GDevCon came to Brighton this year, bringing together graphical developers from around the world for three days of technical exchange and community building. With almost the entire #teamhampelsoft attending, pre-conference bouldering sessions, and active involvement on the GDevCon Board of Directors, the event was a particular highlight for us. From open-source workflows and AI to software architecture and maintainability, GDevCon once again showcased the strength of the LabVIEW community.
A New Home by the Sea
For the first time, the conference was held in Brighton, hosted at the historic Brighton Dome in the centre of the city. The new location proved to be an excellent choice. Brighton combines a relaxed seaside atmosphere with a vibrant technology and university scene, making it an ideal setting for a community-driven event.
The city itself quickly became part of the conference experience. Between sessions, attendees gathered in cafés, restaurants, and pubs throughout Brighton, continuing technical discussions long after presentations had ended.
The move to Brighton also helped attract many new attendees. Developers travelled from across Europe, North America, and beyond to participate. The result was a diverse mix of industries, backgrounds, and experience levels that created exactly the kind of environment GDevCon is known for: highly technical, collaborative, and welcoming.
Climbing Before and During the Conference
Another emerging tradition for #teamhampelsoft is combining conference travel with bouldering.
Before the conference officially began – and again during the event itself – Jörg joined several friends from the LabVIEW community for climbing sessions around Brighton. What originally started as a way to stay active while travelling has gradually become a valuable part of the conference experience.
Many of the best conversations never happen in presentation rooms. Software architecture, open-source projects, customer challenges, business development, community initiatives, cybersecurity, AI, and future plans all found their way into discussions between climbing attempts.
One of the unique strengths of the LabVIEW community is that many professional relationships eventually develop into genuine friendships. The climbing sessions perfectly reflected that spirit and provided a welcome balance to several days of intensive technical discussions.
A Conference Built Around Real Engineering
One of GDevCon’s defining characteristics is its independence.
The event is organised by members of the community, operates as a not-for-profit organisation, and focuses entirely on technical content rather than product marketing. Presentations are selected because they provide value to attendees, not because they support a particular commercial agenda.
This creates an atmosphere that feels fundamentally different from many traditional industry conferences.
The topics covered this year included:
- Software architecture
- Functional programming
- Testability and observability
- Open-source development
- User interface frameworks
- Automated development workflows
- NI Linux RT
- Distributed systems
- AI-assisted development
- Long-term maintainability
As always, the emphasis remained on practical solutions to real engineering problems rather than theoretical concepts.
Strong HSE Presence
This year’s conference was particularly special for Hampel Software Engineering because almost the entire team was able to attend.
Having so many members of #teamhampelsoft present created opportunities to participate in far more sessions, discussions, and community activities than would otherwise have been possible. Throughout the conference, our team exchanged ideas with customers, partners, open-source maintainers, community leaders, and fellow developers from around the world.
The event also highlighted HSE’s long-standing commitment to the broader LabVIEW community. Both Jörg Hampel and Ioan serve on the GDevCon Board of Directors. Jörg currently acts as Chair of the Board, helping guide the strategic direction of the conference, while Ioan contributes as a board member and active community leader.
GDevCon has always been a community effort, and being able to contribute both as attendees and organisers makes the event especially meaningful for our team.
Huddles Continue to Grow
One of the most distinctive parts of modern GDevCon events is the introduction of Huddles.
Rather than traditional presentations, Huddles are interactive discussion sessions designed to encourage participation, debate, and collaborative learning. There are no lengthy slide decks and no one-way communication. Instead, attendees work together to explore topics, exchange experiences, and challenge assumptions.
The format has proven extremely popular because it allows discussions to evolve naturally based on the interests and experiences of the participants.
Many attendees commented that the Huddles created some of the most valuable learning opportunities of the entire conference.
Our Contribution: Open Source Workflows Huddle
This year, Hampel Software Engineering hosted a Huddle titled:
“How Open Source Workflows Improve LabVIEW Collaboration for Everyone”
Rather than delivering a traditional presentation, the goal was to facilitate discussion around how modern open-source development practices can benefit LabVIEW projects of all sizes.
Topics included:
- Forking workflows
- Pull requests and code reviews
- Shared ownership of software
- Community contributions
- Maintaining software quality
- Reducing barriers to collaboration
- Git-based development practices
What made the session particularly valuable was the diversity of experiences represented in the room. Participants ranged from maintainers of established open-source projects to developers taking their first steps toward more collaborative workflows.
The discussion reinforced something we have observed repeatedly over the years: many software challenges are not primarily technical problems but workflow problems. Modern collaboration practices often have a greater impact on project success than any individual technology choice.
The conversation was highly interactive, with attendees openly sharing both successful approaches and lessons learned from projects that did not go quite as planned.
And on top of it all, we awarded a price to one of our top contributors – thank you so much, John Medland, hope you like the t-shirt!
More Than Presentations
While the technical content is excellent, much of GDevCon’s value comes from everything happening around it.
Coffee breaks, lunches, evening gatherings, hallway conversations, the Tech Cave, and spontaneous discussions all contribute to the experience.
The multi-day format provides enough time for relationships to develop naturally. New attendees can quickly integrate into conversations, while long-time community members reconnect with friends and colleagues from previous events.
This balance between technical depth and community interaction is one of the reasons GDevCon continues to grow while maintaining its unique atmosphere.
Why Events Like GDevCon Matter
In an era where nearly every technical resource can be accessed online, conferences must provide something more than information.
GDevCon succeeds because it creates an environment where developers can exchange ideas directly with peers who understand the realities of engineering projects.
Many attendees are responsible for large systems with lifecycles measured in decades rather than months. They face challenges involving maintainability, collaboration, hardware integration, customer requirements, regulatory constraints, and increasingly complex software ecosystems.
Bringing those people together creates conversations that simply cannot be replicated through videos or documentation alone.
Looking Ahead
GDevCon #6 once again demonstrated why the event has become such an important part of the LabVIEW community.
The combination of deep technical content, open discussion, community-driven organisation, and genuine collaboration continues to make it one of the most valuable conferences available to graphical developers.
A huge thank you goes to the organisers, speakers, volunteers, sponsors, and attendees who make the event possible every year. Organising an event like GDevCon requires a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes, and seeing the conference continue to grow while maintaining its community-focused spirit is something everyone involved can be proud of.
The HSE team left Brighton with new ideas, new contacts, renewed motivation—and slightly tired forearms from all the climbing. More importantly, we left with the same feeling that has defined GDevCon from the beginning: a strong and growing community of developers helping each other build better software.
We are already looking forward to GDevCon #7.
See you in Brussels. And don’t forget: It’s ok to have fun!
