Characteristics of Great Developers - What You Need To Know To Be The Best

Are you on a large team where developers create code that constantly breaks? Do your teams create more problems than they solve? Are you constantly addressing quality issues in the application? Do you have developers you don't know what they did? Has your development project been going for a long time with no end in site?

Or maybe your development team is successful. Is your entire team contributing to the success? Is there one person that everyone goes to fix everything in the application (i.e., the bottleneck)?

This presentation is about getting every developer on a team to be great and creating highly successful teams. This is based on 100s of projects and over 30 years of experience creating successful software and turning around projects for customers.

We will discuss the best practices, disciplines, and other approaches to making your development teams great. This is based on decades of successful engagements. If you have any of the issues mentioned above and need to turn around a project, then this is the talk for you.

Topics will include upskilling, lunch-n-learns, code reviews, pair programming, unit testing, code coverage, break on all exceptions, performance testing, KPIs and metrics, static code analysis, linting, analyzers, and more.

Crazy Stories and Adventures from the Life of a Developer

Being a developer can be one of the most rewarding careers you can hope to have. All you need is a little bit of courage and determination combined with some imagination. We will talk about the journey of one such developer and the stories that define them. Along the way, you will hear about those skills that propelled this developer to do amazing things.

Learn how this developer saved a $50B conglomerate from $14M/day in fines, created new products for Microsoft, MathWorks, and Akamai, accidently created the grandfather of all spyware, helped Santa save Christmas, combated Putin for a major online retailer, and created mobile apps with his kids to fund their pizza addiction and learn new skills at the same time. Along the way, he got his certifications, wrote a book, created a company, and inspires others to do amazing things.

Through these stories you will find hope, courage, and excitement so you can change the world, one line of code at a time.

Crazy Stories and Adventures from the Life of a Developer

Being a developer can be one of the most rewarding careers you can hope to have. All you need is a little bit of courage and determination combined with some imagination. We will talk about the journey of one such developer and the stories that define them. Along the way, you will hear about those skills that propelled this developer to do amazing things.

Learn how this developer saved a $50B conglomerate from $14M/day in fines, created new products for Microsoft, MathWorks, and Akamai, accidently created the grandfather of all spyware, helped Santa save Christmas, combated Putin for a major online retailer, and created mobile apps with his kids to fund their pizza addiction and learn new skills at the same time. Along the way, he got his certifications, wrote a book, created a company, and inspires others to do amazing things.

Through these stories you will find hope, courage, and excitement so you can change the world, one line of code at a time.

Creating Cross Platform Desktop Applications with .NET MAUI (Advanced)

Learn how to create cross platform desktop applications using .NET MAUI. This presentation is based on lessons learned from creating real-world desktop applications in financial trading and healthcare using .NET MAUI.

We will cover the basics such as window management, application lifecycle management, and unhandled exception handlers. We will then dive into more advanced capabilities such as a custom dispatcher to significantly increase user interface performance, cross platform modality, cross platform features with native experiences (ex. snack and toast), and cross platform testing.

The best practices presented focus on Mac and Windows but also cover iPad, iPhone, and Android where appropriate. We will cover platform interop concerns such as processor architecture (ARM64 and Intel on Mac and Intel x86/x64 on Windows) and talk about the lessons learned by creating these feature rich cross platform applications.

Much of the lessons learned in this presentation is based on bleeding edge development that has been incorporated in new and future releases of .NET MAUI. This comes from working with customers trying to push the edge and us working with the .NET MAUI team and us as a Microsoft Partner to make sure they are successful.

DeckOfCards, Fitness and Gamification to Combat Diabetes

Let’s face it, going to the gym during COVID was not possible and doing exercises at home was boring. Enter the DeckOfCards application, a home fitness application built using MAUI, .NET, and Azure. It leverages a popular home workout routine combined with gamification. The presenter used this application to combat his bout with diabetes taking his A1C from 10.7 to 5.6 in just 8 weeks. His doctors said they didn’t expect see him again. Now they want to know his secret.

