Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg Sept 23-24 2024

API Essentials Toolkit: 10 Must-Have Tools for API Design and Management

Travis Gosselin

Audience Level: Intermediate

In the rapidly evolving realm of API development, having the right tools is paramount for both efficient design and effective management. This presentation delves into a curated collection of indispensable tools that every API practitioner should be familiar with. Covering the full spectrum of the API Lifecycle we will talk about tools for design, development, consistency, governance, documentation, and team collaboration. Join to discover how this essential toolkit can empower your API journey, enhancing productivity and ensuring optimal performance throughout the API lifecycle.

Blending Product Thinking with Architecture

Joel Tosi

Audience Level: Intermediate

Too much design up front and you are bumping into the design all of the time (and losing time). Not enough design and your system can crumble in reality. How do you blend architecture so you have the right decisions at the right time, and give them enough due dilligence? How do you embrace cloud and microservices and not risk getting into different failure scenarios or overly complicated maintenance and ripple effects?

Systems grow and change over time. You can have intentional design, or accidental design.

In this session we will walk through approaches that leverage product context to keep architecture aligned with the needs of the product. We will look at strategic DDD, C4 modeling, and architecture decision records.

Leave this session with simple techniques that you can apply immediately to start blending product with architecture.

Building Generative AI applications using Azure Integration Services

Harold Campos

Audience Level: Intermediate

Azure Integration Services is redefining digital transformation for every industry by enabling rapid and scalable integration of data, applications, and systems.

By using Azure Integration Services, developers can harness the power of AI to build innovative and intelligent solutions that can transform business processes, customer experiences, and operational efficiency. Azure Integration Services has multiple AI capabilities that enhance the developer experience and enable the creation of intelligent applications. For instance:

Azure Logic Apps provides an AI-powered assistant that helps developers at every step as they build applications. This tool, based on Azure Open AI, answers any questions developers might have about using Logic Apps.

Azure Logic Apps also provides the building blocks to create Generative AI applications that can generate content, images, or text based on user input. The Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) framework can be used to enhance Large Language Models (LLMs) with a domain-specific data, ensuring that the model's responses are fine-tuned and relevant to the customer needs. RAG patterns can be performed in Azure Logic Apps without writing any code - or write code only where your business drives that need. This democratizes AI application development and empowers developers to focus on value-driven applications.

Another example is API Management, which can use Intelligent Load Balancing to optimize the performance and availability of APIs. This feature leverages OpenAI to dynamically distribute the traffic among the backend instances based on various factors, such as latency, error rate, and resource utilization.

I will demo how to build Generative AI solutions with Azure Integration Services.

Building GitHub in my Bathroom* with Codespaces

Dylan Smith

Audience Level: Intermediate

*OK, not *really* from my bathroom, but come to this session where I'll show you how GitHub CodeSpaces works and how it empowers developers to code wherever they want to!

Can Azure AutoML Beat the Assiniboia Downs (With No Scary Machine Learning)

Nazar Viznytsya

Audience Level: Beginner

Azure's AutoML is a powerful tool for creating machine-learning models without having to dive deeply into the complicated world of optimizing which model to pick and which parameters to tune, but just how well does Azure's AutoML perform? In this talk, we'll go over, from start to finish, the complete process of creating and using an optimized machine learning model to predict the outcome of horse races with Azure AutoML using public horse racing data. Then we'll look at how well the model we created performed against live horse races at the Assiniboia Downs over the summer.

Code and Convince: Mastering Persuasion at Work

Sandy Liu

Audience Level: All

This presentation will go over some practical strategies and techniques for leveraging persuasion at work. From pitching your latest project to persuading your team to adopt Agile methodologies, I'll provide actionable insights that you can start using to achieve your goals.

We'll explore the principles of persuasion, including reciprocity, social proof, and scarcity. You'll learn how to craft compelling arguments, deliver persuasive presentations, and build consensus among diverse stakeholders. Influencing others with integrity and effectively mastering the art of persuasion can elevate your career and drive results for your organization.

Code, Connect, Conquer: Mastering Serverless and API-Centric Designs

Chad Green

Audience Level: All

In today's rapidly evolving landscape of cloud computing and software architecture, the paradigms of serverless computing and API-driven architectures stand out as transformative forces driving efficiency, scalability, and innovation. This session explores these two intertwined concepts' core principles, benefits, and practical applications.

