Events at The Tracy Developer Meetup

Technical Resume Building Workshop

August 7, 2021 at 07:00 PM

It’s time to dust off your resume, reconnect your LinkedIn, and prepare for the next opportunity in your professional career.

If you’re trying to find a new position as a developer or in another technical position and aren’t receiving any responses to your applications, your resume and online profiles might be to blame.

Even if you’re not actively looking for a change in jobs, it doesn’t hurt to be ready for when an opportunity comes around.

In this workshop there is no particular speaker. It is meant to be an annual collaborative exercise to look at the resumes and professional profiles of your peers, get ideas, and figure out what’s working and what isn’t working.

Come prepared with several printed copies of your resume as well as a link to your LinkedIn profile.

REST, SOAP, GraphQL: API Security and Go(lang)

July 2, 2021 at 07:00 PM

So you’re building an API? Have you thought about how you’re going to secure it to keep the data of your users safe?

It doesn’t matter if it is REST, SOAP, or something modern like GraphQL, security is often overlooked or an after-thought during development. Do you encrypt your data in the database and if so, which data should be encrypted? Do you limit who has access to the data through API endpoints and query-able fields and if so, are you using something like JSON Web Tokens (JWT), OAuth, or something else? There’s a lot to consider for API security, far beyond the points listed here.

In this session, we’ll explore five (5) key components that you can apply in your project to strengthen the security of your API. In the process we’ll be using the Go programming language (Golang) and see live demos on how the various techniques can be applied. We’ll even see how they were used in the secure file sharing service ybits.io.

Disclaimer: This talk does not reflect the views of my current or previous employer(s) and there is no affiliation with them either. These are on my own!

Introduction to Flutter Development

June 4, 2021 at 07:00 PM

Flutter is an open-source mobile application platform developed by Google. Flutter apps are written in Dart programming language. In this talk, we will briefly discuss other cross-platform solutions and how Flutter is different. You will learn to build applications for multiple platforms (Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop) from a single code base.

Building Serverless Workflows in Pipedream

May 14, 2021 at 07:00 PM

In this talk, Raymond will introduce us to Pipedream, a service that lets you build complex workflows easily by stitching together different steps into a process that can be run by HTTP, schedule, and more.

Rust for JS Devs: Action Chaining and More

April 23, 2021 at 07:00 PM

Rust is a powerful compiled language that protects your actions. As a JavaScript developer, sometimes new APIs can be unfamiliar to us. Let’s dive into Rust’s Options, Results, and more will help you translate your existing programming knowledge into Rust’s ecosystem.

Becoming a 'Secret' Agent: Securing Your GraphQL Backend with JWTs

March 12, 2021 at 07:00 PM

Are you confused about how authentication and authorization relate to GraphQL APIs? You’re not alone! It’s no secret that learning auth is hard on its own, let alone on top of GraphQL. In this talk, Sam will show how to demystify auth while learning how to use JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) with GraphQL APIs! After discovering why controlling access to APIs is so challenging and ways that can be used to solve it, Sam will step through how to handle authorization in the GraphQL server. This talk will use JavaScript examples, but the principles will apply to other tech. By the end, you’ll feel a whole lot better about tackling auth in GraphQL!

From Code to Lambda - A Journey

February 5, 2021 at 07:00 PM

In this talk we will discuss best practices in continuous integration and deployment techniques when committing code to GIT and deploying to AWS Lambda by using webhooks and AWS CodePipeline. Additionally, we will discuss how we can use this technique to adopt a developer hands off approach to code deployment, allowing the developers to write more code and features, and worry less about deploying.

Making Games and Taking Names

January 22, 2021 at 07:00 PM

Making games for mobile and desktop is not as complicated as it once was. You don’t need to be a great designer nor do you need to be a great programmer to create a truly amazing and enjoyable game.

With the availability of game development frameworks, you can build cross-platform games, in most circumstances for free. Some of the popular game development frameworks include:

Unity with the C# programming language
Phaser with the JavaScript programming language
Unreal Engine with the C++ programming language

In this session we’ll explore some of the basics behind creating games with the Unity game development framework and the C# programming language. We’ll use free media assets from the Unity Asset Store when building a game.

