The Forge DevCon Web Programming Track

As we developed a content plan for Forge DevCon, we were very aware that many customers who extend Autodesk products through the APIs they expose – while expert in desktop programming - find the transition to web programming somewhat daunting. That’s why we put aside five classes on Monday specifically to construct a Web Programming Track.

We were particularly excited that Galia Traub agreed to be our Web Programming Track Lead this year. Galia has been a web programmer for nine years, and has worked for the last four at Autodesk in a number of roles and on a number of BIM 360 products – and uses Forge extensively in her work. She’s a Ruby on Rails expert and a well-known participant in the Boston Meetup circuit, which includes organizing and teaching at RailsBridge Boston. Galia and her colleague Dorothy Thurston presented what I consider the hidden gem of Forge DevCon last year – a 30-minute lightning talk on structuring an API-heavy web application. I really wished we’d given them more time, so we’re repeating it this year as a 60-minute class.

When it comes to web programming, the actual programming is the easy part. It becomes daunting when you consider all the additional skills you must learn to launch a scalable, secure, and resilient web application. If you’re a programmer and you don’t know the answers to any of the questions below, then you'll benefit from our Web Programming Track:

• Do you know what are the OWASP Top 10 Most Critical Web Application Security Risks?
• Do you know how to secure your API Keys and Access Tokens to prevent them being stolen and abused?
• Do you know how to program defensively so that your web application can continue running when call to a 3^rd party service fails?
• Do you know how testing techniques for web applications differs from testing desktop applications?

Here’s a quick overview of each of the Forge DevCon Web Programming classes. Click on the links for a more detailed description:

FDC226250 - Securing Your Forge App: Do It Like Autodesk: This will be a great introduction to basic web security. Tony Arous (Director for Security Architecture and Engineering) and Izar Tarandach (Lead Product Security Architect) will lead you through the steps you need to take to secure your web applications.

FDC227440 - Node.js and Autodesk: The Latest Uses and Updates: Shiya Luo from Autodesk’s Quantum team shares her love of node.js for server-side programming and explains why it is becoming increasingly popular at Autodesk and elsewhere. (Maybe you should try it too).

FDC223831 - Move to Forge and the Cloud With Your Existing .NET Experience: Back for its 3^rd year running, this class by Augusto Goncalves of the Forge Partner Development team is always full – for obvious reasons.

FDC225862 - Tips and Tricks for Building and Testing Successful Cloud Applications and Services: What Alex Bicalho doesn’t know about testing and DevOps isn’t worth knowing :-)

FDC221650 - Structuring an API-Heavy App: Best Practices and Lessons Learned: Dorothy Thurston presented this class last year as a 30 minute ‘lightning class’. It was so popular that we’re bringing it back and doubling her time.

The General Programming track dovetails nicely into the Forge Basics Track, so be sure to check out those classes too.

There's still time to register for Forge DevCon Las Vegas - find out more here.