Beginning with exploring serverless computing, we define its essence and trace its evolution from traditional server-based models. We unravel the manifold benefits it offers, from seamless scalability and cost-effectiveness to reduced operational overhead and accelerated time-to-market. Delving deeper, we dissect the critical components of serverless architecture, including Functions as a Service (FaaS), Backend as a Service (BaaS), and event-driven paradigms.

Transitioning to API-driven architectures, we illuminate their pivotal role in modern software development, emphasizing their modularity, reusability, and interoperability. We discuss API design principles, the significance of API gateways, and real-world examples showcasing their transformative potential in diverse domains.

Throughout the session, we navigate the intricate challenges and considerations, from cold start latency and vendor lock-in to security implications and monitoring complexities. Drawing from practical insights and future trends, we anticipate these paradigms' continued evolution and intersection with emerging technologies.

Join us on this enlightening journey as we unravel the intricate tapestry of serverless computing and API-driven architectures, empowering you to harness their full potential in your software endeavors.

Conversations That Matter

Ashleigh Lodge

Audience Level: All

Be honest: how many times have you needed to have a talk with someone, but have avoided it because you know it will be awful. Or what about those times when a discussion takes a sharp left turn and suddenly everyone's shouting at each other, and then someone storms out and now nothing is going to get decided. Conversations don't have to be this way! There are skills that all of us can learn to have more meaningful, more productive, more harmonious conversations, at work and at home.

Crafting Consistent APIs at Scale: Embracing Linting & Reusable Models

Travis Gosselin

Audience Level: All

In an era where digital transformations drive business value, the importance of developing consistent, scalable, and robust APIs cannot be overstated. As teams expand and projects multiply, maintaining a unified API design can pose significant challenges. This presentation delves into the powerful combination of linting and reusable models as tools to navigate these challenges and ensure consistency across large-scale API designs.

We will explore API linting using the open-source Spectral project to enable teams to identify and rectify inconsistencies during design. In tandem we will navigate the need for reusable models, recognizing that the best specification is the one you don't have to write or lint at all! These two approaches not only facilitate the smooth integration of services but also foster collaboration across teams by providing a shared, consistent foundation.

Creating Reactive Applications in .NET

Jason Bock

Audience Level: Intermediate

In modern applications, data is being retrieved in asynchronous, real-time streams. The days of traditional pull requests where the clients asks for data from the server are becoming a thing of the past. Reactive applications incorporate push notifications to provide real-time updates to users. In this session, you'll see how you can use frameworks like Rx and SignalR to seamlessly add this facet to your applications, be they native or web. You'll also discover how async streams, a C#8 feature, can be used to consume data streams.

Custom LLM Solution Architectures: A Practical Roadmap for Technology Professionals

Steven Holt

Audience Level: All

In the rapidly evolving landscape of Large Language Models (LLMs), the demand for customized solutions that align seamlessly with specific organizational needs is skyrocketing. This presentation dives deep into the world of bespoke LLM solution architectures, offering a crystal-clear roadmap for technology professionals eager to harness the full potential of these powerful tools.l

Whether you are looking to innovate, optimize, or revolutionize your current technological frameworks, this session will equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to design and deploy cutting-edge LLM solutions. You’ll learn and explore practical strategies that bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world application.

Key takeaways include:

Design Strategies: Learn how to design robust LLM solution architectures that are both scalable and efficient.
Implementation Insights: Get insights on tools and techniques that can accelerate your project from concept to reality.
Future-proofing Your LLM Solutions: Stay ahead of the curve by understanding emerging trends and how to prepare to integrate future advancements today.

Join us for this enlightening session that promises not only to inspire but also to transform your approach to technology solutions. Perfect for developers, IT professionals, and business leaders looking to leverage the power of LLMs, this presentation is a can’t-miss opportunity at the forefront of technological innovation.

Data Analytics at the University of Manitoba - technology, tactics and talent... Oh My!

Terry Bunio

Audience Level: Intermediate

This session will share the journey the University of Manitoba has taken in setting up in establishing a Data Analytics program. We will discuss the technologies used, the data modelling and development approach, and the design of the team to support the development and the maintenance of the Data Analytics solution. We will also share lessons learned in the use and implementation of the Microsoft technology, Data Governance methodology and challenges, technical and business skills required, and team organizational design. We will share how we are leveraging an Agile/Iterative process to deliver value. We have currently implemented four iterations and will show what we have done, what we have learned, and what is next. Most importantly, we will share what not to do in the hopes that we can save time and effort for others.

Developing with .NET Aspire and AI

Chris Ayers

Audience Level: All

Coming Soon!