React Refs: The Complete Story

December 11, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Learn how to utilize mutable data storage in React using refs! This talk will help you understand refs and their full potential: not just accessing HTML elements, but as mutable storage, dual-directional data binding, and much more!

Progressive for Real, Improve Your PWA Performance

November 13, 2020 at 07:00 PM

A progressive web app is a way to bring a native app experience into the browser, therefore the idea is to have a progressive enhancement of your app, but during our development process we have to keep in mind a few factors in order to make it. During this talk, we are going to discuss possible architectures of a PWA, how we can make sure to apply the right offline strategy (including cache) and which are the tools that can help us to deliver web apps that are fast and progressive (for real!).

Cross-Platform Desktop Apps with Electron

October 2, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Would you like to leverage your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills to build cross-platform desktop applications? Electron is an open source application shell created by GitHub, designed to make building great desktop applications easy. You may have already experienced Electron apps such as Atom, Slack, or Visual Studio Code. In this talk, you will learn its features, how to quickly get started, and tips from my experience building Electron applications.

Not a Machine Learning Expert? Not a Problem, AutoML is Here to Help!

September 4, 2020 at 07:00 PM

What if you could take all the best practices from expert data scientists and roll it into an easy-to-use software package that any developer could use? What if it could automatically prepare your dataset, try different machine learning approaches, and combine their results to deliver high-quality predictions — and all of that with little to no code? This is the idea behind automated machine learning (AutoML). In this talk, I’ll discuss some of the recent advances in AutoML and how you can use it to accelerate your data science projects. I’ll also walk-through demos showing two AutoML solutions - AutoGluon, an open source AutoML library by AWS and Amazon SageMaker AutoPilot, a fully managed AutoML service on AWS.

Game Development with Phaser, JavaScript, and MongoDB

August 6, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Video games are great, but they’re a whole lot better when you can play them with friends, remotely.

So what goes into creating a multiplayer game, or any game for that matter?

In this session, we’re going to learn about Phaser, the HTML5 and JavaScript game development framework, and MongoDB for data storage and synchronization. More specifically, we’re going to see how simple it is to create a game where the data is transferred in near real-time between clients and database to give a multiplayer experience.

Building React UIs Visually

July 10, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Design tools are fast and amazing tools for thought, but for a host of reasons are limited to creating drawings rather than production assets. Engineers must instead re-create surfaces from scratch, by hand, using code. This inevitably leads to discrepancies and back-and-forth with the design team, and ultimately two sources of truth that are never truly in sync.

Plasmic is a tool to build UIs visually, currently in heavy development. It loosely resembles a design tool and aims to give the same sense of speedy iteration, but is for building maintainable, production-ready presentational components. The idea is to give developers a better and faster development experience, eliminate an entire class of visual bugs/QA/tooling, and ultimately maintain a single source of truth with design.

Adding Location Services to Your JAMStack

June 18, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Location services cover a wide range of capabilities. They allow for mapping with custom markers, routing that takes into account traffic and accidents, and geocoding, the transformation of free form addresses to more precise longitude and latitude values. The JAMStack, while involving static web sites, can easily make use of location services in a variety of ways. From client-side mapping libraries to serverless functions, your “static” site can do everything from providing custom directions to your users to emailing them customized maps.

In this talk I’ll discuss the location services provided by HERE Technologies (with alternatives as well) and share examples of updating a real static site to make use of them.

SEO Tips and Tricks for the Modern Web

May 15, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Search Engine rankings can make or break any business. In this talk, Alain will go through how search engines crawl and index content in 2019 and beyond. We will see how to run an SEO audit on a website, what mistakes to avoid, and which best practices to put in place in order to optimize your modern web app or blog to achieve optimal search rankings.

Blogging with Gatsby: An Introduction to Gatsby

April 24, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Want to start your own blog, but don’t know where to start? Familiar with React and want to use those skills to build up a blog? Maybe you’ve just heard of Gatsby and want to learn more about it (regardless of it being used as a blog).

Join us as we walk through Gatsby:

What it is
How to use it
How to achieve a performant SEO optimized site with it

This session is an introduction to Gatsby and the technologies around it, not limited to it being used for blogging.

