Deep Dish Swift
As this newsletter goes out, I’ll be on a plane returning from Deep Dish Swift 2025 in Chicago.
What an incredible experience. I was a little apprehensive going in, as it was my first time speaking at a Swift conference. I’ve presented at other conferences before, but never one focused entirely on Swift. With so many well-known names in attendance, I worried that no one would know who I was, and that my talk might come across as a little too light or fluffy.
Before the conference started, I decided to head down to the lobby and just sit for a bit to see if I could make any connections. To my surprise, people started approaching me to say they’d watched my videos. I couldn’t believe it. These were real developers, people I admire, and they were familiar with my work. It was incredibly reassuring and gave me a big confidence boost, especially since I was scheduled to speak on the first day.
Then, as I was heading to the elevator to return to my room, Ellen Shapiro (@DesignatedNerd), a veteran of the conference circuit, looked at me and said, “Hi Stewart.” Again, what? You know who I am?
That kind of interaction kept happening. I had the pleasure of connecting with so many people I admire: Jordan Morgan, Mikaela Caron, Chris Wu, Charlie Chapman, Josh Holz, Marc Dupont, Adrian Eves, Jordi Bruin, Anton van der Lee, Dan O’Leary, and Daniel Steinberg, just to name a few. These are all people I follow online but had never met in person until now.
Each one of them helped give me the confidence to get up there, give my talk, and feel like I belonged.
I can’t express how meaningful it was to meet and spend time with these incredible people and so many others in the Swift community. If you ever get the chance to attend a conference like this, take it. You won’t regret it.
The conference was live-streamed, and each presentation will eventually be released as a standalone video on the Deep Dish Swift YouTube channel. In the meantime, if you’d like to watch a rehearsal I recorded for my talk, along with the slides I used, you can find them here:
https://stewartlynch.github.io/DDSwiftTalkResources/
Of course, I couldn’t resist snapping a few selfies with the amazing people I met.
This has been a truly wonderful and rewarding experience. One I’ll never forget. Thank you, Josh Holz, for inviting me back to speak this year after I had to cancel at the last minute last year due to Covid.