DIY Video Streaming

Mike Menzies & Paul Giles

Audience Level: All

Video streaming is a ubiquitous part of our everyday life. Despite this, it remains a niche subject for many IT professionals. Most businesses simply leverage YouTube, social media, or vendor solutions for general purpose video streaming needs.

But what if your company wanted to dip a toe into this world? What would an MVP in-house video streaming pipeline look like? A client recently presented us with that exact question. Our small team of engineers, having little to no experience in this area, needed to spin up a production-ready solution within the span of 3 weeks.

Using this real world project as a case study, this session will provide you with foundational knowledge on what it takes to setup a video transcoding pipeline and how to deliver streaming video to your end-users. Our goal is to demystify video streaming and demonstrate that it's not as hard as you might think.

Domain-Driven Design, Being Ontological

Peter Ritchie

Audience Level: Intermediate

The patterns and practices of Domain-Driven design are very similar to creating an ontology. Ontologies deal with the nature of being. Domain-Driven Design in a way deals with the question "what does it mean to *be* a part of this domain?".

This session compares and contrasts Domain-Driven Design and ontologies. It then answers, "How can taking an ontological view of a domain help in successfully gathering accurate needs and expectations of stakeholders to design a system with the domain in mind?" This session also discusses how to translate the information gathered from answering these questions into strategic plans, such as designs and architecture.

This is Fine: Effective Incident Management and Postmortems

Mark St.Godard

Audience Level: All

Any team that has been on-call knows one thing, incidents happen. Being on-call, dealing with incidents and learning from the experiences, does not have to be a painful process. This talk will guide you through the following:

setting up an effective, sustainable on-call rotation
keys to a successful incident response plan
how to effectively manage incidents
the importance of post mortems

Learn more about how to detect, mitigate and prevent incidents through fostering a culture of learning and effective incident response management.

Fueling Motivation at Work

Sandy Liu

Audience Level: All

This presentation will cover methods to cultivate motivation to improve performance, satisfaction, and well-being. The focus will be on practical, actionable insights that can be easily implement to make a tangible difference in your daily life.

Understand the common causes of lack of motivation and some actions that you can take to help yourself out of a slump. You'll learn about the power of autonomy, mastery, and purpose...three key elements that can significantly boost motivation and how to create an environment that encourages innovation. When you can effectively motivate yourself, you can motivate your teams.

Game Development with CSS?!

Tim G. Thomas

Audience Level: All

Many of us web developers have built games for fun (and sometimes profit), but what if we missed a great set of tools that have been waiting there in the web dev world all along? In this session, we'll see how CSS...yes, Cascading Style Sheets!...can help us bring some game ideas to life, using tools we rely on every day! We'll discuss some theory and learn some cool CSS tricks that help make the magic happen, and you'll walk away with a new appreciation for web styling...and maybe even some ideas to make games of your own!

Guarding the ML Galaxy: Beyond Accuracy to Privacy and Security

Jigyasa Grover & Rishabh Misra

Audience Level: All

The last handful of years have seen an immense evolution and adoption of Machine Learning (ML) in multifarious domains. Regardless of our fascination or loathe for it, ML-powered services and products are influencing our decision-making power and dominating our lives heavily. The scope of impact of these intelligent systems implies that the confidentiality of both data and the underlying algorithm is highly critical. A slight slack in the design of these systems can lead to disastrous outcomes propelled by cyber-attacks, reverse engineering, and leakage of sensitive data like personal conversations, financial transactions, medical history, and so on.

This talk analyses the contemporary interpretation of privacy and security in the ML realm and the significance it holds in myriad settings. It reviews the prevalent types of privacy and security attacks on ML systems. Furthermore, it introduces the audience to some techniques for retaining the privacy of data & proprietary design, warranting the security of the deployed model, and staying compliant with the latest regulations and policies to ensure trust among all the stakeholders.

The goal is to ignite the public dialogue regarding privacy impacts, ethical consequences, fairness, and real-world harms of non-privacy-compliant ML systems.

Hands on with React 19

Jerecho Giba

Audience Level: All

In this session, we're going to explore what's new in React 19: What are the code breaking changes that would affect your application, and how can you prepare for this future release. This session will provide you with a roadmap and a demonstration for setting/upgrading your React applications to a successful release.

