The Talk

Stevan shares how testing, including people, processes, and tools, fit into a DevOps framework. Stevan’s talk will examine the overall development life cycle, and how testing fits into each aspect of that from the perspective of delivering rapid change into production. Stevan hopes the talk will prompt you to investigate your own existing practices and how to evolve them to support DevOps.

Our Speaker

Testing is a passion for Stevan Zivanovic. In the past 30 years that he has been actively involved in testing, he has worked in a wide variety of businesses, from aircraft safety critical systems to financial “start-ups”. Since 2005 he has been presenting at various conferences on adapting approaches to meet the changing and accelerating needs of the “real” world.

Exclusively run by iO Associates, tech and digital recruitment specialists, at iO Meetups, we coordinate and host a variety of dynamic events designed exclusively in the realms of Tech, Digital, and Engineering.

We’re partnering with .NET South West again this month for their Meetup on Tuesday 26th March at Amdaris. We have 2 talks from fantastic speakers – Nurhak Kaya and Kevlin Henney.

Sign-up now to secure your spot.

The Talks:

Integrating Cloudflare CDN with Umbraco Websites
In February 2012, the multinational retailer Walmart run a study to understand how website page performance affects e-commerce conversion rates. The website did $7.7 billion in sales, hit billions of page requests, and hosted millions of active product SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) in 2012.

This study revealed a shocking relationship between page load times and conversion rates and there was a sharp decline in conversion rates as load times increased from 1 to 4 seconds.

Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network)’s performance and security features can dramatically improve load times for users accessing your static and dynamic websites, which can increase customer satisfaction, and potentially drive conversation rates up.

In this talk, Nurhak Kaya will give you the details about how CDNs work, together with setting up Cloudflare CDN for your websites, key features of Cloudflare, creating page rules for full-page caching, and consuming the Cloudflare API programmatically to purge the Cloudflare cache to reflect Umbraco CMS content changes on the Front-end website and display the most up-to-date content to your users.

Program with GUTs
One of the greatest shifts in modern programming practices has been how programmers across many different domains, languages and environments have embraced unit testing. Good unit testing, however, is more than waving NUnit at your C# source. Tests help to make long-term product development cost effective rather than a cost centre, they underpin the effective flow of CI/CD and reduce failure demand on a team.

But the discussion of unit testing goes further than simply writing tests: what makes a good unit test? It is not enough to have tests; poor quality tests can hold back development just as good tests can streamline it. This session looks provides a perspective on what good unit tests (GUTs) can look like with a couple of examples.

The Speakers:

Nurhak Kaya
Nurhak is a Solution Architect at Wattle in Bristol, UK. He’s an Umbraco MVP, a Certified Umbraco Master and an Umbraco CMS Community Team member.

Nurhak is an active Umbraco community member since 2014 and passionate about contributing to Umbraco CMS by working on issues, answering Umbraco forum or StackOverflow questions, writing articles, speaking at events like Umbraco meetups, conferences, UmbraCoffee, or organising events like umBristol meetups.

Kevlin Henney
Kevlin is an independent consultant, trainer, coder, speaker and writer based in Bristol. He’s interested in development practices, programming languages, software design and developer culture, as well as a bunch of other things you can ask him about over a drink. He’s co-authored two volumes in the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture series and edited and contributed to a number of O’Reilly’s 97 Things books.

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.NET London is back on Wednesday 17 April with two brilliant talks on C#. Andrew Poole will share his insights into Async Method Chaining, while Tim Armstrong explains why Dark Fibre Network management is being rewritten in C#.

Join us from 6pm to catch up with others over some food and drinks, kindly provided by the team at ClearBank, before the talks.

The Talks

Async method chaining in C# => super clear orchestration code

What if there was a way to declaratively describe a chain or flow of async methods, which could be used when handling API requests or messages from a service bus queue or actually anywhere?

Recently, while refactoring a growing piece of business logic, Andrew found a way to achieve this. The logical conclusion is that related flows can be described in one place, in a single piece of orchestration, which is very easy to understand, navigate and debug.

Dark Fibre Network: Rewritten in C#

Dark Fibre Network management hasn’t changed for more than a decade, so why is one of the only Open-Source Fibre report generating solutions being completely rewritten from Python to C#? Project initiator Tim Armstrong explains why and answers your questions.

The Speakers

Andrew Poole

Andrew Poole has been writing code for a living for 15+ years, most recently as an L5 Senior Software Engineer at ClearBank since 2020. He loves solving problems, design and architecture, communicating ideas and the incredible creativity of software engineering. He’s interested in event sourcing, immutable architecture and distributed systems. He also enjoy mentoring others and building great team culture. He has previously been a successful team lead, but what really drives him is striving to write elegant, intentional code which is easy to understand and maintain. He absolutely loves C# and only really dabbles in other languages in order to write better C#. Outside of work Andrew is a husband and father of 2 who enjoys playing bass guitar and making things in his shed.