This is the story of how one was motivated to build an application for positive change. This application was built on and off over three years and finally came to realization. DeckOfCards is built using Visual Studio, .NET, MAUI, and Azure.

We will examine the architecture of the application, some of its features, and how we leverage MAUI, .NET, and Azure. We will discuss techniques for gamification to achieve results, approaches for monetization, and ways to perform, scale, and minimize costs on Azure.

DeckOfCards, Fitness and Gamification to Combat Diabetes

Let’s face it, going to the gym during COVID was not possible and doing exercises at home was boring. Enter the DeckOfCards application, a home fitness application built using MAUI, .NET, and Azure. It leverages a popular home workout routine combined with gamification. The presenter used this application to combat his bout with diabetes taking his A1C from 10.7 to 5.6 in just 8 weeks. His doctors said they didn’t expect see him again. Now they want to know his secret.

This is the story of how one was motivated to build an application for positive change. This application was built on and off over three years and finally came to realization. DeckOfCards is built using Visual Studio, .NET, MAUI, and Azure.

We will examine the architecture of the application, some of its features, and how we leverage MAUI, .NET, and Azure. We will discuss techniques for gamification to achieve results, approaches for monetization, and ways to perform, scale, and minimize costs on Azure.

DeckOfCards, Fitness and Gamification to Combat Diabetes

Let’s face it, going to the gym during COVID was not possible and doing exercises at home was boring. Enter the DeckOfCards application, a home fitness application built using MAUI, .NET, and Azure. It leverages a popular home workout routine combined with gamification. The presenter used this application to combat his bout with diabetes taking his A1C from 10.7 to 5.6 in just 8 weeks. His doctors said they didn’t expect see him again. Now they want to know his secret.

This is the story of how one was motivated to build an application for positive change. This application was built on and off over three years and finally came to realization. DeckOfCards is built using Visual Studio, .NET, MAUI, and Azure.

We will examine the architecture of the application, some of its features, and how we leverage MAUI, .NET, and Azure. We will discuss techniques for gamification to achieve results, approaches for monetization, and ways to perform, scale, and minimize costs on Azure.

Exploring the Power of Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs)

Businesses are using Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to build the next generation of applications. In this talk, we will discuss how Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) are impacting how we build today's applications. We will examine AI models such as GPT3, GPT3.5, GPT4, and DALL-E 2. We will then discuss how one can use and fine tune these models and integrate them into your applications. Topics will include integrating with OpenAI APIs, Azure OpenAI, and using GitHub CoPilot to develop your applications.

Hack Me Now! The Challenges of Building Public Facing Mobile Applications on Azure

Let's face it! We all have dreams of building the next big application such as ChatGpt, Angry Birds, TikTok, Netflix. You take your idea! You code away! You deploy! What you didn't realize is that you just gave hackers and the rest of the world an invitation to exploit your application. Trust me! They will!

We will review best practices for deploying public facing applications on Azure, securing them, and protecting your APIs from malicious use.

Having Fun Everyday with .NET, MAUI, and Azure – The Creation of WhatAreTheOdds

Creating applications as a hobby is one of the best ways to hone your development skills. We will examine one of those applications, WhatAreTheOdds, that was fun to make.

WhatAreTheOdds is a lotto application that tries to give you the best lottery numbers based on how much money you want to spend. The goal is to get as many winning tickets as possible.

WhatAreTheOdds was a fun application to write built using Visual Studio, .NET, MAUI, and Azure. We will learn the skills and patterns learned along the way when building this application from scratch. We will see the challenges with creating cross platform features, building community features, reducing costs in Azure, and ensuring performance and scalability.

Best of all, we will tell you how to get started building applications for fun.

Having Fun Everyday with .NET, MAUI, and Azure – The Creation of WhatAreTheOdds

Creating applications as a hobby is one of the best ways to hone your development skills. We will examine one of those applications, WhatAreTheOdds, that was fun to make.