Hit The Lights: Bring Dark Mode to Your Apps

Tim G. Thomas

Audience Level: Intermediate

Historically, visual customization in apps has been...lacking. Today, more devices and browsers than ever are embracing their dark side with dark modes. In this talk, we'll discover how easy it is to add a little darkness to your web, desktop, and mobile apps, without harming the visuals you've worked so hard for. We'll also discuss the theory behind designing for dark modes, how to integrate a dark color scheme into your apps, and how to ensure you maintain accessibility. It's time to embrace your dark side!

How to get a website going when JS is not your cup of tea

Alex Drenea

Audience Level: All

In a web world dominated by JS frameworks, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the backend developer.

With Blazor release a few years ago, developers got a chance to build rich websites using C# and run them either client side using WASM or server side both with pros and cons.

In its newer release Blazor 8 brings amazing functionality that is able to rival any modern JS framework.

Stop by at this session to learn more!

How to make a career as a [technology] expert!

Ben Goldstein & Heather Ronnebeck

Audience Level: All

Explore the career journey of two professional Atlassian consultants, Ben Goldstein and Heather Ronnebeck from Work Wranglers as they share their experiences to become "experts" and find work and opportunities in the Atlassian technology community.

This journey can be expanded to other major technology products like Salesforce, azure, AWS, and more. This talk will help participants plot a course in their career toward becoming an "expert"

Integrating Threat Modelling in Web Application Teams

Adam Krieger

Audience Level: All

Attackers don't play by the rules. Attackers will do whatever they can to disrupt, steal, or manipulate applications and their data. The STRIDE framework is a key tool in analyzing our applications, understanding the threats these attackers pose, and building countermeasures commensurate with risk. Combine that with an operationalized Secure SDLC approach and your organization can implement the security controls needed to keep your data safe. The path to Secure Design is there, but you need to take the steps. Join me in this talk to spread awareness about effectively integrating threat modelling into your application design process.

Integrating with AI using Azure Logic Apps

Cameron McKay

Audience Level: All

In this talk, we will delve into the exciting world of AI integration using Azure Logic Apps. We will explore how Azure Logic Apps, a powerful cloud-based service, can be used to create intelligent, automated workflows by integrating with Azure AI APIs.

We will start discussing the basics of Azure Logic Apps and Azure AI APIs, and how they can be leveraged to enhance your business processes. We will discuss show examples of connectors and APIs for Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cognitive Services and Azure AI Search in Azure Logic Apps.

By the end of this talk, you will have a solid understanding of how to harness the power of AI in your operations using Azure Logic Apps and Azure AI APIs. You will be equipped with the knowledge to transform your business processes, boost productivity, and drive innovation.

Whether you’re a seasoned developer or a business professional looking to leverage AI in your operations, this talk will provide valuable insights and practical knowledge.

Integrations, Orchestrations, Automations: Paving the Path for AI in Enterprise Architecture

David Wesst

Audience Level: Intermediate

This enterprise architecture-centric session delves into the evolving integration landscape within today's market, emphasizing the strategic necessity of distinguishing between integrations, orchestrations, and automations. The presentation argues for the development of a robust foundation that supports data and digital governance, which is critical for managing these three integration types effectively. This foundational strategy not only streamlines current processes but also sets the stage for leveraging Artificial Intelligence technologies. Attendees will explore how to build and implement integration strategies that not only meet current needs but also anticipate future technological advancements and business requirements. The session provides actionable insights into creating a cohesive framework that facilitates both immediate improvements and long-term innovation.

Introduction to .NET Aspire

Peter Ritchie

Audience Level: Intermediate

Building distributed systems is hard. A distributed system consists of many autonomous components deployed to isolated compute resources. Although autonomous, those components are interdependent, and those interdependencies complicate provisioning and deployment--resulting in a certain degree of orchestration to get all components to "play nice" in a particular environment.

.NET Aspire is like dependency injection at the distributed component level, empowering features such as service location, observability, health checks, and containerization via orchestration. In this session, we will cover the following topics:

Why would you need .NET Aspire?
Where does .NET Aspire fit in?
What Benefits does it offer?
How do I get started?
Caveats

Introduction to Azure Integration Services

Harold Campos

Audience Level: Intermediate

Azure Integration Services (AIS) is a cloud-native Integration Platform that powers digital transformation and app innovation. Composed by Azure Logic Apps, API Management, Service Bus and Event Grid, responds to today’s following customers needs:

Build a Composable Enterprise, which allows them to seamlessly assemble and integrate components for creating modern applications.
Respond to rapidly evolving tech trends requires by expanding the developer bench across the entire organization to innovate and drive digital initiatives effectively.
Strike the delicate balance between security and scalability by providing solutions that provide robust security measures while maintaining scalability and cost efficiency.
Achieving global reach with a local presence, enabling them to expand internationally.
Staying ahead in the market by using end-to-end modern experiences.