Tim Armstrong

Tim Armstrong uses his 15 years of experience as an engineer to help others discover and embrace new technology and solve problems through clear guides, tutorials, and sessions. He does his best to provide free mentorship to people who show a genuine passion for technology and drive to learn. Currently working as a Senior Developer Advocate at CloudQuery, he works on Open Source plugins & projects, engaging with the community, and creating Tutorials and explainers for the CloudQuery Youtube channel. He lives by one simple rule, look before you code – Someone has probably already done it better, faster, and cleaner than you have time for.

Join us at .NET Edinburgh’s Meetup on Wednesday 27 March at The Cambridge Bar for a brilliant talk by Andrew Poole on Async Method Chaining.

Sign up now to secure your spot via Meetup.com

What if there was a way to declaratively describe a chain or flow of async methods, which could be used when handling API requests or messages from a service bus queue or actually anywhere?

Recently, while refactoring a growing piece of business logic, Andrew found a way to achieve this. The logical conclusion is that related flows can be described in one place, in a single piece of orchestration, which is very easy to understand, navigate and debug.

Andrew Poole has been writing code for a living for 15+ years, most recently as an L5 Senior Software Engineer at ClearBank since 2020. He loves solving problems, design and architecture, communicating ideas and the incredible creativity of software engineering. He’s interested in event sourcing, immutable architecture and distributed systems. He also enjoy mentoring others and building great team culture. He has previously been a successful team lead, but what really drives him is striving to write elegant, intentional code which is easy to understand and maintain. He absolutely loves C# and only really dabbles in other languages in order to write better C#. Outside of work Andrew is a husband and father of 2 who enjoys playing bass guitar and making things in his shed.

Sign up now to secure your spot via Meetup.com

iO Meetups are proud to be long-term supporters of the .NET Edinburgh community and look forward to continuing to support the group in 2024.

Join us at .NET South West’s Meetup on Tuesday 27 February at our iO Offices in Bristol for two talks looking at the Umbraco Content Management system.

Sign up now to secure your spot via Meetup.com

Umbraco is a leading .NET content management system used by brands such as Carlsberg, Volvo and The European Union. Perhaps you’ve seen it mentioned in job ads, or had a play with it years ago in the .NET Framework days. It offers developers high flexibility, security and scalability whilst giving content editors an easy-to-use interface and intuitive editing experience. It’s free and Open-Source, and supported by a community of friendly, highly-engaged developers.

If Carlsberg did .NET Content Management Systems with Lotte Pitcher
In this talk we learn what a .NET developer needs to know to get started with modern (.NET 8) Umbraco. We review its key features, including recently added ones such headless and EF core support, and where the product is heading in the future. Enough for you to determine if Umbraco is a good fit for current or upcoming projects, or if you want to extend your .NET skills and learn something new.

Lotte Pitcher has been building websites for longer than she cares to remember, and has recently joined the Developer Relations team at Umbraco, She is a Microsoft MVP, a long-time open-source contributor and a passionate advocate for being an active member of a healthy, inclusive tech community. Follow her on Twitter.

Live demo : Building an Umbraco site with Carl Sargunar
In this demo, Carl puts together a small website from a template to demonstrate some of the features of the Umbraco CMS. While we can’t look at all the features available, we get a good overview of the various stages in putting a website together

Starting with v13 of Umbraco, a new feature also allows headless access to your content, so we look at building a cross platform app in .NET Maui to consume content from your CMS

Carl Sargunar is a .NET developer who has been building web and mobile apps for the last decade or so, and for the majority of that time his favourite CMS has been Umbraco

Sign up now to secure your spot via Meetup.com

iO Meetups are proud to be long-term supporters of the .NET South West community and look forward to hosting another of these Meetups at our offices.

Join us at the Tech Leadership Collective of Tampa on Wednesday February 28th from 5:30pm at our Tampa Office where we will be discussing ‘Visions for 2024’.

With 2024 well and truly here, take a moment to think about where this year is taking you and what you would like to see from your leadership and business this year. Meet with fellow tech leaders in the Tampa region over pizza and drinks, building valuable connections and sharing ideas for the coming year.

The Tech Collective of Tampa is a community tailored to high-level tech leaders in the Tampa region, committed to fostering an environment of professional growth, knowledge exchange, and ethical leadership.

If you are a Tampa-based tech leader, you can register to join our Tech Leadership Collective, or sign up for our latest event, by completing our Registration Form here.

Kick start your 2024 with our first Meetup of the year.

Join iO Meetups at .NET South West’s latest Meetup on Tuesday 9th January from 7pm at our offices in Central Bristol, where Catalin Rosu presents a ‘double-header’ of talks on ‘Evolving Clean Architecture’ and ‘.NET Aspire’.

Register for this Meetup here.

Evolving Clean Architecture to Reduce Tech Debt
Another modern architecture seems to have conquered the .Net Developer’s hearts and minds in the last decade or so, leaving the projects created on older best practices and architectures in a “Technical Debt” state.
Cat uncovers the evolution of software architecture, leading to the clean architecture principles that are shaping .NET development today. He compares popular clean architecture templates and brings theory to life with a hands-on demo.

.NET Aspire: The Local Cloud for Your Microservices
With the growing trend and challenges of microservices, Microsoft developed a new tool with the release of latest .Net 8: .NET Aspire, a descriptive way to build and deploy microservices.
Cat shows how this can simplify and enhance the microservices development with a practical demo of setting up and running microservices locally to showcase the .NET Aspire key features.

