Did you miss .NET Conf 2018? Here's a recap!

Last week was a great week for software developers - on Monday, Sept 10th, Microsoft announced Azure DevOps which is a culmination of 15 years of work and provides the full lifecycle of tools to support Visual Studio developers. Not resting on their laurels, Microsoft then hosted .NET Conf 2018 on Sept 12-14 for three glorious days of technical demos, tons of coding, a bunch of product announcements and even a virtual attendee party hosted by none other than your friends here at Mobilize.Net. 

If you missed any or all of .NET Conf, we've pulled together our favorite sessions along with some video that we recorded. We hope you enjoy the conference as much as we did!

• Keynote by Miguel de Icaza, Scott Hunter, Mads Torgersen: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2018/S101. As always, Microsoft opened .NET Conf with an awesome keynote that was packed with demos. This session shows what's new with .NET Core, ASP.NET Core, Xamarin, C#, Azure, AI/ML and where .NET is going into the future. If you watch nothing else, make sure you catch this session.
• 5 Azure Services Every .NET Developer Needs to Know by Andrew Hall, Paul Yuknewicz (MSFT): https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2018/S203. Azure is a powerful platform with many amazing services, but it can also be hard to know which ones you need to know about when you're first getting started with cloud development. This session covers how to get started with cloud development in Azure using five common services that most .NET applications running in the cloud will benefit from using.
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Every .NET Developer by Cesar De la Torre: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2018/S202. This session covers how to extend .NET and .NET Core applications with AI features. See the multiple ways to implement AI features on .NET apps, starting from the easiest implementations using Azure Cognitive Services to more custom and flexible scenarios based on the new Machine Learning .NET (ML.NET). Also see how to use AI not just in ASP.NET Core web apps but also Bots using Bot Framework, language understanding, and edge/mobile offline scenarios. LOTS of demos in this session.
• What's New in ASP.NET Core? by Dan Roth: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2018/S104. Dive into what's new in ASP.NET Core. This session covers the new features in the latest ASP.NET Core preview, including improved support for building descriptive Web APIs, HTTP/2, a new in-process IIS hosting, support for health checks, and much more.
• What's Coming to C#? by Mads Torgersen: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2018/S103. Mads recaps some of the new point releases of C# with emphasis on useful language features. Then he talks about the big things in store for the future: Nullable reference types, recursive patterns, asynchronous streams and more.
• Want to see all of the sessions? Find them here: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2018

And finally, if you want to see the lighter side of Microsoft and .NET Conf, here's some of the goofier activities:

• Mobilize.Net along with Progress Telerik, PreEmptive, DocuSign, Twilio and a group of other companies hosted a virtual attendee party. What does it mean to have an online attendee party? Lots of banter, geek talk and tons of prizes. The entire party is available at Twitch. 
• A group of us hung out on Microsoft campus and got some fun interviews with our favorite geeks including:
  • Robert Green - host of VS Toolbox, talks about all the stuff he thinks is most interesting 
  • Chris Dias - leader of VS Code, shares his thoughts on current and future VS Code
  • Ever wondered who brings you all the cool technology that you rely on to get your job done? We met the VS Code team and learned who's who
  • We also checked out the treehouses, and toured the Maker Garage, and checked out a chatbot that was kind of creepy. 
  • Finally, here's a great explanation of how to use attributes and aspect-oriented programming (AOP) with Roslyn to remove clutter and make your C# code more readable and maintainable.

  In case you were wondering, this is what fuels a Microsoft developer conference:

One last thing, if you're going to be at Microsoft Ignite, come see Mobilize, Progress, Syncfusion and PreEmptive at booth #235.