Google and e-point show the secrets of PWA during 'PWA Hackathon Warsaw'

On Thursday, March 7, we co-organized with the 'PWA Hackathon Warsaw' with Google’s Warsaw branch. The event was for technical and business teams working on web applications.

As part of the event, we conducted technical presentations and prepared practical tasks for participants, as well as, supported them during their work.

Goal

PWA is web applications created according to the guidelines proposed by Google. Thanks to the use of modern Internet technologies, they are more convenient for users, providing them with experiences typical of mobile applications (more about PWA here).

The goal of the hackathon was to spread knowledge about PWA and its technical and business aspects. Next experts from e-point supported participants in the implementation of PWA elements in their existing apps, as well as, projects invented for the needs of the event.

Participants

The hackathon was for teams from large Polish companies, which emphasize development in digital channels. They consisted of technical specialists, most frequently represented by frontend developers, and business representatives who verified how PWA would affect specific solutions for their clients.

We sent invitations to companies that had previously co-operated with Google Poland or e-point SA. The basic knowledge of HTML, JavaScript and the application development system was enough to take up the challenges waiting for the teams.

Lectures

Lectures prepared the participants for the upcoming tasks and were divided into the following presentations:

• Introduction to PWA - Piotr Kowalski | Senior Analytical Consultant (Google), Michał Szklarski | Director Of Digital Services, R&D, Mobile (e-point)
• Service Worker - Tomasz Szopiński | Senior Front-End Developer (e-point)
• Push Notifications - Piotr Wolny | CTO, Software Engineer (e-point)
• Payment Request API, Authentication (Credential Management API) - Kamil Murawski | Vice CTO, Team Leader, Software Engineer (e-point)

The results of the workshops

After the lectures, 12 teams started working at their positions. Crews with no experience of PWA started from Google's technical training tasks (so-called Labs), which on the example of the code from the ready repository and instructions made it possible to learn the basics of PWA.

Subsequently, certain teams faced prepared tasks while others started to work on the apps. Other teams adjusted their existing apps to PWA standards or developed new ones.

All teams could rely on the help and advice of e-point mentors at all times. Before the voting on the winning projects, the teams participated in a quick competition using their acquired knowledge about PWA and the online platform Kahoot!.

Winning projects

At the end of the hackathon, voting by the event participants chose the winning teams. LOT team, who presented a simplified system of searching and booking flights, took the first place honors. Ceneo.pl team took second place for local classified service.

Both apps used the Service Worker script for caching and simplified offline work. They also added a shortcut to the home screen that allowed them to work like native mobile apps.

Participants' opinions

The hackathon educated the participants on how PWA could open new perspectives for their organization. It was an attractive overview of possibilities offered by PWA through the practical skills gained during the event. Participants emphasized that the applications and code fragments extracted from the workshop would serve as a model for the gradual implementation of PWA aspects in their own companies.

Summary

Participants could learn about the PWA's capabilities and get answers to any questions related to the topic of the event. For us, it was an opportunity to get to know the participants' projects, their business expectations and the most common problems of programmers.

Hackathons have a relaxed atmosphere in that, the workshop participants willingly exchanged ideas and share their own experiences. Thanks to this, acquiring new skills was also an opportunity to have fun.