Developer Week 2023 Theme

I recently got a chance to attend Developer Week 2023 in person.  It was a good chance to hear what other companies are working on and what there processes are.  Of course there were discussion around buzz worthy topics.  Is AI going to take over technology jobs? What is going on with the Economy?  These were all interesting discussions, but were just side discussions.  I have put together a few themes that I heard over and over again at the conference.

API Gateways

Using API Gateways for all APIs you create was one of the most common themes I heard throughout the conference.  The importance went beyond making sure you had an easy way to route your APIs to the correct endpoint, but was focusing a lot on security.  By having a central entry point for all your APIs, it allows you to move a lot of the controls like JSON threat protection and Rate-limiting.

My favorite talk by far was from Farshad Abasi (https://www.linkedin.com/in/farshadabasi/).  He did a great job at explaining the need for API Gateways and how they can protect your code.  He has an article, that is really helpful in explaining everything he presented.  https://developer.ibm.com/articles/securing-modern-api-and-microservices-apps-1/

Backend Modernization

Another point that was talked about a lot was Microservices and Serverless Architectures.  
There was a lot of conversation about the advantages of using microservices.  Those included:

• Smaller Repositories (easier to manage)
• Better scaling of resources (Compute Power)
• Easier to swap out implementations of microservices
• Easier to switch technologies if you need to swap out a microservice

There were also so cons being discussed, which I thought was really good, because it is not always covered.  Some of the big points that were talked about a lot were:

• Extra complexity that may be difficult for small teams
• A lot of extra Dev Ops infrastructure
• Possibility of having so many microservices its hard to know what is where

Tech supporting Tech

There were a lot of conversations about technologies being built entirely for supporting developers develop.  Now more than ever there are more businesses whose entire existence is to make development easier for developers.  With so many Cloud Providers now in existence there are a lot more solutions that are built on top of those Cloud Providers.  This is both a blessing and a curse for the developer.  There are more technologies than ever that can really help us develop faster, but it also means there is an overwhelming number of technologies to have to know about.  From new database solutions, to event driven architecture platforms to real time data streaming, it will be important for developers to know about these services to create the best product solutions.
 

Do what makes sense for your Business

Lastly, something I witnessed at the conference is that every company is at a different stage in there technological journey.  There are a lot of good tools and approaches to development, but the most important is to do what is right for your code base and business.  I meet people whose code bases were giant monoliths.  I meet people who had some microservices.  I meet people whose entire team was working in microservices.  I meet two people that are in the same company where half of the team is in microservices and doing releases whenever they want and the other half is in a monolith and releasing every 2 weeks.  Even Stack Overflow admitted that they are not even in the Cloud for there site.  My point is that you can identify new projects or pieces of your infrastructure to improve and you are not alone.  Everyone's code base needs some improvements.


I hope this summary of common things I heard is helpful and hey, maybe we will see each other at a conference some day.