Working with legacy code presents unique challenges. A seemingly local variable named 'X' can turn out to be global, changing everything in the game. It's a fun challenge that requires careful attention. #legacycode #globalvariables #coding #debugging #softwaredevelopment

QB64 lets one explore retro coding, but is it wise? Starting with math one may or may not understand, the journey might prove challenging. It's an adventure into obscurity. #QB64 #retroCoding #coding

QB64's resilience stems from its dedicated community. Despite losing materials repeatedly, members consistently recover and rewrite, showcasing their unwavering commitment. #QB64 #community #coding #programming

BASIC interpreters introduced many to computing. The Apple II and Commodore 64 would boot directly to a BASIC interpreter, launching many people's careers. #BASIC #interpreter #computers #AppleII #Commodore64

BASIC might be enjoyable for beginners to test the waters. Experienced coders find nostalgia and opportunity in it. Some find coding in BASIC soothing, a comfortable escape from the real world. #BASIC #coding #nostalgia #careers #programming

Discover how MDishkins earns money working with huge files, converting and merging SEPA and SWIFT payment batches for major financial companies. It's significant work in the financial industry. #SEPA #SWIFT #payments #fileconversion #financialindustry

Many people are actively involved in security, even if it's not their primary job. It's a pretty big part of their thinking. This could be self-selection for this talk, but there's only one track, so maybe not. #security #job #thinking #pipeline

The speaker revisits QB64 and its appeal for coders with short attention spans. In 2022, Steve McNeil launched QB64 Phoenix Edition, the go-to version for current work, reuniting many original contributors. #QB64 #Coding #PhoenixEdition #SteveMcNeil

Development teams need an easy solution for secrets management. Discover how to provide that solution before expecting compliance. If teams don't know where to store secrets, they won't follow policy. #secretsmanagement #development #security #compliance

Explore QB64's capabilities with Space Shooter 2000 and QuB. Discover how developers push limits and create impressive web and desktop apps using GX Game Engine. Dive into the world of retro game development! #QB64 #retroGaming #gameDev #indieGames #GXGameEngine

Discover the crucial team size where development strategies need to shift. Learn why managing 10 or more development teams requires a fundamentally different approach for success. Scaling challenges? This is key. #development #teams #scaling #management #strategy

Before making any deals with security, the development team must be ready to take ownership of product security. An automated test suite is the prerequisite. Ephemeral build technology lets teams move fast. #devteam #security #automation #testing

Before a dev team takes ownership of product security, they need automated tests on ephemeral tech. Tests don't have to be involved—a smoke test can work. But without ephemeral architecture, running tests becomes too expensive to scale. #devops #security #automation #testing #ephemeral

What makes a good dev-centric AppSec tool? Speed is critical; aim for under 5 minutes. False positives erode trust, while false negatives are a problem too. Runtime security tools can offer rapid feedback. #AppSec #security #OWASP #Snyk #ContrastAssess

When searching, what are you looking for? Content understanding is keyword search. Domain understanding is a knowledge graph. User understanding is a user profile. Search looks at the intersections. #keywordsearch #knowledgegraph #userprofile #search

When the Log4Shell attack hit, teams scrambled. Older Log4j versions needed manual workarounds. What if a bot could try upgrades and run tests? Teams with test suites stay up-to-date, owning their security. #Log4Shell #security #cybersecurity #Dependabot #vulnerability

Discover how to link any term to another across documents. Leveraging an inverted index, one can search for Java and find related terms. It's really cool to be able to do that. #documents #index #search #terms

DevSecOps should empower engineering teams to own product security. It's about adopting DevOps principles—flow, feedback, and experimentation—while prioritizing shipping product and delivering customer value. Sometimes, market share trumps security risks. #DevSecOps #security #engineering #DevOps

See how combining lexical keyword matching with vector search gives you the best of both worlds. Match specific keywords like product names while also getting conceptual mapping. #keywordmatching #vectorsearch #AI #searchalgorithms

