July 16, 2026

Correcting Common Async/Await Mistakes in .NET 10

Did you know that the .NET compiler turns our async methods into a struct? And that .NET adds a try/catch block to each of these classes, potentially hiding thrown exceptions? It’s true!

In this session, we will learn how to best use async/await in C# by analyzing how .NET compiles our async code.

Join me as we take an existing app and optimize its async code together, showing off performance gains, better exception handling, improved run-time speed, and smaller app size!

July 15, 2026

Programming’s Greatest Mistakes

Most of the time when we make mistakes in our code, a message gets displayed wrong or an invoice doesn’t get sent. But sometimes when people make mistakes in code, things literally explode, or bankrupt companies, or make web development a living hell for millions of programmers for years to come.

Join Mark on a tour through some of the worst mistakes in the history of programming. Learn what went wrong, why it went wrong, how much it cost, and how things are really funny when they’re not happening to you.

July 14, 2026

Teaching your coding agent defensive coding

You’ve seen the tweets about vibe-coded apps getting hacked over silly mistakes — but what can we actually do about it? AI coding agents are amplifiers: they ship faster, but they also ship insecure code, and asking them to “make it secure” rarely works.

Security This talk shows a better approach: shift the focus from chasing specific attacks to teaching solid defensive coding principles. We’ll build security knowledge directly into the agent — using skills, hooks, and standards — so it looks up the right guidance, plans for it, and reviews its own work. You’ll leave knowing how to make your agent produce secure code far more often, by default.

June 15, 2026

Distributed Databases: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Scaling a database sounds like a great idea, but have you considered the number of ways it can fail? Add some nodes, throw in replication, and suddenly you’re explaining to stakeholders why two customers saw two different truths at the same time. Turns out distributed systems have opinions about physics - but data modeling can help.

This session covers the fundamentals (replication, consistency, partitions) and the tradeoffs nobody mentioned when they said “just scale horizontally.” We’ll look at real failure modes and practical patterns for building systems that handle chaos without dragging your app down with them.

June 14, 2026

Creator of C++: Bell Labs, Negative Overhead Abstraction, Mistakes

Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of the C++ programming language and a former researcher at Bell Labs. We talked about what Bell Labs was like, programming language design, and interesting anecdotes from his experience.

We also explored some of the ideas and experiences that have shaped his approach to programming and language design over the years. From the early days of C++ to the broader lessons learned from working with other researchers and engineers, this conversation offers a glimpse into the thinking behind one of the most influential programming languages in use today.