I will showcase the most important features of the AIS Integration platform and demonstrate a AI hybrid integration scenario as a Demo.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Jeff Kosciejew

Audience Level: All

Using the game "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes", we'll explore and highlight teamwork, communication, developing shared language, creating a shared understanding, and so much more. This session will be an interactive session for a small group, with other observing; with multiple rounds, pretty much anyone and everyone who wants to participate will be able to, but no one will be forced to participate! This is a very practical team activity, which easily scales beyond the team, and works well in-person, but even better with distributed teams as we explore the ways we need to interact when not co-located.

Keeping Message Data Private - Simple Peer-to-Peer Messaging Platforms

Nazar Viznytsya

Audience Level:

Peer-to-peer messaging platforms are one of the most powerful ways of giving users privacy in an era where users grow more and more concerned about who has access to their data. In this talk, we’ll go through the architecture of simple peer-to-peer messaging applications. Highlighting positive and negative differences between peer-to-peer and the more common client-server messaging platforms. We’ll also look at the steps it would take to create a generic peer-to-peer messaging system. Then using public libraries we’ll see how easy it is to create our very own peer-to-peer messaging website that provides enhanced privacy for potential users compared to a traditional client-server platform.

Leadership is hard: Building a culture of safety as a business imperative.

Steve Rogalsky

Audience Level: Intermediate

These quotes are a failure of leadership: "I get to quit today!! I can't wait to tell my boss, but he probably won't care." "I really want to quit, but I love my team." "I applied for 30 jobs this week because of how leadership is acting." "Our leaders shift priorities quite often, and we end up spinning wheels on efforts that don't go anywhere. But I can't imagine leaving my team." "I'm learning so much from my leaders. So many things NOT to do." Let's talk about how we can change this, starting with you.

Microsoft Copilot extensibility Approaches and Patterns

Joel Hebert

Audience Level: All

Microsoft Copilot offers various extensibility approaches and patterns, empowering developers to enhance their workflows and create custom integrations. Whether through APIs, plugins, or connectors, these extensibility options enable seamless collaboration and productivity. Explore the diverse ways to extend Copilot’s capabilities. If you are a developer and can write API’s this session will allow you to see how you can use your existing skill set to align to a fast paced AI landscape.

Monitoring and Troubleshooting with Azure Application Insights

Chris Ayers

Audience Level:

Monitoring and troubleshooting a live, production application is vital. One of the most stressful things a team can do, is trying to diagnose a distributed system without adding to the disruptions. Application Insights, part of Azure Monitor, is a tool that can you can plug into your applications to get the data you need. It goes far beyond a simple, logging solution by automatically detect performance anomalies and providing a live view into your applications.

We will cover how to enable Application Insights in our applications, both on prem, or in the cloud. I'll share examples in C#, JavaScript, and Python. We'll explore the integrations with DevOps and development tooling. Together we’ll look at the way Application Insights provides a deep view into application performance, errors, and usage. Finally, we’ll look at how to detect anomalies before they become complete outages and get alerted.

After this session, you'll be able to use Application Insights to help you continuously improve performance and usability. When issues arise, you'll have the insights to resolve problems quickly.

Next-Gen API Management: A Closer Look at AI Gateway Capabilities

Joel Hebert

Audience Level:

Discover the transformative AI Gateway capabilities within Azure API Management, designed to enhance the scalability and management of applications utilizing Azure OpenAI services. Learn about the innovative token limit policy, semantic caching, and load balancing features that empower developers to efficiently distribute workloads and optimize token usage. Explore the seamless integration process with Azure OpenAI, including the single-click API import experience and the ability to send token usage metrics to Azure Applications Insights for comprehensive analysis. Join me to elevate your intelligent application development to new heights.

On Pragmatic Estimation of Test Automation Effort for Software Sustainment Applications

Nazlie Shahmir & Pankaj Kamthan

Audience Level: Advanced

In many established software-intensive organizations, software sustainment applications refer to software systems that are already in operation, and require regular maintenance and support to ensure their continued relevance and usefulness to the users and the organization. The sustainment activities can include compatibility or security updates, data migration, and performance optimization. Test automation is integral to the success of large-scale regression testing of sustainment applications. For a positive ROI, effort required for test automation should be estimated before any commitment.

