2017 AIM HDC

If you are a JavaScript developer, you’ve most likely encountered “callback hell”: The scenario where you are buried deep into a pyramid of nested callback functions and have no idea how to get yourself out. You may have graduated to Promises which can alleviate some of the stress, however, they too can get a little messy once you start chaining .then() after .then() after .then(). Luckily JavaScript has added a new API for Asynchronous Functions. In this session we’ll explore how to use Asynchronous Functions. We’ll see how they can make complex code like AJAX requests cleaner and easier to read. We’ll also look at some async error handling techniques.

Websites today should tell a story graphically, in addition to conveying information contextually.  Adding animations to your site can keep a user's eye focused on your site longer and help create a holistic feeling.  Adding animations to your site used to be labor intensive and a technical challenge.  Then jQuery came along and made sliding and hiding elements a breeze, but it was not optimized for full animations.  CSS transitions helped, but were just not there.  That is where Velocity.js comes to the rescue.  The best of jQuery and CSS transitions are combined into one easy-to-use library.
Learn how to use Velocity.js to easily add animations to any element on the screen – all in a syntax similar to jQuery.   Time animations to follow each other, or animate the page all at once.  Use easing to smooth elements’ movements.  Loop CSS transitions and transformations for continuous actions.  Use callbacks to execute JavaScript after an animation.

Over the last 4 years Docker has changed the way that hordes of developers build applications; as evidenced by the more than 6 billion docker image pulls. Part of the story is how using containers allow developers to share full fledged services and environments they can build against. This has led to accelerated development of features and greater application stability as docker solves dependency hell.

This talk will examine patterns and practices to optimize your docker development work flow and maximize collaboration through the use of the docker image artifact. We will also look at the super charged tool sets that docker has created to make using docker easy. We will also delve into the challenges around the deployment patterns modern container platforms present and show how we apply strategies in development to make production deployment easier.

In this session we'll learn about .Net Expression trees by discovering how they work and applying the knowledge to LINQ using the pipes and filters pattern.
LINQ and Entity Framework are both commonly used in the .Net ecosystem, but even well-written applications can have LINQ queries that are difficult to understand. Because LINQ is so flexible, it can be written in ways that fail to communicate the developer’s intent. Well-written LINQ should be so clear as to be self-documenting. To write clear LINQ, it helps to understand the details of a few LINQ components that improve LINQ’s readability.

We’ll be showing how to use a pipe and filter pattern to make LINQ queries easier to comprehend. We will take a deep dive into expression trees to understand how they work, and how to manipulate them for maximum re-usability.

Developing React applications usually mean developing a back end with .NET Core or NodeJS, and then a separate “plain-old” React app. This is great for applications with a “back-end” team and a “front-end” team. But in a LOT of situations, there’s only one team building the application and create a single code base with good separation between the front end and back end can be complicated. I will show you how to take the generated MVC application and integrate React with it in a way that keeps the layers separated, but easily deployable as a single app!

About This Session
Finding the shortest distance between two points is a problem we’re always solving. Whether it’s the way to work, to class or to the store, we’re trying to optimize our route. When we travel the same ground enough we create a visible path in the dirt called a “desire path.” Wikipedia tells us that desire paths are also known as game trails, social trails, cow paths, or bootleg trails.

Our users do the same thing in the digital world, and by observing and optimizing these desire paths, we can have an immediate and measurable impact on the user experience. In this session, Bryan will share some practical ways on how to identify these desire paths, test your solutions and measure the results.

About Bryan Trogdon
Having started nearly 18 years ago in UX design, Bryan has lead the UX teams for numerous startups and corporations, including GiftCertificates.com, Hayneedle, Oriental Trading and Office Depot. He currently serves as the Vice President, User Experience Design at Farm Credit Services of America.

Debugging web sites can be tricky, but tools like Chrome Developer Tools and Fiddler continue to improve. Chrome provides a great client side JavaScript debugging experience. It also shows the live DOM and is often the only way to determine exactly what style rules have been applied in CSS. The network tab provides basic details on requests and responses for the page, including the “initiator” column that indicates why the request was made. The tools provide profilers, audits, and the ability to throttle the network connection. It also provides basic emulation of device sizes for web pages. Fiddler can also be extremely helpful when debugging as traffic can be modified manually or programmatically. The auto responder feature can mock particular responses to web requests, or add specific delays for latency. The composer can construct specific requests that are difficult to create with browsers directly. Fiddler is also extremely helpful for capturing and modifying traffic from smartphones, tablets, and non-Windows platforms. Together these free tools make it much easier to troubleshoot problems with today’s complex multi-device web sites.

Walk thru building a c# library to log messages to Azure Application insights and add custom metrics to your application. Leverage Azure Alerts to send alerts on events/log entries. How to add support to existing legacy services that use existing logging frameworks.

I will demo building a .net Web API Service with custom metrics and deploy to Azure. We build then build a sample on premise application insights application to show the difference between on premise and Azure hosted applications.

Continuous experimentation is one of the biggest drivers for progress. It enables Lean, Agile, and DevOps principles to work together in harmony to achieve value quickly, while promoting rapid learning. It is a powerful tool for startups and small organizations that want to increase their business value in short periods of time. Trying to experiment in an enterprise that has loads of brownfield/legacy technologies is however a different beast. Systems and environments might not be fluid and adaptive enough for short experiments, and there might be many dependencies that constrain learning.

In this session, I will share some patterns we learned from our company's failed experimentation efforts, along with tips, tricks, and cheats to pivot and adapt as needed.