brisbane ❤
I have so much to thank Brisbane for over the last year and so much has happened to help me grow and improve. Mainly because I’ve only had one years coding experience in Brisbane, I may not be able to capture the complete essence of the Brisbane coding culture. If you’re a Brisbane coder yourself, or if you’ve ever coded in Brisbane, feel free to share within the comments section with what you believe is one of the awesome parts of being a coder in Brisbane.
#1: The Events
If you’ve ever jumped onto Eventbrite.com you’ll see that Brisbane stacked full of events to attend. Not to mention, that there’s catering at the events and it’s usually awesome — there’s almost never no shortage of catering. Last week I went to the Ruby on Rails Install fest and that was a blast. This weekend I’ll be attending the BNE Start Up Weekend (A hack-a-thon style event, where we have to make a potential start up). CityHack16 is also coming up as well.
Better yet, if you’re looking for any sort of event that resonates with you, there are so many events that you’re likely to find many. Although this was not an event on EventBrite, yesterday I just attended Eric Thomas’ Be Phenomenal Tour, and that was and incredible experience on its own (take the time to check out Eric Thomas he’s an amazing speaker). I guess what can be taken from this is that because Brisbane is a major city in Australia, so it has the got the ability to attract great speakers and people from around the globe to put on events in Brisbane (that is pretty awesome!).
In the short amount of characters, I cannot truely bring justice to how awesome and plentiful the events are in Brisbane. There are so many opportunities for learning, networking and hack-a-thons in Brisbane — all of which I am so appreciative of. I highly recommend using Eventbrite.com for checking out the events in Brisbane, or the events that your own area may offer, and searching for events that capture your own interests.
#2 The Amount of Developers Collaborating
In Brisbane, there are so many communities that are regularly meet up in places around Brisbane talking code, working on projects and learning new things. If ever interested in joining any of the eleventy hundred groups of coders, MeetUps.com is the go to (not a dating site I promise). Each community often hosts events of their own which are really good to go to. I’ve found that by using meetups.com I’ve opened myself up to some really unique opportunities for networking and collaborating.
Not to mention, pretty much all of the people in Brisbane that are actively coding are super nice and willing to lend you a hand or help you understand something new.
If you’re a coder in Brisbane (or any where in the world), just becoming apart of a community of like minded people who are working towards bettering themselves and doing cool projects is going to be a more awesome way to improve yourself.
“If we surround ourselves with people who are successful, who are forward-moving, who are positive, who are focused on producing results, who support us, it will challenge us to be more and do more and share more.” — Anthony Robbins
#3 Brisbane Food is Awesome
The food is just so good, end of story. There’s so many restaurants across Brisbane that offer really great food, that you often don’t have to walk very far to find one.
Funnily enough, there is this really cool thing in Brisbane that some Brisbane coders get up to, and it’s called Burgers and Code. All you do is meet up at any burger joint around Brisbane (of which there are too many to count — thank-you Brisbane for awesome food), meet up, talk about anything code and eat burgers. It’s one of the greatest ideas ever.
#4 Internet Speed
As far as internet speeds in Australia compare with other countries in the world, we rank about 60th in the World according to a news article published by the ABC… ouch.
Thankfully, because Brisbane does happen to be a major city within Australia, the internet speed is much faster in comparison to the many towns and suburbs around Australia. Although I personally don’t experience more than 4Mb/s during the average day in Brisbane, it is much faster than some suburban that struggle to reach 500kb/s. So I am quite appreciative that Brisbane has some nice download speeds in comparison to majority of the areas across Australia.
Summary
This article would need to be about a million pages long and I would have to be a 10+ years as a Brisbane coder before I could bring Brisbane to true justice. But I think it’s the fact that within my one short year, that I’ve come to enjoy coding so much and I’ve experienced how welcoming the Brisbane coding community is that I truly grown my crazy appreciation for Brisbane. It’s just true that Brisbane is truly awesome that it’s filled with so many opportunities for events and collaboration. There are so people in coding across Brisbane that you can find on Meetups.com that are willing to invite you into the community to share knowledge and the ‘can-do’ coding spirit.
Weather you’re a Brisbane coder or not, if you didn’t mind reading the article feel free to fill the comments section with the parts you (the awesome reader because you’re actually reading this ❤) like and love about coding in Brisbane because I’d really love to know what I might be missing out on what more I (and everyone reading the comments) can learn about the neat coding culture Brisbane has to offer :)
