{dev.talk} - The one where we learn to Level Up Our DevEx

Location: TBC

Welcome to our next {dev.talk} event: "The one where we learn to Level Up Our DevEx"

Venue

TBC

Doors open at 6:50pm

Event starts at 7pm

Event finishes at 9pm

Speaker

This month, we are happy to welcome another great speaker.

Andrew Poole

Level Up Your DevEx: Unit Test Complex E2E Flows + Integration Testing with Aspire & OTEL

This session is in two parts:

1) How to get the maximum mileage from a minimal number of tests - end-to-end component tests

2) Using .Net Aspire for next level devex and easy integration tests asserting against OTEL trace data

Part 1 Introduces, explains and demonstrates an approach to automated testing which covers as much of the surface area of your codebase as possible.Imagine a unit test where the 'unit' is actually multiple executables! A single test can cover the whole happy path flow of a complex piece of orchestration, from API handlers, service bus handlers, database calls etc all in-memory, fast and with a nice fluent developer experience!Because everything including the Program.cs and startup code are covered we can spot configuration and IoC issues which are hard to test with more traditional methods. I include a method of mocking and asserting against Azure Service Bus

Part 2 discusses the usual issues with integration tests and how they expose the issues with running an app locally. It then presents .Net Aspire as the answer to lots of these issues, It covers the process of adding .Net Aspire to a solution and showcases its features, adding additional OTEL telemetry to track interesting events, including persisting and rehydrating telemetry across any 'process airgaps' and the creation of integration tests covering end-to-end flows using Open Telemetry trace data for assertions.

The aim of both parts of this talk is to have a repo which when pulled down onto a fresh machine, builds first time, component tests pass first time, then having run the script and the app, the the integration tests pass first time, after which you can push F5 and have it all run with almost no time or effort!

Bio

Andrew Poole has been writing code for a living since 2005, most recently as a Senior Backend Engineer at Flagstone, and ClearBank before that. He loves solving problems, design and architecture, communicating ideas and the incredible creativity of software engineering. He’s interested in event sourcing, immutable architecture and distributed systems. He also enjoy mentoring others and building great team culture. He has previously been a successful team lead, but what really drives him is striving to write elegant, intentional code which is easy to understand and maintain. He absolutely loves C# and only really dabbles in other languages in order to write better C#. Outside of work Andrew is a husband and father of 2 who enjoys making music, especially playing bass guitar and making things in his shed.

Who is {dev.talk}

A small team of people who are passionate about the local software engineering community, who realised that a lot of the needs are not being met, so pushed through their fears, and are trying to "Be the change they want to see in the world".

We come together regularly and share knowledge allowing us all to learn and grow in our chosen fields and careers.

It is a relaxed environment where everyone is welcome from all backgrounds and technical levels.

We will be aiming for talks (& lightning talks) that are of any level, and any software engineering based skill. This will include deep dives into technical subjects, soft skills, mental health, career progression etc.

All levels of speaking/presentation skills will be accepted, and actively encouraged.

We want {dev.talk} to feel like friends who support each other.

More details about us, and how to get involved are here: https://devdottalk.uk/

We are always supported by the good people at re:connect and JustPickOneUK

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