State Management with React Hooks

March 13, 2020 at 07:00 PM

Managing state for UI components in React until now has required a dependency on libraries like Redux. But for simple UI level state management React has introduced Hooks into React core.

Understand the basics of using state, side-effects and the Context API using React’s three basic Hooks (useState, useEffect and useContext).

30 minute or less talk on Basic State Management and news on React Hooks and how this makes state management more approachable in React JS.

Developing Applications With Golang and MongoDB

February 21, 2020 at 07:00 PM

When developing modern applications with the Go programming language (Golang), almost always will you be using native data structures to represent the data that you work with. In many scenarios, those data structures have nested components to them, making them less than ideal to use when working with a flat formated relational database.

This is where MongoDB and a NoSQL document model can help with the development process.

MongoDB stores data as BSON, which is binary JSON, a format that can be mapped quite easily to data structures within Go. Being able to mutate complex data within the database, execute queries, and engage with the data without having to do any code-lengthy transformations is a huge benefit to application development.

In this session, we’re going to see how to use the Go programming language to establish a connection to a MongoDB cluster and then perform create, retrieve, update, and delete (CRUD) operations to work with the data.

Intro to Python Libraries for Data Science

January 17, 2020 at 07:00 PM

I invite you to come and explore Data Science, no previous Machine Learning experience required.

I will go over the basics of data analysis with Python using the Pandas library for data modeling, Matplotlib and Seaborn libraries for data visualization, and the Scikit-learn library for Machine Learning.

I will be going over a hands on example using a Jupyter Notebook that will cover a use case for Machine Learning that will include:

Where to find open data sets
How to clean and explore the data
How to convert the data into a model optimized for Machine Learning
How to interpret the results

If you would like to follow along, please download and install the Anaconda platform which includes Jupyter.

Introduction to Serverless

December 6, 2019 at 07:00 PM

Serverless has become the new style of coding, and it can be used to offload your mobile apps without incurring unnecessary costs. Get an intro into serverless/function-as-a-service/cloud functions technologies and learn why startups and enterprises are so excited about using it.

This is a hands-on workshop style meetup - please come with your laptop. You will be able to write up your first serverless function in IBM Cloud using a free account. The created serverless function will use IBM Watson AI service.

In addition we will be demoing JS and Swift Serverless Functions, we will be discussing solutions with Kafka and Docker, and covering:

Who are the players in the Serverless ecosystem?
What are some use cases for Serverless solutions - with using a Docker as the Polyglot action
Best practices for the Serverless architecture for Message Oriented Middleware events
Whether going Serverless is really faster, better, cheaper for developers and organizations

If you want to learn more please come and join us for this workshop!

Testing With Cypress, the Javascript End-to-End Testing Framework

November 22, 2019 at 07:00 PM

Cypress is a new testing library that lets you write reusable, script-able, tests in JavaScript and it allows you to test any front-end application regardless of which framework it was built with.

Whether you’re writing in Angular, React, Vue, or vanilla HTML/JavaScript, you can use Cypress to test your applications.

Cypress code is very similar to BDD tests written in other testing libraries so the learning curve is pretty low. Additionally it will save screen shots of the UI before and after different actions have taken place, and allows you to save all of this data into the cloud for your customers. You can also create plugins and get crazier with Cypress if you’d like.

In this talk we’ll start at the beginning, show you how to install Cypress and start using it. We’ll build some basic tests, show you a few options for configuring and running Cypress and provide info on where to go from there.

Linkedin Profile Building Workshop

August 16, 2019 at 07:00 AM

Previously we had a Meetup on building the perfect resume to get noticed by technical recruiters and hiring managers for developer and other technical related positions.

Per popular request, we’re going to have a part two to this workshop, taking the job hunt to the internet by revamping our LinkedIn profiles.

This particular Meetup will be a collaborative workshop, so have your LinkedIn profile ready to be picked apart by the group.

Resume Building Workshop

July 12, 2019 at 07:00 PM

There is no better time than now to update your resume and polish it so that you have a fighting chance against your competition for a spot at a developer related or technical position.

This is a collaborative workshop to see other developers resumes, learn about what has worked for them when applying, and the information that should or shouldn’t be included.

