{ Schedule }

Executor, Orchestrator, Leader!

I created it to help early career professionals stay optimistic about the future of computer science. We look at the 1800s, and how the industrial revolution transitioned 80% of jobs from the workforce. Then a look at data-driven projections for this next transition. (BLS/Etc.) Next we talk about some of my lessons in leadership moving from student > researcher > contributer > leader > executive and why this is more important than ever in the age of AI, as we are all responsible for more ideas/labor (Via compute)

Modern Game Development: A Survey

More developers are choosing to work with systems of our past. We see VIM ported to a C64, new Atari 2600, GameBoy and even N64 games. Why is this happening? Perhaps those hardware limitations that constrained us also gave us interesting puzzles to solve. With all the power of modern hardware and the tools at our disposal, we're discovering software development is really all about the journey; and the quality of the end-product is directly tied to the path taken. This talk will examine this phenomenon and will encourage programmers to enjoy the puzzle solving game of software development.

htmx View Transitions

This talk is about the power of CSS View Transitions with hardly any additional JavaScript other than pure CSS, HTML, and htmx all via the power of modern browsers! I'll be using Hanami (Ruby) as my web framework to power the slides while using these same slides -- and code -- to explain how all of this works in real-time. You'll not only learn the technical details of how all this works but also learn how easy this is along with new knowledge to apply to your own tech stack! Bonus: I could also bring ePaper devices to render these slides in real-time which could be fun for folks too.

JavaScript? In This Economy? (A Love Letter to Tailwind and modern CSS)

We've come a long way on the web, and CSS has become a mini programming language while we weren't looking. This means our CSS can simulate logic that was previously the realm of JavaScript. I plan to show side-by-side examples of how we implemented certain behaviours in the past, and what is now possible with modern CSS primitives, such as :has() and even more so with TailwindCSS classes, e.g., group-has-* classes. Did you know CSS now has if() and @function? It's so over! It's a light-hearted talk, and I hope everyone goes home to (ab)use CSS and delete a lot of their JavaScript.

HTML is not just for the web

HTML is an ideal language to describe and manipulate UIs. To demonstrate: HypeApps is a new framework to develop native-compiled mobile apps using nothing but basic html tags. Apps have native access to camera features driven from the server, with every bit of control and design you would use in a hypermedia -driven web page.

Hypermedia is for Governments

In the 21st century, the government's ability to deliver services is directly tied to its ability to build websites. Every day, millions of Americans use websites to perform essential civic functions, from renewing their drivers' license to applying for benefits. These websites vary widely in quality and are often frustrating to use. But it doesn't have to be that way! By embracing hypermedia-oriented web development, the public sector can build web services that are great to use, cheap to maintain, and build public trust.

Claude Code for JVM Developers

If you are not using Claude Code for your development in 2026 you are seriously missing out on a massive speedup in your development workflow! Ever since the Claude Opus 4.5 release the Claude Code CLI has sped up my development workflow immensely. I cannot tell you what the best workflow in 4 weeks is much less in 4 months. But I’m convinced that if you don’t keep up to date you are going to be left behind.

Your Business Doesn't Fit on a Phone — Neither Should Your Flutter App

Most Flutter developers build for iOS and Android. But the businesses we serve run on dozens of screens — a coffee shop alone needs an app, website, kiosks, POS systems, kitchen displays, and menu boards. In this talk, you'll see a live demo of a full coffee shop platform running across eight screens from a single Flutter codebase, with real-time sync between every device. Then we'll open the hood and walk through the code that makes it work. You'll leave with a wider view of what Flutter can do and a practical understanding of how to get there.

I have no idea what I'm doing

The past two years have been wild. The past six months, disorienting. AI broke the compounding loops that built careers, companies, and experience. It flipped scarcity to abundance, commoditized execution, and made trust the new differentiator. 20 years in this industry, and I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. But I suspect I never really did. This talk sits in that strange, honest place we now occupy as entrepreneurs, developers, and open source contributors.

Lessons from our Hardware on the ISS: Running a Linux Stack Beyond the Cloud(s)

Your archive drive just dropped out in week 1 - in space. What do you do? In orbit, hardware must run 100% hands-free, no exceptions. At Cambrian Works, we build software and hardware designed to survive in space's harsh environment. Our hardened NVIDIA Orin-based GigRouter has been running on the International Space Station since January. Our hardware was tested against vibration, radiation, vacuum and temperature extremes. Find out what we learned, how it applies to your software, see some space data visualizations and find out what happened with the dropped drive.

Cognitive Vandalism: What I Learned by Mutilating a GPT

Cognitive Vandalism explores what happens when you intentionally edit pretrained transformer models by removing layers, duplicating them, disabling attention heads, and blending model identities all without retraining. Through live demos, we’ll see how resilient these models really are and what breaking them teaches us about how transformers actually work.

Metaprogramming in Java with Manifold

Static metaprogramming makes code safer, more expressive, and easier to maintain -- yet most static languages, including Java, still rely on conventional code generation. In this session, Scott demonstrates how Manifold enables true compile-time metaprogramming in Java, with examples spanning SQL, JSON, XML, and Java itself. Attendees will learn how to introduce type safety through just-in-time type projection, embrace a schema-first approach, and integrate DSLs -- all without interfering with existing frameworks, tooling, or build performance.

ORMs are Killing Your Performance

Did you know that ORMs thrash CPU caches, destroy garbage collectors, and eliminate database performance? All while eating your server's memory! Did you know that the only reason you need that Redis cache is likely because you're using an ORM? Join me for a talk where I'll break down what's going on under the covers when you use an ORM. We'll see animations showing visually how ORMs destroy your computing resources. Then we'll dive deep into getting more from your database and understand how you can solve this insidious problem!

Intro to Compression Techniques

In this session, we will run through a introduction to foundational data compression techniques. We'll gain a basic understanding of how some common compression algorithms work. One powerful technique is prediction. The better you can predict data values, the more effectively you can compress data. We'll demonstrate why this is the case. Prediction, combined with knowledge of your domain-specific data can lead to advancements in compressing data unique to your field.

Real-Time Hypermedia (the htmx way)

htmx 4: what's new

I will go over the changes in htmx 4.x