DevIntersection Las Vegas 2016: a review from Raygun

The Raygun events team attended DevIntersection 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM Grand Convention Center. DevIntersection is actually a group of mini-conferences combined into one covering a variety of general software development and Microsoft-centric technologies. The other mini-conferences at DevIntersection covered topics including:

DevIntersection is actually a group of mini-conferences combined into one covering a variety of general software development and Microsoft-centric technologies. The other mini-conferences at DevIntersection cover topics like:

Who is DevIntersection for?

DevIntersection is a great conference to attend for any software engineers or developers interested in emerging technologies in and around the Microsoft ecosystem. But don’t think that DevIntersection only focuses on Microsoft!

DevIntersection offers plenty of information in a variety of sessions covering both theoretical use cases and practical applications of technologies like Angular 2, Ionic framework, and S.O.L.I.D (object-oriented) design patterns.

Keynotes from 2016

Some of the particular treats DevIntersection offered were the opening keynote presentations by Scott Hanselman, Giorgio Sardo, and Pete Brown. Scott articulated on Microsoft’s open source journey in his usual informative, casual, and always hilarious style. Giorgio and Pete wowed the audience with a display of emerging technologies coming from Microsoft including a mobile robot with machine learning connections to the Azure cloud, image/facial recognition with Windows Hello, and exciting applications in the business and public sectors. You can take a look at Scott’s talk over on Channel 9.

Notable sessions

While I did attend most of the sessions at DevIntersection, I did want to share my two favorites:

Key takeaways from 2016

While the event was Microsoft focused at times, I did learn a great deal about other technologies as well. I hadn’t had the opportunity to really dive into Angular 2 before and so the keynotes I attended gave a fresh perspective on practical use cases. On the Microsoft side of things, I picked up a new appreciation for the progress Microsoft is making to make development easier and more powerful. With the power of Visual Studio, the new features of .NET Core, and a lot more cross-platform support Microsoft is starting to shine again.

What can we expect from DevIntersection in 2017? 

DevIntersection was a well-rounded conference with something for just about everyone. Even if you aren’t a Microsoft developer or company, the information provided in the sessions and keynotes still held real value. If you have a chance to attend DevIntersection I highly recommend it for teams and individuals wanting a more holistic view of Microsoft-leaning software development tools and practices.

It may be worth a mention that the 2017 conference is moving from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to the Walt Disney World Swan in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Additionally, the conference is being held earlier in the year from May 21-24  2017 instead of late October. Given the great Spring weather in Florida and the wealth of information at DevIntersection, I highly recommend attending if you can make it!