On 19 April, Chris Horn and Tristam Fenton-May — our Head and VP of Engineering, respectively — immersed themselves in the Association of C and C++ Users (ACCU) Conference in Bristol. Here are some highlights and insights they’ve shared from the event.
Familiar atmosphere, high-caliber discussions
For Tristam, the conference had a welcoming sense of familiarity despite the passage of time. The venue, sponsors, and the mix of deeply experienced software developers from different sectors remained consistent. Discussions throughout the conference revolved around code correctness, architecture, and testing – all topics that resonate with Deriv’s development practices.
Software engineering conference’s keynotes and deep dive sessions
The insightful keynote about the nuances of working with other people’s code hit home, prompting philosophical questions about how developers handle pressure and interact with their peers.
Technical intensity ramped up with talks like Bryce Adelstein Lelbach’s "Think Parallel," delving into fine-grained parallelism and strategies for reducing communication overhead between threads. Mathieu Ropert’s "Data Oriented Design and Entity Component System Explained" explored memory optimisation techniques, drawing on his experience with game development.
Finally, Lucian Radu Teodorescu’s "Concurrency Hylomorphism" provided a theoretical look at concurrency, discussing a future where the Hylo language potentially improves code readability.
Deriv’s tech sponsorships and lightning talks
Deriv made its mark by sponsoring the conference dinner, allowing our team to engage in meaningful conversations across the industry. We also got a bit of a taste of the community’s humour and creativity with a series of "Lightning Talks" – short, sometimes quirky presentations on a variety of topics.
The bottom line
The ACCU Conference proved to be a stimulating experience for our developers. It was a place to sharpen skills, gain inspiration, and network with other passionate software professionals. We’re already looking forward to what future ACCU events might hold!
Deriv: Championing tech collaboration and academia-industry partnership
Deriv is committed to fostering a thriving tech community. We are always open to sponsoring impactful tech events and meet-ups, and we welcome opportunities to conduct knowledge-sharing sessions at leading academic institutions. If you represent an organisation or institution interested in partnering with us, please send an email to [email protected].
