Annyce Davis

Helping you write beautiful code

Talk: Talk to Me Right!

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Software development is challenging because as a technical team, we have to figure out what to do, do it, and then make sure we’ve done it right. And each step requires effective communication. In this talk, we’ll look at various tools and techniques that can help propel your career by making you a more effective technical communicator.

Learn what forms of communication are the most important to automate and which require a personal touch in your team’s daily activities. We’ll also discuss how you can best structure meetings to achieve your team’s goals. Finally, we’ll review some common challenges to effective communication and how you can navigate them successfully.

Our coworkers aren’t all robots yet. Effective communication will continue to play a major role in the success of our teams. So let’s do it right!

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Talk: Getting a Grip on GraphQL

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GraphQL is a query language for your API. This allows you to interact with your existing web services and databases in a new way. Instead of relying on a predetermined output structure from your API, you can “query” it and choose only the fields that you’re interested in. In this talk, learn what GraphQL is all about and how you can take advantage of it in your applications.

A few key GraphQL terms we’ll cover are:

  • Fields/Types
  • Variables
  • Queries/Mutations

We’re going to explore how you can create a GraphQL Server with a stack written entirely in Kotlin. Then we’ll take a look at how you can integrate the Apollo Client library inside of a Kotlin-powered Android application. GraphQL isn’t going away, so here’s your chance to get a grip on this exciting technology!

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Talk: RxJava in Baby Steps

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Reactive Programming with RxJava has widely been adopted by both backend services and Android applications alike. Yet, the steep learning curve leaves many developers hesitant about adding it to their own Software tool belt. I was one such developer. Over the past two years, I’ve watched countless videos, read numerous blog posts and attended several conference talks on the subject. Yet, I often left each experience feeling only slightly more knowledgeable, but not quite empowered to start using RxJava in my apps. That’s not going to happen in this talk!

We cover the bare minimum concepts you need to grok, in order to start using RxJava today. In particular, we focus on:

  • The 3 O’s: Observable, Observer and Operator
  • The most common Operators: map(), flatMap(), and filter()
  • Understanding those Marble Diagrams

Reactive Programming is not going away any time soon. It’s a powerful way to create asynchronous, event-based applications. It allows developers the ability to craft applications that can easily combine multiple network calls, gracefully handle failures, all while providing a snappy user experience. I want everyone to feel comfortable with the basic concepts of RxJava. Today can be your first step…

 

Resources for Learning More:

Talk: First Do No Harm

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Developing Android applications is a powerful way to connect people with the information they need the most. Apps are for living your life: daily commutes, traveling abroad, communicating with family, and much more! This places the responsibility of engineering top-notch software squarely in the laps of us developers. Unlike doctors, we were not required to take an oath or pledge when becoming Android Developers. However, we can still learn much from the principles behind the phrase, “First, do no harm.” In this talk, we will discuss over a dozen tools that are at your disposal as a developer which can enable you to provide high quality applications to your users. Thus allowing you to first, do no harm!

This talk covers:

  • Resources for Study
  • Preventative Techniques
  • Diagnostic Tools

 

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Resources for Prevention:

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