Ever since zero became something for nothing, you'd think we'd solved nothing. Whether we're talking NaN, string.Empty, nullables or database nulls, it turns out that nothing is more surprising than nothing. There is a distinction between a number that is zero — and the many ways we have of representing that number — and the absence of a thing, as well as a distinction between absence and emptiness. These distinctions have both practical and conceptual consequences that lead to surprises in code, in UX, in .NET and beyond. There a number of things to learn in this talk about nothing.
Kevlin Henney is a renowned keynote speaker, independent software developer, consultant, trainer, technologist and writer.
A Taste of DSPy - Tim Trew
DSPy is a Python package that programmatically creates OpenAI API prompts and handles the requests/responses, e.g. providing robust serialisation of complex data structures in AI model responses or optimising prompts automatically using training data. This lightning talk will give an introduction to the package's capabilities and pointers to the next steps in understanding its use.
Tim Trew is an independent embedded software architect, providing companies with a second opinion and mentoring, relating to software architecture and test strategy. For 14 years, he was responsible for the design of features for Sky TV set-top boxes (Sky+ and Sky Q). Previously, he worked for Philips Electronics, helping consumer electronics and medical imaging development teams achieve quality and delivery targets as these product categories became software-intensive.