This presentation proposes a general and scalable approach for estimating test automation effort for software sustainment applications (for which automation is not in place yet). Its steps can be summarized as:

(1) Elicit the total number of test cases for test automation and target percentages for test automation
(2) Use a set of parameters to decide the level of effort for the entire suite of test cases
(3) Identify whether the application is Desktop, Web UI, Mobile, API, or Data/ETL
(4) Select the test automation tool(s) to be used based on the type of application being tested
(5) Classify the test cases based on their perceived complexity
(6) Use a three-point estimation technique to calculate a “weighted” average of optimistic, pessimistic, and realistic estimates, depending on the level of confidence desired
(7) Calculate the effort for test script design and the effort for test execution
(8) Consider the number of test executions required for each pre-production environment.

This approach aims to help test automation engineers ensure that automation testing is developed and delivered on time.

Performance testing modern software: Lessons learned

Darryl Shpak

Audience Level: All

Performance testing used to be easy: hook up a profiler, collect some benchmarks, identify hotspots, and optimize your code! But, modern languages and environments make it a lot harder, with network traffic, concurrency, deferred execution, advanced CPUs, and rich environments all conspiring to misdirect and mislead. Darryl has been working with his team for several months to improve the performance of a CPU-bound web service, and in this talk, he'll be giving an overview of some of the problems his team encountered, the solutions they found, and the lessons they learned. Ask questions, learn from their experiences, and perhaps you can avoid some dead ends the next time you find yourself wondering "Wasn't this a lot faster a couple years ago?"

Playwright: Reliable End-to-End Testing

David Paquette

Audience Level: All

Flaky tests, difficult to maintain test code, challenging test setup code...yeah, writing end-to-end tests can be a painful experience. That all changes with Playwright! In this session, we'll learn how to write reliable cross-browser, cross-platform end-to-end web tests in your choice of language. We'll also explore the rich codegen, inspector, and trace viewer tooling that makes Playwright an amazing developer experience!

Resilient Teaming - The path to happy, healthy, and engaged people.

Mike Edwards

Audience Level: Intermediate

Your team's biggest problem likely isn't what you think it is. While countless factors contribute to the existence of a problem, the one common thread for all of us is people. Over the last number of years, young and emerging professionals have only known constant transitions in their working and personal lives. The result is that nearly all workers (97%) between the ages of 18-34 are burned out (ref: 2023 survey, Cigna Global Health Services.) While older demographics are faring better, they also feel the effect, with nearly 30% reporting feeling burned out. The challenge is that only 8% of the workforce currently feels up to handling their daily challenges.

Enter the role of a leader.

As leaders, you have a significant role to play in helping people feel in control of how they cope, confront, and recover to resilience. Resiliency, though, is a journey and not a destination. Companies that work to maintain a resilient culture defy the dismal statistics. Resilient cultures teach and promote healthy coping strategies to help people recover to resilience more often than continuing to cope.

In this talk, people will:

Experience the difference and importance of coping and resilience in our lives.
A simple formula to reduce coping and overwhelm.
Learn the three conditions needed to put teams on the path to resilience more frequently.

Sculpting Data for Machine Learning: Generative AI edition

Jigyasa Grover & Rishabh Misra

Audience Level: All

The emergence of GenAI has revolutionized various domains, from creative content generation with text, synthetic images, video and so much more. However, the success and effectiveness of GenAI models heavily rely on the quality of the underlying data during the fine-tuning process. Volumes of crude data are available on the web nowadays; all we need are the skills to identify and extract meaningful datasets and present them to GenAI models to unleash their full potential.

This talk presents the power of the most fundamental aspect of AI - Data Curation, which often does not get its due limelight. It will also walk the audience through constructing good-quality datasets with hands-on Pythonic examples. By emphasizing the indispensability of quality data, this talk underscores the need for robust data collection and preprocessing practices to propel the advancements in GenAI.

Securing Applications in a DevSecOps World: 6 Essential Practices

Dylan Smith

Audience Level: Intermediate

We’ll delve into the critical aspects of integrating security practices into the development and operations lifecycle. With the growing complexity and frequency of cyber threats, organizations must adopt a proactive approach to application security. This talk highlights six key practices that can significantly enhance the security posture of applications within a DevSecOps environment. From implementing automated vulnerability scanning to fostering a culture of security awareness, attendees will gain actionable insights to mitigate risks, fortify defenses, and ensure the resilience of their applications in an ever-evolving threat landscape.

