Android x GDG Manchester Autumn Meetup

Android Manchester is proud to host GDG Manchester this autumn!

PLEASE NOTE: There is an alternate sign up for this event on the Android Manchester page

There are plenty of people going and it's set to be a great night, so please do sign up if interested.

Join us for a night of exciting talks, networking and all things Android and Kotlin.

We'll look at the latest trends and innovations in Android development.

There will be a series of lightning talks from experienced local engineers.

Food and drink to be provided by our amazing hosts at the Auto Trader offices.

Agenda (Subject to change):

18:00 - Doors open, networking & socialising

18:30 - Welcome and talks

19:20 - Break

19:30 - Remaining talks and wrap-up

20:00 - Networking & socialising

20:30 - Close

Talks (In no particular order)

Getting to grips with Gradle

By Steve Stanton

Most Android developers use Gradle for their build tool, but some of us find it a bit mysterious, or slightly scary. This talk seeks to give a bit of background and context to where Gradle has come from, where it is going and how to use it profitably, especially on multi-module projects.

Points covered:

• Very brief history of Gradle - why it triumphed over other tools
• Why Android developers can find it mistifying - copy-pasting snippets instead of deep understanding.
• Anatomy of a Gradle project - tasks, dependencies, configurations
• Benefits of using Kotllin rather than Groovy.
• How to keep Gradle tidy and structured (avoid copy-pasting, instead write a "convention plugin")
• Is Gradle the future for Android build tools? (a discussion on Amper and Declarative Gradle)

Designing for Purpose: Lessons from Building Palmtree

By Brandon Milambo

This session dives into the journey of Palmtree, an app built with the mission of making it easier to discover and support Black-owned businesses. You'll learn how we navigated complex design challenges and technical decisions while prioritizing social impact. Discover how we approached everything from feature design to architecture through the lens of purpose, and gain practical lessons for developers who want to ensure their products truly serve a cause.

Skipping recomposition skipping

By Jamie Vickery

How to improve performance by deferring state reads to avoid recomposition of intermediate Composables