Who is our speaker?

Catalin Rosu is the Development Manager at Signal Agency, where he plays a pivotal role in building and leading the engineering team towards Agile Digital Transformation. With nearly two decades in the tech industry, Cat brings a wealth of experience, having previously worked as a Senior Software Engineer at UCAS.

In his personal life, Cat is a family man at heart, particularly enjoying nature-related activities with his loved ones. Despite a busy schedule, he is committed to helping others grow in their tech careers through mentoring on various platforms.

Register HERE for our latest Meetup.

Join us at the Tech Leadership Collective of Philadelphia on Wednesday January 24th from 6pm at our Philadelphia Office where we will be joined by Excellence Trainer, Navixha Bagga.

Navixha will host a 60-minute session that will help you jump start your new year. Navixha will share her insights into identifying your barriers and creating an intentional and incremental plan to overcome them with an opportunity to progress towards your defined outcomes by the end of the session. There will then be a chance to move into breakout groups to dive deeper in your personal takeaways and action points for 2024.

A member of the Tech Leadership Collective of Philadelphia, Navixha Bagga has over 25 years of experience as a Personal Excellence Mentor, Leadership and Life Coach, Seasoned Corporate Leader, and DEI Advocate. She passionately champions women’s leadership, recognizing women as a societal cornerstone with insightful, effective, and inherent leadership qualities. Her own strategic leadership has helped organizations align with their strategic vision and optimize processes for enhanced value realization. Simultaneously, her development and empowerment programs enable leaders to unlock their own, and their employees’, full potential, fostering their most dynamic and effective selves.

The Tech Collective of Philadelphia is a community tailored to high-level tech leaders in the Philadelphia region, committed to fostering an environment of professional growth, knowledge exchange, and ethical leadership.

If you are a Philadelphia-based tech leader, you can register to join our Tech Leadership Collective, or sign up for our latest event, by completing our Registration Form here.

Sign up HERE for our latest iO Meetup.

Join us at our Gloucester & Cheltenham Meetup on Thursday 18^th January at Ecclesiastical for two fascinating talks exploring modern software development. We are thrilled to be joined by two fantastic speakers: ClearBank’s Andrew Poole shares his insights into using async method chaining in C# to create clear orchestration code. While, Confused.com’s Chris Taylor explains how to build effective pipelines to deploy your code using Azure DevOps.

Whether you’re an experienced developer or just starting out, gain invaluable insights from leading professionals in the industry that will elevate your understanding and skills in today’s software development landscape, by registering for our latest iO Meetup here.

With free pizza and drinks and the opportunity for a fantastic evening of insights and networking, you don’t want to miss this one.

Andrew Poole: Async method chaining in C# => super clear orchestration code

What if there was a way to declaratively describe a chain or flow of async methods, which could be used when handling API requests or messages from a service bus queue or actually anywhere?

Recently, while refactoring a growing piece of business logic, Andrew found a way to achieve this. The logical conclusion is that related flows can be described in one place, in a single piece of orchestration, which is very easy to understand, navigate and debug.

Chris Taylor: Keep it simple folks! Building effective pipelines to deploy your code using Azure DevOps

It is really easy to fall into the trap of building complicated, logic ridden pipelines, usually created by a central team. On the tin they look great however when they go wrong they take an age to fix, and require SME knowledge that exists outside of the team!

In this talk Chris takes you through how to create simple and effective build and release pipelines in Azure DevOps, leaning into containers and Microsoft Azure, making sure you can deploy with speed, stability and most importantly confidence.

Who are our speakers?

Andrew Poole has been writing code for a living for 15+ years, most recently as an L5 Senior Software Engineer at ClearBank since 2020. He loves solving problems, design and architecture, communicating ideas and the incredible creativity of software engineering. He’s interested in event sourcing, immutable architecture and distributed systems. He also enjoy mentoring others and building great team culture. He has previously been a successful team lead, but what really drives him is striving to write elegant, intentional code which is easy to understand and maintain. He absolutely loves C# and only really dabbles in other languages in order to write better C#. Outside of work Andrew is a husband and father of 2 who enjoys playing bass guitar and making things in his shed.

Chris Taylor is a Director of Engineering at Confused.com specialising in Platform Engineering, DevOps and SRE, having previously been a DevOps Consultant for 6+ years. He’s worked with organisations large and small, helping to implement principles and practices in pursuit of elite engineering performance and currently leads 3 teams delivering an Internal Developer Platform for Confused.com’s engineering teams. Away from work, he loves extreme sports – snowboarding, biking, skateboarding, surfing – anything he can hurt himself on and get him outside!

Sign up HERE for our latest iO Meetup.

If you’ve read about the cognitive services in Azure and thought “wouldn’t it be cool to use those for something”, well Legado is actually using them! Alex Shiell, Legado’s Head Sotware Engineer, takes us through the services on offer and how they are being used.

Alex Shiell has been building applications in the Microsoft stack for 25 years and is a keen enthusiast of Azure.