Securing the Web: Mastering HTTPS for Developers

Alexander Wiebe

Audience Level: Beginner

In today's digital world, HTTPS has become the standard for web security. However, the process of website development is not as easy as it seems. In this presentation, we will dive deep into the complexities of HTTPS and explore how developers can effectively utilize its power. We will provide a comprehensive demonstration, guiding you through the process of establishing secure communication from the foundation up. By the end of this session, you will have a newfound confidence in HTTPS. The only thing that will give you a shiver down the spine will be the thought of sites still lingering on HTTP.

SSR Web Components Everywhere (with WASM)

Simon MacDonald

Audience Level: All

Web Components are the browser native way to extend HTML. But as a primarily browser based technology they are defined with JavaScript which limits them to either rendering solely client side ... which has janky performance, poor SEO, and is not optimally accessible ... or within a server-side JavaScript runtime, which isn't always an option for shops that use other backend runtimes. In this talk we will explore leveraging the power of WASM to unlock server-side rendering Web Components for any backend runtime.

We really believe this is a leapfrog moment for frontend development. Server-side rendering is a key requirement for personalized web applications. Organizations that prioritize the stability, performance and accessibility of web standards run workloads in a huge variety of backend runtimes. Now we can build browser native web interfaces that cross the runtime chasm.

Sustainable Web Development

Simon MacDonald

Audience Level: All

In a world where technology is ever-expanding, the web development community must address the environmental impact of their creations. "Sustainable Web Development" will highlight the importance of building green web applications. This talk will provide developers, designers, and tech enthusiasts with insights and actionable strategies to reduce the carbon footprint of web development. Attendees will learn how to make responsible choices that benefit the environment and contribute to a more sustainable future for the Internet.

Systems Thinking - Concepts to See the Whole

Joel Tosi

Audience Level: All

Ever feel like process changes or change initiatives aren't quite getting the results you had hoped for? Turns out that there is much more to how a team or organization delivers products than isolated optimizations can help with.

Enter the world of Systems Thinking.

Come and learn what Systems Thinking is and why it is important to software. Leave the session understanding how to read and create system models as well as identify leverage points to introduce meaningful, impactful change in your organization.

Real World AI: How LotLinx Leverages AI In Their Solutions

Nick Hurrie

Audience Level: All

In this session, Nick Hurrie, Senior Director of Machine Learning and AI at LotLinx, will take you through LotLinx's innovative AI solutions. Using real-world examples, Nick will demonstrate how LotLinx leverages both Large Language Models (LLMs) and narrow machine learning models to revolutionize the automotive industry. You'll discover how LotLinx integrates these advanced AI technologies to enhance vehicle marketing and answer the questions automotive dealers wonder most. Attendees will follow how LotLinx uses AI to analyze vast amounts of data, create predictive models, and drive actionable insights that deliver tangible business results.

Terraform: The Developer's Swiss Army Knife for Infrastructure

Chad Green

Audience Level: All

Dive into the intricate realm of infrastructure automation and learn how developers can use Terraform as a versatile tool for building and updating application infrastructure. During this presentation, we will journey through the core tenets of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), unraveling the fabric of Terraform's declarative configuration language and its profound impact on development workflows.

Throughout the session, attendees will be immersed in hands-on demonstrations showcasing Terraform's prowess as a conduit for seamless integration with cloud services and APIs. Witness firsthand how developers wield Terraform to sculpt scalable and maintainable infrastructure deployments with unparalleled agility and efficiency.

But Terraform is more than just a tool; it's a catalyst for collaboration, bridging the chasm between development and operations teams. Explore how Terraform fosters a shared responsibility and innovation culture, empowering teams to merge their expertise and drive continuous improvement in infrastructure management practices.

Drawing from real-world use cases and best practices, this presentation equips developers with the knowledge and tools needed to harness Terraform's capabilities effectively. Armed with this newfound understanding, participants will emerge ready to conquer the ever-evolving landscape of modern infrastructure automation, poised to elevate their development workflows to new heights of efficiency and innovation.

Testing and Tester in the Context of DevOps: What's Old, What's New, and What's Important

Nazlie Shahmir & Pankaj Kamthan

Audience Level: Intermediate

DevOps aims to reduce the distance between development (software developers and quality assurance specialists) and operation (experts responsible for rolling out software to production and managing the infrastructure). The goals of DevOps are to increase the speed of software delivery process, to resolve critical issues quickly, and to enable organization to serve their customers better. These goals indicate that in DevOps, quality assurance, in general, and testing, in particular, should be looked at differently as compared to traditional and agile testing. The customers must be at the center of testing, all testing is the responsibility of the entire team, testing should be carried out continuously throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), more specialized tests must be used, automation should be used as much as possible to ensure continuous feedback, and tools should be integrated seamlessly. These not only consider testing as first-class or entail new practices, such as Shift-Left Testing, TestOps, and Continuous Testing, but also come with a new mindset, trade-offs, and cost. To achieve any of these successfully, a test engineer needs to acquire a new set of skills to think and do differently. The role of test engineer should also evolve to become a T-Shaped Engineer.

