Recap: Attending GopherCon UK in London
Just got back from GopherCon UK 2024 in London (August 14-17) at The Brewery on Chiswell Street. First time back in London since 2015, and the city has definitely changed - much more hectic and crowded than I remember.
Exploring London
Arrived a day early to get some sightseeing in before the conference started. Started with a walk along the Thames - hit the classic tourist spots like Tower Bridge, Parliament, and Big Ben. The weather was surprisingly good for London in August, so made the most of it and walked all the way to Buckingham Palace. Took the tube back from Green Park to Bethnal Green where my hotel was located.
The city feels different than nine years ago. More international, way more crowded, and the pace feels faster. Shoreditch and Old Street have completely transformed - what used to be a grittier area is now basically tech startup central. Tons of co-working spaces, trendy coffee shops, and tech company offices everywhere.
Between conference sessions I explored the area around the venue a bit more. Grabbed lunch at Borough Market one day - still as good as I remembered, though definitely more touristy now. The food scene in London has really stepped up overall. Also took a quick trip to Camden Town one evening - still has that alternative vibe but obviously more commercialized.
Public transport worked well despite being packed. The Tube saved a lot of time getting around, though rush hour was brutal. Good reminder why I prefer Hamburg’s slightly more relaxed pace.
Conference Highlights
Cameron Balahan from Google kicked things off with “The Business of Go”. He made an interesting point about Go potentially becoming the language of choice for AI in production environments. Not just cloud infrastructure anymore -> the use cases are expanding.
A few talks really stood out:
Boost Applications Performance with Profile Guided Optimization by Michael Pratt was excellent. He did a great job explaining PGO and how it actually works under the hood like function inlining, escape analysis and much more. This is the kind of optimization technique I can actually use at work without completely refactoring everything. I liked it a lot!
Go Channels Slow Down with More CPUs by Grant Stephens was fascinating. He walked through a bizarre performance issue at Fastly where channel performance degraded with more CPUs due to internal locking. The problem analysis and storytelling style made it one of the most memorable talks. A bit of Go internals, some detective work, and practical solutions.
Production-Ready “Hello, World!” by Daniela Petruzalek was a clever exercise -> building a production-ready “Hello, World!” using only the Go standard library as a Kata. The interesting part was how it forces you to think about what “production-ready” actually means. Simple concept, but got me thinking about our own deployment standards.
The venue worked well - The Brewery had decent acoustics and enough space to actually talk between sessions. Location was solid too, easy to get to and plenty of food options nearby.
Wrap-up
GopherCon UK 2024 was worth the trip. Good technical content, practical insights, and a strong community vibe. Plus got to revisit London and see how much it’s changed over the past decade.
Looking forward to next year, maybe :)
For more detailed notes on the talks, Jamie Tanna has a comprehensive writeup at https://www.jvt.me/posts/2024/08/16/gophercon-uk-2024/