Speaker

David Gardiner

David Gardiner

Senior Developer at SixPivot, Microsoft MVP

Adelaide, Australia

David Gardiner has been creating software for over 25 years. He has a passion for continual learning and improving quality, and enjoys being in and creating environments where these happen. A Microsoft MVP (Development Technologies), he runs the Adelaide .NET User Group.

Based in Adelaide, South Australia, he works as a Senior Developer at SixPivot. In his spare time he contributes to numerous open source projects (including some of his own), and is a package moderator at Chocolatey.org

He blogs at https://david.gardiner.net.au/ and tweets at @DavidRGardiner.

Awards

Area of Expertise

  • Information & Communications Technology

Topics

  • .NET
  • DevOps
  • CI/CD
  • Azure
  • GitHub
  • C#.Net

My 8 favourite new features of .NET 8

.NET just keeps delivering the goodness with annual major releases, and version 8 is no different.

In this fast-paced talk we'll look at my top 8 new features in .NET, including C# language enhancements, core library improvements, desktop and web UI framework updates and advances in packaging and deployment.

See why .NET is such a great choice for application development.

Blackberry jam and the art of software development

Ever wondered how you can make your own blackberry jam? Every wondered if making jam has any relation at all to developing software? You'll wonder no more as we take you step by step through the art of producing a delectable conserve, and the surprising connections it has to software development.

Top Tips for Transforming Troublesome Terraform

Infrastructure as code has become one of pillars of the DevOps movement. Consistent, repeatable, and under version control. Terraform is a popular tool for deploying that infrastructure across multiple clouds and on-prem.

When it works, it's a thing of beauty. But when it doesn't it can be so frustrating trying to figure out why!

We'll give a short introduction to Terraform - the language and ecosystem. Then highlight some of the common issues you might encounter, and tips and techniques to both avoid problems in the first place, and make it easier to troubleshoot in the future.

Whether you're brand new to Terraform or an experienced veteran, you'll gain insights into how to deploy infrastructure with success.

Contain your enthusiasm (and your app) with the .NET SDK Container Building Tools

Running .NET inside a container has been supported for a while, but up until now, building the container image required a bunch of extra steps. Until now that is!
We'll get you up to speed on what containers are and how we can use them to build and run software. Then contrast how much easier it is to build containers for .NET apps in .NET, how you can customise the image to your needs, incorporate it into your CI/CD pipeline, what enhancements are coming in .NET 8, and any limitations to be aware of.

Bulletproof builds

How can we create a build and deployment pipeline that is actually reliable? Is it even possible?

In this talk we'll look at all the ways automated builds (and deployments) can go wrong, and approaches and techniques to make them more resilient and consistent. Will your builds continue to work if nuget.org has an outage? What about if a new version of the .NET SDK has a regression?

The choices you make in application architecture, build pipeline technology, resource constraints imposed upon you, and other external forces can all have unwanted impacts.

Build with confidence, so you can fire away, fire away!

Life is like a Box of Chocolate(y)

DevOps begins at home when you script your own desktop. Learn from experienced package author and project contributor how to automate the installation and configuration of all the software you need to get your job done with open source tools Chocolatey and Boxstarter. Take a vanilla Windows install from zero to fully configured developer environment in minutes*!

Find out how to wrap each of your tools and applications in a well-specified Chocolatey package. Learn about common pitfalls and get an inside perspective on the package moderation process so that you can publish to the public repository on Chocolatey.org with confidence.

Learn how to orchestrate the installation of all your packages (including reboots) with Boxstarter. Build up a fully configured developer machine from scratch, or redeploy your test environment with ease and reliability.

But this is not just for rebuilding your dev boxes, these same techniques can be used to help your customers download, install and upgrade your software with ease.

This talk is rated 200-300 with a target audience of all Windows-based developers who want to spend more time coding and less time reinstalling software.

* Obviously the more tools you need, the more minutes it will take!

Build automation with Cake

Do you have a complex build process? Is your CI build not quite the same as building locally? Can you grab a fresh copy of the source code and be up and running in minutes?

Cake is a build automation system based on C#. Find out how you can use Cake to orchestrate the entire build process, from compiling, testing, package and deployment. By using C# as the build DSL, you'll feel instantly at home!

Hear about David's experiences moving from a traditional multi-step CI build process to driving the build entirely with Cake. See how you can make use of Cake's impressive built in functions and 3rd-party add-ins.

Learn how to leverage Cake's extension model to write your own addins to provide custom functionality.

Improving quality by extending Azure Repos

The new Azure DevOps allows you to "pick and choose" the pieces that make sense. In this talk David will share his experiences integrating Azure DevOps Repositories with other "best in class" tools like TeamCity and UpSource.

Find out how the Azure DevOps API and Service Hooks enable integration of your own 3rd-party applications (both on-prem and cloud-based) into an Azure Repos pull request life cycle to provide insights into code changes and add value.

The Mystery of the Broken Build, and other DevOps adventures

Surely if you implement DevOps with Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Infrastructure as Code, it is all rainbows and unicorns?

It turns out the reality is a bit different. Hear real life stories of DevOps disasters and failures that would have had Mystery Inc, Nancy Drew, and The Famous Five all perplexed.

We'll take a closer look at commonly-used DevOps tools and processes, and suggest techniques to not only make them more robust, resilient and consistent, but put things in place so you're in the best position to solve the next mystery that comes your way.

.NET Conf Manila 2022 Sessionize Event

January 2023

.NET Virtual Conference 2022 Sessionize Event

January 2022

.NET Conf 2018

September 2018

NDC Sydney 2017 Sessionize Event

August 2017

David Gardiner

Senior Developer at SixPivot, Microsoft MVP

Adelaide, Australia