A Brazilian Portuguese version of this article is available here.
What is Lambda Days?
Lambda Days is an international conference dedicated to functional programming languages held every year in Kraków (Poland). The event brings together researchers, developers, and enthusiasts from communities such as Erlang, Elixir, Scala, F#, Clojure, Haskell, Elm, and many others, creating a space for exchange between academia and industry, and lasts for 2 days.
In addition to technical talks, Lambda Days also covers topics such as data science, distributed systems, artificial intelligence, and good development practices. The atmosphere is very vibrant, bringing together participants from different countries in one of the most beautiful and historic cities in Europe.
What motivated me to go this year?
I had 10 days of vacation to take and no certain destination to go. All the places I thought about visiting seemed to have great potential for a nice trip, but indecision took over. Until I remembered the feeling I had when I saw that Evan Czaplicki was going to give a talk at this conference!
For those who don’t know him, Evan is the creator of the Elm programming language and probably my favorite speaker! I am a great admirer of his technical abilities, but I am also equally impressed by the philosophical ideas he often includes in his speeches.
I had always wanted to attend a talk by Evan in person, and in recent years he hasn’t made many public appearances, being more focused on developing his newest creation: Acadia. That’s why, when I saw that he would be there, I got very excited.
Another key factor in my decision was that, although Poland was not exactly among the top places I wanted to visit in the world, it seemed to be a very interesting and beautiful country, with very distinct cultural, gastronomic, and tourist options. And it is also not one of the most expensive European countries to visit.
What is the city like?
Lambda Days takes place every year in the same city, Kraków. I liked the choice for several reasons. The first, as I already mentioned, is the cost. Although Poland has been a member of the European Union since 2004, it has never adopted the Euro, and its official currency is the złoty (PLN). This can make some things slightly inconvenient, but I found everything quite affordable, especially when compared to richer European countries. The price of the hotel, food, public transportation, and day-to-day expenses were not much higher than what I would find on a trip within Brazil.
The flight, departing from Brazil, is also not excessively expensive, especially considering it’s an 11-hour trip to Frankfurt and then another hour to Kraków (I prefer not to include how much I paid because the price would become outdated too quickly).
Kraków is a beautiful city! And since the event takes place in the summer, the sun rises very early and sets very late (photo taken at 9:45 PM).
I felt very safe the whole time. Since the city is very flat, it’s perfect for walking or cycling. And, of course, there are countless trams that run throughout the entire city! Through an App on your phone (or a machine at the stops) you can buy your ticket. I opted to use an App and buy a time-based ticket. This way, I could move around the city without worrying. You just validate it once (by typing the tram car number, which is printed inside near the doors) and that’s it! They say there is strict ticket inspection (in that case, you just show the validation on the App, otherwise you’ll be fined!), but in practice, I didn’t see any checks. I also found the price very reasonable (especially compared to what I paid in Norway… I almost fell backwards when I saw the public transport prices in Oslo!).
Apparently, it’s quite easy to get from the airport to the city using regular trains. But I chose to use Uber. I was super tired from the trip and felt safer choosing this option.
Another highlight is that Kraków has some very unique tourist attractions. When I travel, I usually prefer walking around the city instead of doing very touristy tours. But this time I decided to visit Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau). It’s hard to describe the feeling of being in a place where literally thousands of people (mostly Jews) died. I still haven’t fully processed it. It’s not the kind of place everyone will want to visit, but if you’re interested and emotionally prepared, I’d recommend going.
I also visited the famous Wieliczka Salt Mine. It’s a beautiful place, but it probably would have been more interesting to visit other parts of the city, such as a forest park a bit farther away.
Another very famous place (and one I regret not visiting) is Schindler’s Factory, which shows the efforts Schindler made to save 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust (those who watched Schindler’s List may know part of this story).
I chose to stay only in Kraków, but it seems quite easy to travel to other Polish cities by train. If I could go back in time, I would’ve planned the trip better and spent a few days in Warsaw, the country’s capital.