WhatAreTheOdds is a lotto application that tries to give you the best lottery numbers based on how much money you want to spend. The goal is to get as many winning tickets as possible.

WhatAreTheOdds was a fun application to write built using Visual Studio, .NET, MAUI, and Azure. We will learn the skills and patterns learned along the way when building this application from scratch. We will see the challenges with creating cross platform features, building community features, reducing costs in Azure, and ensuring performance and scalability.

Best of all, we will tell you how to get started building applications for fun.

Having Fun Everyday with .NET, MAUI, and Azure – The Creation of WhatAreTheOdds

Creating applications as a hobby is one of the best ways to hone your development skills. We will examine one of those applications, WhatAreTheOdds, that was fun to make.

WhatAreTheOdds is a lotto application that tries to give you the best lottery numbers based on how much money you want to spend. The goal is to get as many winning tickets as possible.

WhatAreTheOdds was a fun application to write built using Visual Studio, .NET, MAUI, and Azure. We will learn the skills and patterns learned along the way when building this application from scratch. We will see the challenges with creating cross platform features, building community features, reducing costs in Azure, and ensuring performance and scalability.

Best of all, we will tell you how to get started building applications for fun.

Scalability and Performance with Microservices and .NET

Scalability and performance are key to doing big things with microservices. We will examine various practices for making the best microservices possible using REST and gRPC with .NET.

These same practices have been used in services to help companies scale to new heights, get answers from financial models for real-time pricing, detect cancer, beat down the competition, combat global calamities, and spread cheer around the world. We will discuss both the latest capabilities of .NET 7 and those enhancements planned with .NET 8.

Best of all, take these practices and apply them to the services you build to do big things.

Scalability and Performance with Microservices and .NET

Scalability and performance are key to doing big things with microservices. We will examine various practices for making the best microservices possible using REST and gRPC with .NET.

These same practices have been used in services to help companies scale to new heights, get answers from financial models for real-time pricing, detect cancer, beat down the competition, combat global calamities, and spread cheer around the world. We will discuss both the latest capabilities of .NET 7 and those enhancements planned with .NET 8.

Best of all, take these practices and apply them to the services you build to do big things.

Scalability and Performance with Microservices and .NET

Scalability and performance are key to doing big things with microservices. We will examine various practices for making the best microservices possible using REST and gRPC with .NET.

These same practices have been used in services to help companies scale to new heights, get answers from financial models for real-time pricing, detect cancer, beat down the competition, combat global calamities, and spread cheer around the world. We will discuss both the latest capabilities of .NET 7 and those enhancements planned with .NET 8.

Best of all, take these practices and apply them to the services you build to do big things.

Hack Your Brain with AI: Become the Smartest Person Alive (Before the Robots Take Over)

AI isn’t here to replace you—it’s here to turn you into a genius (if you know how to use it). This session is your cheat code to mastering ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok, Gemini, Perplexity, MidJourney, and DALL-E to learn anything at warp speed.

What You’ll Learn:

🔥 The AI Learning Stack – Which AI models are best for research, tutoring, coding, and creativity.
🚀 The 10x Learning Formula – How to binge-learn smarter and retain more in less time.
🧠 From Noob to Mastermind – Use AI to test yourself, build projects, and actually get good.
🔍 Real-World AI Hacks – Use Perplexity for instant expert-level research and ChatGPT for Socratic deep dives.
🤖 Outlearning AI – Stay ahead by mastering the one thing AI still sucks at: human ingenuity.

Leave with a plug-and-play AI learning system to turn yourself into the smartest person in any room (including the one AI is in).

AI vs AI: The Ultimate Game Dev Showdown!

A Head-to-Head Battle of AI Models in Game Development

In this thrilling session, we put four (maybe five) leading AI models—DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok—to the ultimate test: building a fully playable game from scratch!

