Dylan Beattie
Dylan Beattie is a software developer and technical speaker. He's been building web applications since the days of Windows NT 4; today he works on HTTP APIs, UX design, and distributed systems. Dylan lives and works in London and when he's not hacking code he plays guitar and writes songs.
The Art of Code
Software and technology has changed every aspect of the world we live in. At one extreme are the ‘mission critical’ applications - the code that runs our banks, our hospitals, our airports and phone networks. Then there’s the code we all use every day to browse the web, watch movies, create spreadsheets… not quite so critical, but still code that solves problems and delivers services.
But what about the code that only exists because somebody wanted to write it? Code created just to make people smile, laugh, maybe even dance? Maybe even code that does nothing at all, created just to see if it was possible?
Join Dylan Beattie - programmer, musician, and creator of the Rockstar programming language - for an entertaining look at the art of code. We’ll look at the origins of programming as an art form, from Conway's Game of Life to the 1970s demoscene and the earliest Obfuscated C competitions. We’ll talk about esoteric languages and quines - how DO you create a program that prints its own source code? We’ll look at quine relays, code golf and generative art, and we’ll explore the phenomenon of live coding as performance - from the pioneers of electronic music to modern algoraves and live coding platforms like Sonic Pi.
The Cost of Code
Coders code. That’s what we do. We write functions and classes and modules and we conjure amazing systems out of thin air. Electrons dance at our command; with a few keystrokes we can solve the most complex calculations, find hidden patterns in the data of our everyday lives, and send information flying around the planet at the speed of light.
The world uses our code to book flights, pay taxes, talk to friends and family… and before too long, our code might be driving cars, diagnosing illnesses and convicting criminals. Code runs the world. And when our code goes wrong, the solution is almost always… more code. We ship millions of lines of code every day - and, in these days of smartphones and networks and IOT, a single line of code could be running on millions of devices within minutes of us deploying to production. But have you ever stopped to consider the real cost of those lines of code? Your code might end up running in production for years, maybe decades.
It’ll become one small part of a giant global codebase that’s using literally trillions of processor cycles and hundreds of billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. A codebase that’s hiding countless vulnerabilities, flaws and dependencies. A codebase that's driving users to buy millions of new laptops and smartphones and tablets every year because the old ones are too slow, or won't run the latest apps. A codebase that is literally changing the world we live in - and not always for the better. Join Dylan Beattie at DevConf 2019 for a stark, sobering look at the real cost of the code we’re shipping every day. What’s the real cost of code - to our organisations, to our society, to our environment? How can we help our teams and users understand that cost? And what can we do to reduce it?
Dylan Beattie is a software developer and technical speaker. He's been building web applications since the days of Windows NT 4; today he works on HTTP APIs, UX design, and distributed systems. Dylan lives and works in London and when he's not hacking code he plays guitar and writes songs.
The Art of Code
Software and technology has changed every aspect of the world we live in. At one extreme are the ‘mission critical’ applications - the code that runs our banks, our hospitals, our airports and phone networks. Then there’s the code we all use every day to browse the web, watch movies, create spreadsheets… not quite so critical, but still code that solves problems and delivers services.
But what about the code that only exists because somebody wanted to write it? Code created just to make people smile, laugh, maybe even dance? Maybe even code that does nothing at all, created just to see if it was possible?
Join Dylan Beattie - programmer, musician, and creator of the Rockstar programming language - for an entertaining look at the art of code. We’ll look at the origins of programming as an art form, from Conway's Game of Life to the 1970s demoscene and the earliest Obfuscated C competitions. We’ll talk about esoteric languages and quines - how DO you create a program that prints its own source code? We’ll look at quine relays, code golf and generative art, and we’ll explore the phenomenon of live coding as performance - from the pioneers of electronic music to modern algoraves and live coding platforms like Sonic Pi.
The Cost of Code
Coders code. That’s what we do. We write functions and classes and modules and we conjure amazing systems out of thin air. Electrons dance at our command; with a few keystrokes we can solve the most complex calculations, find hidden patterns in the data of our everyday lives, and send information flying around the planet at the speed of light.
The world uses our code to book flights, pay taxes, talk to friends and family… and before too long, our code might be driving cars, diagnosing illnesses and convicting criminals. Code runs the world. And when our code goes wrong, the solution is almost always… more code. We ship millions of lines of code every day - and, in these days of smartphones and networks and IOT, a single line of code could be running on millions of devices within minutes of us deploying to production. But have you ever stopped to consider the real cost of those lines of code? Your code might end up running in production for years, maybe decades.
It’ll become one small part of a giant global codebase that’s using literally trillions of processor cycles and hundreds of billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. A codebase that’s hiding countless vulnerabilities, flaws and dependencies. A codebase that's driving users to buy millions of new laptops and smartphones and tablets every year because the old ones are too slow, or won't run the latest apps. A codebase that is literally changing the world we live in - and not always for the better. Join Dylan Beattie at DevConf 2019 for a stark, sobering look at the real cost of the code we’re shipping every day. What’s the real cost of code - to our organisations, to our society, to our environment? How can we help our teams and users understand that cost? And what can we do to reduce it?