Bring a few physical copies of your current resume as well as a digital copy if you have one.

Real-Time Maps with Golang, Raspberry Pi, and HERE XYZ

June 14, 2019 at 07:00 PM

The Raspberry Pi is a powerful, yet portable, computer that is compatible with many hardware modules, making it a desirable Internet of Things (IoT) device. Pair it with the Go programming language and you have powerful applications built specifically for the ARM architecture which the Raspberry Pi operates.

HERE XYZ is a cloud-based data management service for location data, making it a powerful tool when combined with many IoT projects.

In this session we’ll explore how to collect GPS data with a Raspberry Pi and Golang, then display it in real-time as the data is collected, on an interactive map using HERE XYZ.

Horton Hears a Vue - An Ecosystem OverVue

May 17, 2019 at 07:00 PM

In this presentation, we’ll cover an introduction the Vue and it’s surrounding ecosystem. This will include Vuex, the official Flux-inspired datastore for Vue, Vue’s routing support, Vue CLI, and more! We’ll be diving into how Vue functions, how it differs from other frameworks, and the similarities as well.

Creating Explosive Visuals with Unity's Visual Effect Graph + Unity @ GDC Recap

April 12, 2019 at 07:00 PM

Learn how to use node-based effects and adaptive features in Unity’s Visual Effect Graph to create beautiful VFX in real-time. Plus, hear some of the latest Unity news and updates announced at the 2019 Game Developers Conference.

Unity is the creator of the world’s most widely used real-time 3D (RT3D) development platform, giving developers around the world the tools to create rich, interactive 2D, 3D, VR and AR experiences.

Lambda Lambda Lambda!

March 15, 2019 at 07:00 PM

More than an epic frat from the 80’s, today we have AWS Lambda, which is taking running code without servers to the next level. In this talk Chris will go over the different ways to write NodeJS applications that will run on the AWS Lambda serverless framework, including developing locally with debugging tools, deploying to the cloud, and exploring the Lambda console.

Securing JavaScript Web Applications with 2FA

February 8, 2019 at 07:00 PM

In this session we’ll be reviewing the types of two-factor authentication that can be implemented by the developer and why it is an easy solution towards protecting your users online. Highlights will include implementing 2FA with JavaScript that makes use of the Google Authenticator application or similar, as well as hardware based 2FA that makes use of YubiKey devices or similar.

Developing Amazon Alexa Skills with the Go Programming Language

January 18, 2019 at 07:00 PM

Ever want to develop applications for your Amazon Alexa virtual assistant? Maybe you’re looking for a feature or functionality that doesn’t already exist on your virtual assistant. We’re going to take a look at developing and publishing Skills, which are the applications that power Alexa, using Golang and AWS Lambda.

Holiday Mixer 2018

December 14, 2018 at 07:00 PM

With 2018 coming to an end, it makes sense to have a holiday mixer (family friendly) with the group to bring the year to a close.

There will be food so please RSVP if you’re coming so that way we can order the appropriate amount. Bring your spouses and children as well since this is a family friendly event.

We’re trialing a new location this time around at the Northgate Village in Tracy. The space is larger and will be our new location for future meetings.

Static Site Generation With Hugo and Markdown

October 13, 2018 at 07:00 PM

Ever tried to launch a website of blog with WordPress or Drupal but found that it was experiencing poor performance or was becoming increasingly expensive to operate? Dynamic content, or content that is rendered based on database or HTTP requests, can become more costly to operate as demand increases or slower as features are added. We’re going to look at static site generators such as Hugo which allows you to pre-compile, in a sense, your website or blog using a familiar syntax such as Markdown, so that way it is blazing fast, cheap, and has no dependence on a database. The speaker’s blog, www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com, is an example of what you can accomplish with Hugo.

Developing APIs with GraphQL, Node.js, and NoSQL

September 21, 2018 at 07:00 PM

Remember RESTful APIs? Remember how you had to create an API endpoint for every little thing and as your business grew, so did the data payloads of your API endpoints? Remember how tiring it is to consume data from large APIs via a frontend like Angular or React? Take GraphQL, a new concept that allows you to query your APIs rather than just consume data from them. Using GraphQL, you can query for data from your frontend using a single endpoint and no specific amount of data complexity. In this session, learn how to create an API powered by GraphQL using Node.js and a NoSQL database.