Using a single game concept, each AI will be challenged to generate game mechanics, logic, visuals, and playability with minimal human intervention. We’ll compare their performance across key metrics, including speed, completeness, code quality, and overall effort required to get a polished, working game.

Attendees will witness firsthand how different AI models tackle the same challenge, where they excel, and where they fall short. By the end of this session, we’ll crown the most effective AI for game development—and lay the foundation for an AI benchmarking system for software engineering tasks.

Whether you’re a developer, AI enthusiast, or game designer, this is your chance to see AI battle it out in the ultimate game dev showdown!

Key Takeaways:

✅ Which AI model is the best at generating a complete, playable game?
✅ How much human effort is needed to refine AI-generated code?
✅ Does AI understand game mechanics, physics, and user experience?
✅ How do different models handle debugging and iteration?
✅ Insights into the future of AI-assisted game development

How AI and OCR Unlock Text from Images

We’ll explore how AI can be used to extract text from images, focusing on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. We’ll break down the basics of OCR, showing how AI-powered text detectors and text segmentation work together help AI recognize and extract words and numbers from images. Using a real-world example—scanning lottery tickets—we’ll demonstrate how OCR can automatically read numbers and dates from ticket images. You’ll learn about the challenges involved, like detecting text environments, and how AI makes the process faster and more accurate. By the end of the session, you’ll have a better understanding of how AI and OCR can be applied in everyday tasks, making technology more accessible and efficient.

AI: Humanity’s Hero or Hilarious Harbinger of Doom?

We'll dive into the ways AI can be used used to help humanity. At the same time we will have a not-so-serious (but kinda serious) chat about ways AI could theoretically bring humanity to its knees. From self-driving cars plotting their own routes to world domination, to AI assistants that might “accidentally” order 500 pineapples to your doorstep, this talk takes a lighthearted yet cautionary approach to how our digital overlords might cause chaos. But don't worry—it's all in good fun... or is it?

Brought to by the Destroy All Humans Podcast.

Create a Real World Mobile Application using Azure, MAUI, and .NET 7

Let's face it, all of us want to create mobile applications if we had the time. Let's get together to create a real world mobile application demonstrating all the pieces that went into making the application. We will focus on creating a single cross platform mobile application where we share code and UI across iOS and Android. We will then examine how to leverage native features on each platform. Finally, we will bring the application to life connecting to services deployed in Azure.

Understanding Collections, Sets, Queues, and Other Data Structures in .NET

.NET has many data structures which implement collections, sets, queues and other types of common data structures. Knowing which classes to use for your needs is critical to building great applications. This presentation will examine common data structures such as List, Dictionary, HashSet, LinkedList, SortedList, SortedSet, SortedDictionary, Queue, PriorityQueue, ConcurrentQueue, ConcurrentDictionary, ImmutableList, ImmutableDictionary. We will discuss implementation details such as capacity, memory, CPU, performance, and concurrency. By the end of this presentation, you will have a good understanding of when to use each data structure along with some best practices for using them.

Cloud Native Java development on Azure

Java is one of the top development languages in the world. It only makes sense that Microsoft is committed to the success of Java developers on Azure. We will get to know the support that Microsoft has provided for running Java applications on Azure. This will include JDKs, IDEs, toolkits, command line tools, and support for Java within Azure. By the end of this talk, you will have an understanding of where to start your Java development on Azure.

Building Microservices using REST and gRPC on .NET 7

There have been many new features for microservices in .NET over the past several years. We will examine the culmination of those features including those features in .NET 7. This will include building services using REST vs. gRPC, examining improvements in System.Text.Json, look at JSON transcoding for gRPC, and finally we will end with improvements using HTTP/3, the latest HTTP standard. By the end of this presentation you will have a good understanding on where you can get started with microservices on .NET. If you know microservices on .NET already, we will get you up-to-speed on the latest improvements in .NET.

