As I always say, anybody who knows me or has read my blog previously knows that I love the DDD conferences. They happen in a number of places in the country, the DDDNorth conference this year was held last week in Hull as it has been for the last few years and I love it because It's a totally free conference, has great speakers, great food and you get to hang out with like-minded tech people.
DDD stands for "Developer! Developer! Developer" and is a throwback to the old developer conferences that Microsoft used to host with Steve Ballmer, who would run around the stage chanting the word "Developer" over and over again. Much to the amusement of the crowd and media. So to answer the question, the DDD conference is a day out for techies and software developers where they can learn new things by attending a series of talks, as well as an opportunity to get together with like-minded people!
I live in York so Hull is just an hour down the road, I left the house early and got to the conference in plenty of time to enjoy a coffee with a lovely warm pastry!
There are 5 main sessions throughout the day each with the choice of 5 talks so there’s so much to choose from and you just hope that two of the talks you really want to see don’t clash.
Session 1 - Embracing the Aspirational - .NET Aspire for cloud native app development
The first session was by Carl Sargunar (https://carlcod.es) and was an introduction to Microsoft's Aspire which was announced by the company in 2022 along with .net 8.
Aspire is a collection of tools, templates, and NuGet packages that streamline the development of cloud-native services. I came to this talk because I didn't know much about Aspire and wanted an overview of how adoption can help from a developers point of view.
Carl did a great job of explaining what it was and then proceeded to do some live coding to show off the capabilities. The talk was fab and cemented my understanding that Aspire is something I don't need to look at right now as a web/Umbraco CMS developer. A great talk nonetheless.
Session 2 - 200+ Questions for UI mockups
The second session featured an outstanding talk by Matt Lacey (https://www.mrlacey.com/) titled 200+ Questions for UI Mockups. Surprisingly, he actually covered more than 300 essential questions to consider when evaluating the various elements of a full project mockup.
I found this talk incredibly reassuring. It validated the questions I often have when faced with a brief or a set of mockups, reminding me that asking these questions isn’t about being overly critical or nitpicky. Instead, it’s a crucial step in ensuring the project is accurately costed and executed as smoothly as possible.
Session 3 - How to enhance your own AI services using Semantic Kernel
Among the many AI talks throughout the day, one that really stood out to me was a session by Håkan Silfvernagel (https://sessionize.com/hakan-silfvernagel/). The talk explored how to combine AI, Azure OpenAI, and Hugging Face to create custom applications. Håkan demonstrated this through live coding, showcasing how these AI services can seamlessly work together—it was absolutely fascinating.
While the session was more coding-intensive than I usually prefer, Håkan's explanations made the content easy to understand despite the complexity. With so much ground to cover, it was a talk that demanded focus and attention to keep up—but it was well worth the effort! 😉
Lunch
One of the great things about DDD events is that they attract some fantastic sponsors and this event was no exception. Thanks to their generosity, we were treated to a fantastic lunch spread, featuring an array of sandwiches, meats, nibbles, fresh fruits and vegetables, and some absolutely delicious desserts.
During lunch, there was an option to attend a breakout session with lightning talks. Instead, I chose to relax and chat with a small group of people. It was a wonderful way to spend the break before heading into the post-lunch session.
Session 4 - Large Language Models for Developers
Session four was one I had been looking forward to. Andy Burgin (https://data.andyburgin.co.uk/), an old friend and former colleague from many years ago was the speaker. It had been years since I last saw Andy, and this was the first time I’d seen him talk at an event like this and I wasn’t disappointed.
His talk delved into how Large Language Models function under the hood. The content was perfectly tailored for developers, yet delivered in a way that avoided overly technical jargon making it accessible to everyone. Andy did a fantastic job, and I came away with a much better understanding of the inner workings of these models. A truly excellent talk!
Session 5 - Let's start using MongoDB in our next .NET project!
The day was coming to a close, this was the last session, another one I was really looking forward to as the speaker was Kev Smith (https://kevsoft.net/), a friend of mine who I spend time with at various meetups including Dot Net York which he runs.
Kev is a MongoDB expert so his talk was always going to be great and particularly because it focussed on developing MongoDB with C#, my programming language of choice. I learnt lots during this talk and am seriously thinking of giving MongoDb a go in my next project where I would usually use Microsoft SQL Server. It seems a much better fit and Kev sells it really well.
The END
Sadly, the day has come to an end. I'm absolutely exhausted from the sheer amount of knowledge I've taken in throughout the day, but it’s the best kind of tired. As I set off on the drive home, I’m fully inspired from the fantastic speakers and their brilliant talks.
The day was perfect, from the endless supply of coffee to the delicious lunch spread—it truly had everything you could ask for. A huge thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this event possible. It's one of those rare opportunities to learn so much, all for free. I’m already counting down the days until next year!
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