Ardalis .
Founder and Principal Architect at NimblePros, Microsoft MVP, Author, Speaker, Trainer
Kent, Ohio, United States
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Ardalis (Steve Smith) is an entrepreneur and software developer with a passion for building quality software as effectively as possible. Ardalis has published dozens of courses on Dometrain and Pluralsight, covering DDD, SOLID, design patterns, and software architecture. He's a Microsoft ASP.NET MVP, a frequent speaker at developer conferences, an author, and a trainer.
Ardalis works with companies through NimblePros, the consulting firm he runs with his wife, Michelle. NimblePros is a team of experienced professionals who help organizations who want to deliver better software, faster. Ardalis and NimblePros have been described by clients as a "force multiplier", amplifying the value of existing development teams.
Follow Ardalis on BlueSky, YouTube, and ardalis.com.
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Clean Architecture with ASP.NET Core
The debate ended years ago: automated tests and continuous integration won. So why is so much software still so hard to test?
The most common answer: coupling to infrastructure concerns.
Clean architecture is an evolution of similar approaches that focuses on keeping the most important parts of software applications testable, without infrastructure dependencies. It works extremely well with ASP.NET Core.
In this fast-paced session, you’ll learn the underlying principles that apply to project/solution organization, how best to arrange your projects to support clean code (with several opinionated templates and options explored), and how to refactor existing solutions toward this architecture.
Examples will use ASP.NET Core but the principles covered apply to all languages and platforms.
The Dark Side of Microservices
You want to solve a problem with your application, and you want to use microservices. Ok, so now you have two problems...
Microservices continue to be a huge buzzword in our industry, and in some scenarios they can offer significant benefits. But building microservice-based systems requires substantially different skills than traditional applications, and in many cases the added complexity isn't warranted.
In this session, you'll learn when NOT to use a microservice, and many ways in which you can design your microservice architecture the wrong way, eliminating the benefits your organization had hoped to reap from them. Hopefully you'll leave knowing a few pitfalls to avoid, or at least if you already have some of the scars from past implementations, you may find the session therapeutic.
Secure Your Web Apps Against OWASP Top 10 Threats
The web remains a dangerous place.
Securing your web APIs and applications has never been more important, or more difficult in the face of sophisticated threats and bad actors. Fortunately, the Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) exists to at least identify and share mitigations for the most popular attacks.
In this session, we'll learn about the OWASP Top 10 threats for 2025, released earlier this year. We'll demonstrate each threat and show how we can design our applications to better withstand them. You'll leave this session with concrete ways to improve your app's security and many resources for learning more about how to write secure web applications.
Vertical Clean Modular Microservices?! Making Sense of Modern Architectures
Vertical Slices? Clean Architecture? Modular Monoliths? Microservices? How are you supposed to keep up—and make the right choice—when your boss just wants you to ship features?
In this session, we’ll break down these popular architectural styles, their trade-offs, and when (or if!) you should combine them. You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of when to keep things simple, when to go modular, and when microservices actually make sense—so you can confidently design your next project and adapt as your needs evolve.
Applying SOLID Principles in C#
Every C# developer, or any developer using an object-oriented programming language, needs a good understanding of the SOLID principles. These principles guide your design toward more loosely coupled and maintainable software. Learn the principles and more importantly how to apply them to alleviate common design problems in C# applications.
You'll leave with a better understanding of each of the 5 principles, several concrete examples of when and how to apply them, and ideas for how to share them with your peers. Even if you're already familiar with SOLID, if you're not ready to teach them to another dev, this session will be worth your time!
Tame Cross-Cutting Concerns in Your Code!
Cross-cutting concerns like logging, authentication, and validation can quickly clutter your codebase if not handled correctly. This session is designed for developers and software architects looking to streamline their code by applying design patterns.
In this code-heavy session, we'll start with an application that resembles many real world web APIs and has to deal with common tasks like logging, exception handling, validation, telemetry, and authentication in addition to the actual work performed by each endpoint.
You'll learn how to encapsulate cross-cutting concerns without polluting your core business logic, making your code cleaner, more maintainable, and adaptable to change. Through practical examples, you’ll learn multiple patterns and see them applied to real code, resulting in a more robust and maintainable solution.
Sample code will use C# but concepts and patterns will apply to other languages and platforms.
Stir Trek 2026 Sessionize Event
CodeMash 2026 Sessionize Event
.NET Conf 2025 Sessionize Event
Techorama 2025 Netherlands Sessionize Event
NDC Porto 2025 Sessionize Event
Azure Dev Summit 2025 Sessionize Event
JetBrains .NET Days Online 2025 Sessionize Event
CodeMash 2025 Sessionize Event
.NET Conf 2024 Sessionize Event
Techorama 2024 Netherlands Sessionize Event
Devintersection and next GenAI Conference Sessionize Event
Stir Trek 2024 Sessionize Event
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