Advanced REST Services using .NET 7

Building REST Services in .NET is easy! Building Great REST Services in .NET is not obvious. We will examine many of the tricks of the trade for building REST Services using .NET 7. This will include serialization using System.Text.Json, custom JSON serialization, HTTP Response compression, client improvements with HTTPClient, batch APIs, and much more.

Advanced Microservices with .NET 7

Come learn about creating microservices with .NET. You will learn about REST and gRPC, along with best practices for creating services. Finally, we will examine improvements for microservices in .NET 7.

gRPC vs. REST Deep Dive

Get to know gRPC and REST! We will compare both frameworks and examine their differences. Topics to include protocols, serialization, performance, and client support.

Creating Advanced Microservices

Making sure that you know how to create REST and gRPC services with various best practices and techniques. Topics to include client compatibility, compression, batching, byte shaving, custom serialization, multiplexing, bloom filters and more.

Crazy Stories and Adventures from the Life of a Developer

Being a developer can be one of the most rewarding careers you can hope to have. All you need is a little bit of courage and determination combined with some imagination. We will talk about the journey of one such developer and the stories that define them. Along the way, you will hear about those skills that propelled this developer to do amazing things.

Learn how this developer saved a $50B conglomerate from $14M/day in fines, created new products for Microsoft, MathWorks, and Akamai, accidently created the grandfather of all spyware, helped Santa save Christmas, combated Putin for a major online retailer, and created mobile apps with his kids to fund their pizza addiction and learn new skills at the same time. Along the way, he got his certifications, wrote a book, created a company, and inspires others to do amazing things.

Through these stories you will find hope, courage, and excitement so you can change the world, one line of code at a time.

CDAO Finanial Services - Panel on AI [February 26, 2025]

What are the most critical data quality metrics that organizations should track for AI-driven decision-making?

Critical Data Quality Metrics for AI-Driven Decision-Making

Data quality is essential for AI to make the best decisions based on the most accurate, complete, and reliable information available. Poor-quality data—such as inaccuracies, spelling mistakes, duplicate records, or missing values—can significantly hinder AI’s ability to generate meaningful insights. Organizations must track key data quality metrics to ensure that AI-driven decisions are trustworthy and effective.

A comprehensive tool like Microsoft Fabric can help organizations manage and improve data quality across all these metrics by integrating data engineering, real-time analytics, and governance into a unified platform.
1. Accuracy – Data must reflect real-world conditions as precisely as possible. Microsoft Fabric’s Dataflows and Semantic Models help validate and cleanse data by enabling automated anomaly detection and multi-source data reconciliation.
2. Completeness – AI models rely on a full dataset. Microsoft Fabric provides data lineage and monitoring to identify missing values and ensure key attributes are properly ingested.
3. Consistency – Data should be uniform across systems. Microsoft Fabric’s OneLake architecture enables a single source of truth, ensuring data remains consistent across different business applications.
4. Timeliness – Data should be available when needed. With real-time streaming and event-driven pipelines, Fabric ensures that AI models have access to the most up-to-date information for decision-making.
5. Integrity – Data must be secure, valid, and free from unauthorized alterations. Microsoft Fabric’s built-in security, compliance, and data governance tools (e.g., Purview integration) protect data integrity and maintain compliance with industry standards.
6. Uniqueness (No Duplicates) – Duplicate records distort AI insights. Fabric’s Data Factory and Synapse capabilities enable deduplication, data merging, and record matching to maintain data uniqueness.
7. Bias & Fairness – AI is only as unbiased as the data it is trained on. Microsoft Fabric integrates AI-powered data profiling and bias detection to help organizations proactively identify and mitigate bias in datasets.

By leveraging Microsoft Fabric, organizations can improve data accuracy, consistency, and governance while ensuring AI-driven decisions are based on high-quality, trustworthy data. This comprehensive approach enhances insights, minimizes risks, and maximizes AI’s business impact. To learn more on how Microsoft Fabric can be used to solve these challenges and more, visit MILL5 at https://www.mill5.com.

Rich participated in the AI panel on data quality and provide his views on this subject. (see above).