Personalized search meets user intent. By understanding content, user behavior, and domain, results become customized. If someone likes golf and searches for 'driver,' the system knows it's likely a golf club, not a ride. #personalizedsearch #userintent #contentunderstanding #search #customizedsearch

Semantic search moves beyond simple text matching. It's about understanding the relationship between user queries, content, and the domain it exists within, ensuring more relevant search results. #semanticsearch #SEO #contentstrategy #userintent

AI-powered search understands user intent by analyzing the meaning behind search terms. By classifying the query type and finding related terms, the search engine can rank documents that have a cluster of meaning, leading to more relevant search results. #AISearch #QueryIntent #NLP #MachineLearning

Search engines evolve by learning from user behavior. They analyze queries, clicks, and relevance to constantly improve search results. This self-learning mode allows them to adapt without manual tuning. #searchengine #machinelearning #AI #tech #innovation

By using vector math, one can combine a DeLorean image with the text query for superhero to generate an embedding. Averaging these embeddings together then allows a search to find a superhero on top of a sporty car with cool lights. #vectormath #image #superhero #DeLorean #embedding

Advent of Code 2025 It’s time for the annual Carolina Code Conference Advent of Code Challenge again this year! You’ll have the opportunity to flex your brain and learn while you have the opportunity to win tickets for you and maybe some friends too! Here are the details from last year’s challenge and the winners announcement in case you’re curious. What is Advent of Code? Direct from adventofcode.com… Advent of Code is an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like. People use them as interview prep, company training, university coursework, practice problems, a speed contest, or to challenge each other. As regular participant in Advent of Code for many years now, our own Eric Burden has even run a blog series annually discussing the event and what he loves about it so much. How do I participate? We’re going to have a little more brevity in this year’s announcement to simplify things. The Carolina Code Conference has created a private leaderboard for the event, which you can view right here. If you joined the board last year, you should already be on it. Join the Private Leaderboard… * Login to your Advent of Code account with Github, Google, Twitter or Reddit * Visit the Private Leaderboard page * Join using the code 3225403-6028c4d6 * Email [email protected] with a link to the Github Repo that you’ll be using for the challenges. In order to be eligible for prizes you must email me so that I know how to contact you. This year, the prizes will be as follows… “Wow…that person’s followers must be getting REALLY tired of hearing about the Carolina Code Conference…SWEET!” - Barry * 1st place will earn THREE tickets to the 2026 Carolina Code Conference * 2nd place will earn TWO tickets * 3rd place will earn ONE ticket * Polyglot Raffle Earn at least two Gold stars with different programming languages and you’ll be entered into a raffle to win ONE free ticket. Every Gold star earned with an additional language will earn you an additional entry. * Weirdest Language Earn a Gold star using a language that either nobody else was using OR is sufficiently low on assorted language popularity indexes and you could win a free ticket. This is entirely based on judges discretion. * Best Visualization Most years, Advent of Code will include some type of challenge that includes a visualization of some type. Email some photo evidence to us after your challenge to be considered by the judges. * Annoyingly Proactive Social Media Promoter! Are you participating in Advent of Code while constantly posting about the Carolina Code Conference on your social media platform of choice? AWESOME. Keep that up and tag us in your posts. We’ll give away at least one ticket on LinkedIn, X, Instagram and YouTube! Every post we see from you (up to 1 per day) will enter you in a raffle for that social media platform. Email us to let us know your username on the platform so that we know who’s doing it. We want to see you posting about us so much that we think, “Wow…that person’s followers must be getting REALLY tired of hearing about the Carolina Code Conference…SWEET!” * If you complete at least 10 of 50 stars, you will get early access to 2026 Carolina Code Conference tickets and a 20% discount. Have Fun and Learn! Remember, the point of these challenges is to have fun and learn. Many people use Advent of Code as a way to learn a new language. Others, just enjoy the brain puzzles. But it’s a puzzle for your brain, not the computer’s. Please refrain from solving puzzles by copying other folks solutions or using AI to solve it for you. It’s against the spirit of the contest. Checkout our podcast with Eric Burden who inspired this event by sharing his prior experiences with Advent of Code over the year! Happy coding!