Day 2 of Liferay DevCon 2025 has wrapped, but my favorite day is still ahead: the UnConference.

Once again, my good friend Olaf will be running it; if you’ve never experienced an UnConference before, it’s something truly unique.

For those who don’t know what an UnConference is, think of it as the anti-conference:

• No pre-set agenda.
• No scheduled workshops.
• No rigid structure.

Instead, attendees create the program together on the spot, following the philosophy described beautifully in Álvaro Saugar’s 2018 UnConference recap .

The Four UnConference Principles

• Whoever comes is the right people.
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
• Whenever it starts is the right time.
• When it’s over, it’s over.

And, of course, the famous Law of Two Feet:

If you aren’t learning or contributing, walk to a session where you can.

This format leads to some of the best conversations of the entire event. I always walk away with new insights thanks to the questions, debates, and spontaneous deep dives attendees bring to the table.

My DevCon “Aha!” Moment Came Early This Year

One of my benefits of DevCon is getting to catch up with colleagues and friends from across the Liferay community. For me, those hallway conversations are often where the most valuable learning happens.

This year, it happened after I finished presenting my workshop on Advanced Custom Element Techniques.

I was chatting with my friend Evan Thibodeau, who asked a simple question:

Do you really need both the JS import map and the custom elements declared in your client-extension.yaml?

I said yes because I assumed I needed both:

• The import map for module resolution
• The custom element entries to declare the elements

He politely enlightened me:

The import map alone is enough.

It already exposes the custom elements; adding them again is redundant.

And declaring them twice actually causes Liferay to wrap them unnecessarily in the widget layer.

A perfect example of DevCon magic: you come expecting to teach something, and suddenly you learn something that makes your own work cleaner, simpler, and smarter.

I’m absolutely going to test this as soon as I get home… and of course, I’ll write a follow-up post with the results.

Why You Should Come to DevCon

If you’ve ever attended DevCon, you already know:

It’s almost impossible to leave without learning something new.

Maybe it’s a new API pattern, a better architecture choice, a hidden configuration, or just a smarter way to structure your work.

Between the sessions, the speakers, the UnConference, and the community conversations, DevCon delivers real, career-shaping value.

If you're reading this wishing you were here, I get it.

And I have good news and bad news.

The bad news:

It’s too late to join us this year.

The very good news:

DevCon 2026 has just been announced!
📍 Location: London
🎟️ Tickets go on sale: Q1 2026
💸 Expect early-bird pricing like this year.

I don't have the date yet, but now you can start your budgeting and planning.

And trust me… you won’t regret it.

See You in London?

As always, I’ll be prepping new submissions to present next year.

But for now, I’m excited for tomorrow’s UnConference, and still smiling about what I learned from Evan today.

DevCon always teaches me something.

That’s why I keep coming back.

And I hope to see you in London in 2026.