Will the Last Developer Please Turn Off the Lights

The death of the professional developer was greatly exaggerated. This isn't the first time that tech has promised to let end-users develop their own code. I don't think it will work this time either. In this talk, i'll delve into my own story of where I think AI for developers is headed and how it might affect our industry.

Prompts, Vibes and Agents: Practical AI for Developers

We're inundated with AI tools to help developers build applications. But are these tools overhyped? Let's find out together. I'll be using Agents to build code to see where I think will help developers most.

Pragmatic Architecture in .NET Core Workshop

Building or refactoring large projects can be a daunting task. This course will help you understand the basics of software architecture and how to apply them to your .NET Core projects. We will cover the basics of software architecture, how to structure your application, and how to coordinate the components of your application. We will also cover monitoring distributed applications and how to act on problems when they arise.

Prerequisites
Before taking this course students should have some familiarity with .NET and C#.

What You will Learn?
- Learning the basics of software architecture
- Monoliths, microservices and everything in between
- Components of a distributed application
- Messaging between components
- Monitoring distributed applications

Configuration and Secret Management with Azure

For .NET developers, it is easy to end up putting all your configuration and secrets in appsettings files, but checking in secrets is never a good idea. For applications hosted in Azure, using App Configuration and KeyVault are a great way to make sure that you have a simple way to define and re-use your configuration system for all your apps.

Building APIs with .NET Core

.NET Core has changed quite a lot about how we are going to build REST-ful APIs. It opens up new avenues to build API projects both small and large using a mix of Controller-based and Minimal APIs.

In this workshop, I'll help you understand what's changed, when to use what, and basics of dealing with APIs in general. This workshop covers:

- What is ASP.NET Core
- Creating Your First Project
- Building the Data Model with Entity Framework Core
- Designing the API
- Securing the API with Microsoft Identity

Come learn all about modern REST APIs in .NET in this workshop by Shawn WIldermuth (me!).

This is a workshop, not a session talk. It requires at least four hours to teach and I can teach an 8 hour version.

Build a Web App with ASP.NET Core and Vue

Building for the web can be daunting as there are so many different technologies to choose and integrate. Sometimes it's best to see how it all fits together. In this full-day workshop, Shawn Wildermuth will walk you through building a web app from file->new to completed project.

The topics covered include:

- What is ASP.NET Core
- Creating Your First Project
- Building the Data Model with Entity Framework Core
- Designing the API
- Securing the Web App
- Building the Client with Vue
- Integrating TailwindCSS
- Hosting Vue in ASP.NET Core

This workshop will build the project step-by-step (and you should be able to follow along). With eight hours, you will be presented with the smorgasbord of technologies that will give you the ramp up to using each of these technologies.

For the course, it is recommended that you bring a laptop with either Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code or Rider installed on the laptop. Please have the following installed as well:

- .NET Core SDK
- Node.js LTS

This workshop cannot be taught in less than 8 hours. There isn't a shorter version of this workshop.

Nullable Reference Types: It's Actually About Non-Nullable Reference Types

Isn't `null` the bane of many of a developer's life? Working with nullable data has always required some amount of understanding this third state of data.

Recently, Microsoft introduced Nullable Reference Types to .NET developers and for many a long-term C# developer, the change was daunting. In recent iterations, Nullable Reference Types are now the default for new projects. But once you understand the reason to use Nullability, you'll see how it can simply your code and have to use less safeguards around your code. Instead of turning it off, let me show you why Nullable Reference Types exist and how they could make your code better.

Diversity for Better Software: Pragmatic Reasons to Have Diverse Teams

In my past few years, I’ve been investigating and interviewing a series of developers about the problems of diversity in software. Both women and people of color still represent a smaller share of developers than they should. In this keynote, Shawn will talk about pragmatic reasons to diversity and add inclusion to make software better, not just for the social justice reasons.

Design Your APIs First: Avoiding the Technical Debt of Cowboy API Design

Thinking ahead is one of the tenets of a good developer. But, we don't always have the time to plan well. When it comes to designing REST APIs, this is especially important as you'll be making decisions that you'll have to live with for a long time. Just striking forward, coding up your API is likely a mistake. Let's talk about what API design really encompasses.

In this talk, Shawn Wildermuth will design an API so you can see how REST really works and everything you need to consider before you deploy your first API.

Lock It Down: Using Azure Entra ID for .NET APIs and SPAs

.NET developers are thrown a lot of jargon when it comes to securing REST APIs: Identity, OAuth, JWT, OpenID, Cookies, and more. But for many of us, we just want a way to protect our Azure apps to well-known users inside and outside of our organization. That's where Azure Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) comes in.

What if I told you that it wasn't that hard? Would you really believe me? In this talk, I'll walk through adding Entra ID to a Vue App and the backend .NET API server.

Aging in Software Development

As I enter late middle age, I am starting to think about my role in software development. Questions like: "Am I as sharp as I used to be?", "Can I compete with younger developers?", and "Do I want to do more than coding?" haunt me. But I feel like I might be turning a corner to see how my experience can be an asset to any team. The trick might be just believing in my self.

In this talk, I'll talk frankly about what it is like getting older in tech. How can I future proof my life in this last chapter of my working life. And, how I can actually enjoy where I am at instead of just fearing the future.

This could be a session or a keynote.

Aspirational Distributed Applications: Using Aspire to Simplify Development of Complex Applications

When I heard about Aspire, it took me a while to really get my head around what the .NET team is trying to do. While there have been existing ways to deploy complex connected applications (e.g. microservices, serverless, hybrid, and modular monoliths) like Kubernetes, Docker Compose and Podman. These are all great to use, but are not that friendly to .NET developers. This is where Aspire attempts better enable you to make cloud native applications in a more comfortable environment.

In this talk, I'll add aspire to an existing application that uses a mix of .NET and non-.NET components to see how it works!

Software Architecture in the Time of Claude

The last five years of AI has gone very fast. We've gone from suspicion to over-enthusiasm. While we can generate a lot of complex code, ultimately we're still responsible for the state of our systems. In this talk, I explain some techniques for keeping control of your systems and architecture without avoiding AI code generation.

While this talk uses Claude as an example, the techniques aren't Claude-specific. CoPilot and other tools would be similar.

Miniservices not Microservices in Azure

For small and medium sized businesses, the complexity of setting up and maintaining Kubernetes cluster or even Container Services (ACS) is not necessary. In this talk, I'll introduce a middle ground of using Azure's databases, AppServices, Azure Functions and ServiceBus to build out simplified architecture without resorting to full-blown microservices.

Herding the Cats of Enterprise Configuration

Centralized configuration and protection of secrets are key to large systems. Azure provides many ways to help, but knowing how it all works can be daunting. Technologies like KeyVault and AppConfiguration can simplify and secure your configuration. This talk will explain the difference between configuration and secrets as well as how to secure them with System and Managed Identities.

This is an Azure talk but uses C# as the example language. I can present this with TypeScript if I have enough notice.