The only thing I really disliked about the city was the invasion of “vapes” (electronic cigarettes). Although it’s relatively common to see people using these devices here in Brazil (even though they’re prohibited), in Kraków it seemed like every young adult on the street was carrying one. A real epidemic! And they were sold in many places across the city. It’s a sad sight, considering the well-known health issues associated with these products.
Level of the talks
There were 3 tracks, with talks happening in parallel. Some were very easy to follow, such as the discussion panel Learning How to Learn, where four women (including a Brazilian!) shared their journeys learning, teaching, and growing in their Functional Programming careers.
Other talks were more philosophical, such as Evan Czaplicki’s keynote, titled Rethinking our Adoption Strategy. In it, he talked about what he calls a Platform Language and what differentiates it from a Productivity Language, and what we — people not directly related to the business world — could do to make Platform Languages more appealing than Productivity Languages.
There were also more abstract talks, such as Moa Johansson’s keynote: AI for Mathematical Discovery: Symbolic, Neural and Neuro-Symbolic Methods. I must confess, the level of this (and some others) was far above what I could follow. I still managed to learn some things, but a lot of it I couldn’t fully understand. Another example was the keynote by Martin Odersky, creator of the Scala programming language, titled Making Capabilities Safe and Convenient. I understood the basics, but after a certain point, I got lost and couldn’t follow the proposals anymore.
Since there were 3 rooms/tracks happening concurrently, you can choose whichever talks seem most interesting and useful to you (except keynotes — those happen in the main room with no parallel sessions). A mistake I made was not researching the speakers beforehand. I could’ve made better choices and enjoyed more of the content.
Good food!
The event included breakfast, two coffee breaks (morning and afternoon), and lunch. That was great because I didn't have to worry about meals, and it also gave everyone more opportunities to socialize, chat, and make (or strengthen) friendships. I found everything very organized and tasty.
Party / Happy hour
At the end of the first day, there was a gathering after the event, at another venue. To enter, you just needed to show your event badge.
I don’t have many details about how it went, because unfortunately I didn’t attend. I was very tired after a long day of talks and went back to my hotel. But I regret not taking the opportunity! I was especially regretful when I heard, from some Brazilian attendees I met, that José Valim (creator of Elixir) was at the party! And they were able to talk to him! He didn’t give a talk at the event and I didn’t see him at any point, so I was surprised to learn he was there (and I missed the chance to meet him…).
First trip with so much technology at my disposal
I’ve had the privilege of taking several international trips over the past decades, from Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, to Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, to Costa Rica, the United States, Cuba… but this trip to Poland was different.
When I visited Cuba in 2009, making a phone call to Brazil was very expensive and restricted (I made a few calls from the hotel’s landline). Zero internet or cell phone access. On my trip to the Netherlands in 2012, I only had internet when I found Wi-Fi (using my iPhone 3GS!). Most of the time I navigated the city using a physical map — no GPS.
On this trip to Poland, for the first time I had several technologies available that made my stay MUCH easier!
Unlimited internet
Before traveling, I bought an eSIM (a virtual SIM card — still not very popular in Brazil) through the Holafly app. The process was super simple and in a short time I had a second SIM installed on an iPhone 14. As soon as the plane stopped for my layover in Germany, at Frankfurt International Airport, my chip started working and I already had unlimited internet! WhatsApp working normally and everything else I’m used to using in Brazil. For the first time, I arrived in another country already with internet active on my phone!
Uber
Uber also operates in Poland and I felt safer and more comfortable using the service to get to my hotel. Poland’s train network is very good and I’m sure I could’ve arrived using trains alone, since the hotel was near a station — something I should’ve checked before getting there, but I didn’t! Poor planning there. In any case, the Uber dropped me off right at the hotel door. It was the first time I didn’t have to worry about anything to arrive safely at my first stop on an international trip.
I also used Uber to return to the airport. The rest of the time, I used only public transportation. But knowing that I had that option at any time made me feel more at ease to explore the city freely.