Testing in Production - How we fixed New Boards Hub performance in Azure DevOps

David Paquette

Audience Level: All

Tales from the trenches as an engineer building Azure DevOps. We'll cover how we track real-world performance for our customers and how we *safely* test in production.

The Magic of Perception

Jeff Kosciejew

Audience Level: All

Think you know what’s real? In this session, we’ll explore how our individual perception is shaped by everything we’ve previously experienced, and our reality might differ from others. Through magic & illusions, we’ll explore how our individual realities are unique. No magic wand required!

Tweaking Code Reviews for Maximum Potential

Alexander Wiebe

Audience Level: Intermediate

Code reviews can be an extremely useful tool for a team to ensure the quality of their code. However, there are many ways in which code reviews can become counterproductive and even toxic. Making small adjustments to the process can have a significant impact on the outcome of the review, whether it's an informal quick check or a formal review process. This presentation will explore ways in which meetings can be kept productive and ensure the happiness of everyone involved.

What's new with Azure Functions

Alex Drenea

Audience Level: All

Learn about the latest developments in the world of Azure Functions! Azure Functions .NET 6 using in-process model is going to be out of support at the end of 2024 at at this time .NET 8 only supports the Isolated process model.

Join this talk to learn how you can upgrade your functions to the Isolated model, what are the main differences and how you can future-proof your Functions beyond .NET 6

Writing Modern C#

Jason Bock

Audience Level: All

C# has been in existence for more than 20 years. In recent history, the number of features and changes have substantially increased, thereby allowing C# developers to write applications with new techniques and approaches. In this session, I'll cover a number of these language improvements. I'll demonstrate how these features can enhance code bases with concision and performance. If you've coded in C# for a while, and you're interested in updating your comprehension of the language, this session is for you!

Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg

About Prairie Dev Con

Why Attend?

Event Starts In:

Speakers

Adam Krieger

Alex Drenea

Alexander Wiebe

Ashleigh Lodge

Ben Goldstein

Cameron McKay

Chad Green

Chris Ayers

Darryl Shpak

David Paquette

David Wesst

Dylan Smith

Harold Campos

Heather Ronnebeck

Jason Bock

Jeff Kosciejew

Jerecho Giba

Jigyasa Grover

Joel Hebert

Joel Tosi

Mark St.Godard

Mike Edwards

Mike Menzies

Nazar Viznytsya

Nazlie Shahmir

Nick Hurrie

Pankaj Kamthan

Paul Giles

Peter Ritchie

Rishabh Misra

Sandy Liu

Simon MacDonald

Steve Rogalsky

Steven Holt

Terry Bunio

Tim G. Thomas

Travis Gosselin

Sessions

API Essentials Toolkit: 10 Must-Have Tools for API Design and Management

Travis Gosselin

Audience Level: Intermediate

Blending Product Thinking with Architecture

Joel Tosi

Audience Level: Intermediate

Building Generative AI applications using Azure Integration Services

Harold Campos

Audience Level: Intermediate

Building GitHub in my Bathroom* with Codespaces

Dylan Smith

Audience Level: Intermediate

Can Azure AutoML Beat the Assiniboia Downs (With No Scary Machine Learning)

Nazar Viznytsya

Audience Level: Beginner

Code and Convince: Mastering Persuasion at Work

Sandy Liu

Audience Level: All

Code, Connect, Conquer: Mastering Serverless and API-Centric Designs

Chad Green

Audience Level: All

Conversations That Matter

Ashleigh Lodge

Audience Level: All

Crafting Consistent APIs at Scale: Embracing Linting & Reusable Models

Travis Gosselin

Audience Level: All

Creating Reactive Applications in .NET

Jason Bock

Audience Level: Intermediate

Custom LLM Solution Architectures: A Practical Roadmap for Technology Professionals

Steven Holt

Audience Level: All

Data Analytics at the University of Manitoba - technology, tactics and talent... Oh My!

Terry Bunio

Audience Level: Intermediate

Developing with .NET Aspire and AI