Containerizing Drupal in the Cloud with Docker and AWS

August 17, 2018 at 07:00 PM

Drupal out of the box can seem like a monolithic nightmare. During this presentation we will go over how to break this beast out into a three tier architecture system using Docker and Amazon Web Services to create a scalable and reliable Drupal stack. In this talk we will discuss how we use Docker to containerize Drupal, PHP Composer to build and maintain Drupal, and both custom and open source modules to run Drupal in AWS.

Crash Course in Angular

July 12, 2018 at 07:00 PM

Angular used to be AngularJS. Then it became Angular 2. Then they skipped version 3. Then 4, 5 and 6 came out in rapid fire succession. Where do you begin?!

We’ll look at how to start building an Angular project from scratch. Beginning with some basic Node commands, we’ll scaffold out an Angular project and look at how the project is organized. Next, we’ll walk thru some basics of TypeScript and MVVM basics. We’ll end with building your first Angular project, some tips on debugging and places to look up more information.

Target Audience: People that want to start with Angular and use it to build web apps. This talk assumes no prior knowledge with Angular, Node or TypeScript but you’ll be exposed to all of them during the presentation. If you understand what a “single page application” is but have felt overwhelmed with all the JavaScript frameworks, this is the talk for you.

Assumed Knowledge: Attendees should be comfortable with “modern JavaScript”. A basic understanding of classes and objects and variable scopes will be helpful. Some basic prior exposure to Node, MVC frameworks, and single page applications will be helpful.

Main takeaways:

A quick overview of MVC vs MVVM
Building your first Angular project
Components, Views
Adding a Route to your project
Modules
Tips on debugging

RESTful API Development with Node.js, Hapi Framework and NoSQL

June 22, 2018 at 07:00 PM

There was once a time where web applications were built with tightly coupled backends and frontends, often deployed as single packages. These applications were not very flexible and often became difficult to maintain. What happens if you have a web application and need to support a new platform like mobile or IoT? What happens if you need to scale? Modern applications demand to be modular and flexible and this is made possible through APIs that can be consumed from any frontend. In this presentation we’re going to see how to build a RESTful API with Node.js and Hapi.js that can be consumed with any frontend client using simple HTTP requests. Bring your computer and follow along in this JavaScript heavy evening.

Cross-Platform Native Mobile Application Development With NativeScript

May 10, 2018 at 07:00 PM

Android and iOS are the two most popular mobile platforms at the moment, but how does someone develop amazing applications for them? You could learn Java, Objective-C, and Swift, but is that feasible for maintenance or even timely development? You could build a hybrid web application, but will that give you the performance you need? Take NativeScript, a framework for developing native Android and iOS applications using a single set of code. In this presentation we’re going to see how take Angular, a popular web framework, and use it to develop a native mobile application in very little time.

Building a Bitcoin Hardware Wallet with Golang and a Raspberry Pi Zero

April 20, 2018 at 07:00 PM

The Raspberry Pi Zero is an Internet of Things (IoT) device the size of a pack of gum without WiFi or Bluetooth that can run Linux and costs only five dollars. When working with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and many other Altcoins, it is recommended that wallets are encrypted and never to be exposed to the internet. Take the Ledger Nano S for example, a hardware wallet that encrypts information and is accessible via USB. In this presentation, we’re going to see how Golang can be used to generate cryptocurrency wallet information sandboxed and encrypted on the Raspberry Pi Zero, an alternative to buying one of the expensive options, but maintaining similar functionality.

Getting to Know the Local Developer Community

March 23, 2018 at 07:00 PM

Kicking off the first meeting for the Tracy Developer Meetup!

The topic of this meeting is to learn about local developers in the area, where they work, what programming skills they have, and what they’re interested in.

In addition to meeting everyone, it is a great opportunity to create a plan for future Meetups. I (Nic Raboy) have a list of topics that I’m interested in, but I want to get an idea about what everyone else would like to see during future meetings.

It doesn’t matter what programming language you’re using, whether it be JavaScript, C#, Golang, or something else. Everyone is welcome, even if you’re just starting out.