Google Maps / GPS
Google Maps works extremely well in Kraków and helped me a lot getting around the city using trams. It told me exactly when the tram would arrive at the stop, showed me how many stops were left, and alerted me at the correct moment to get off. It had never been so easy to use public transport in an unfamiliar city!
Of course, even so, I got lost a few times haha. In the rush, I would hop on a tram going in the wrong direction. But it was easy to notice by looking at the map, and since I bought time-based tickets, I just got off and took the correct tram.
Chat GPT
Another novelty was traveling for the first time with the possibility of using more recent Generative AI technologies like Chat GPT. I asked questions throughout the trip to understand how things worked in the city, and it helped me find stores and some nice places to visit.
Something I tried a few times was taking a screenshot of Google Maps with my current location and sending it to Chat GPT, asking for tips on things to visit nearby or stores where I could buy certain items I was looking for. The result was very cool!
If it weren’t for Chat GPT, I wouldn’t have visited, for example, the Kościuszko Mound. I was right next to it but it wasn’t on my list of places to visit. I followed the process I mentioned above, and it recommended going there — and I really liked it!
Opportunities for incredible conversations
As I said in the beginning, my biggest motivation for going to this event was to attend Evan Czaplicki’s talk and, of course, I had expectations that he would talk a bit about his new project, which very few people have had access to. When I saw the title of the talk, I already imagined this wouldn’t be the focus — and indeed it wasn’t. But what about behind the scenes?
During the two days of the event, he was talking with attendees in the hall where the coffee break took place. On the first day I tried to approach him to ask some questions, but my shyness won and I went back to the hotel feeling defeated! There, I told myself: you came all the way here because of this! If he’s there tomorrow, you will talk to him!!
And to my surprise, the next day he was there again, talking to people. Once again I felt embarrassed, but gathered the courage and approached. I didn’t know how to start, so I just greeted him and the person he was talking with using a nod and waited my turn while, for some reason, they were discussing Japanese culture.
At some point, he turned to me and gestured to start a conversation. I introduced myself, thanked him for the talk, praised his work as a programmer but also as a speaker and philosopher, and told him I was very inspired by his talks. We exchanged a few words and I soon asked about his “secret” backend project. I asked some general question about what it was about, and he paused for a few seconds. I got worried, honestly. Would he give a dry response? Was I being too invasive? Who was I to ask about a project he clearly doesn’t want to share widely yet??
But after a few seconds, he said: do you want to see it? I have my development notebook here — if you have a few minutes, I can give you a demo.
I accepted immediately! He asked me to wait a moment so he could call two more people who were interested in seeing the demo. Soon the four of us gathered around a high table in the hall, where he opened his notebook and began presenting the project. After some time, the other two had to leave, and I was also leaving with them when he said: I have one more demo, don’t you want to see it? And once again, I enthusiastically said yes!
At that moment, he presented the demo only to me. I asked a few questions and after 40 minutes of conversation, I thanked him and said goodbye. Then he asked for my opinion about the product, whether I would use it. And he also asked for my opinion about the demo — whether it was good, and if the proposal of the project was clear.
There I was, in Poland, giving my personal feedback to one of my idols! What an indescribable experience!! Those 40 minutes alone made the whole trip to Poland worthwhile!
Was it worth it?
As you can imagine — yes, it was totally worth it!
Overall, it wasn’t a cheap trip. Far from it! There were the flight, accommodation, the event ticket… all paid with my own money, without any company support. Because of that, it’s hard to recommend a trip like this without some hesitation.
I loved it. I had fun, I learned, I discovered a new country, I made new friends… And maybe you will meet incredible people and get the job of your dreams? Maybe. But probably not. If that’s your only goal, I recommend searching online instead — in communities, social networks, writing articles or software…
So if you’re thinking about doing something similar, do it for pleasure. For fun. Only then is it truly worth it!
And you?? What was the last conference you attended? How was it? What motivated you to go? Tell me in the comments!
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