I have seen many, many development talks, actually an embarrassing amount. There have been many talks that have altered how I develop or think about development. Actually, since 2013, some talks have caused a major shift in how I think about full stack development, my mind has been in a major evolutionary cycle.

CQRS and Event Sourcing

My thought process about full stack development started down a new path when I attended Code on the Beach 2013. I watched a talk by Greg Young that included Event Sourcing, mind ignited.

Greg Young – Polyglot Data – Code on the Beach 2013

He actually followed this up at Code on the Beach 2014 with a talk on CQRS and Event Sourcing.

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Reactive Functional Programming

Then I was introduced to React.js and I experience a fundamental paradigm shift in how I believed application UIs should be built and began exploring reactive functional programming. I watched a talk by Pete Hunt where he introduced the design decisions behind React, mind blown.

Pete Hunt – React, Rethinking Best Practices – JSConf Asia 2013

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Stream Processing

Then my thoughts on how to manage data flow through my applications was significantly altered. I watched a talk by Martin Kleppmann that promoted subscribe/notify models and stream processing and I learned more about databases than any talk before it, mind reconfigured.

Martin Kleppmann – Turning the database inside-out with Apache Samza – Strange Loop 2014

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Immutable Data Structures

Then my thoughts on immutable state was refined and I went in search of knowledge on immutable data structures and their uses. I watched a talk by Lee Bryon on immutable state, mind rebuilt.

Lee Bryon – Immutable Data in React – React.js Conf 2015

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Conclusion

I have been doing professional application development since 2000. There was a lot burned into my mind in terms of development, but these talks where able to cut through the internal program of my mind to teach this old dog some new tricks. The funny thing is all of these talks are based on old concepts from computer science and our profession that I never had the opportunity of learning.

The point is, keep learning and don’t accept best practices as the only or best truth.