DeveloperWeek 2023

Dwayne McDaniel, Developer Advocate, GitGuardian

One of the most daunting parts of getting started as a developer is setting up your local dev environment. Sorting out all the needed parts can take hours or days, depending on the speed of your machine and the complexity of the project. For non-developers, the learning curve is terrifying and stops a lot of aspiring devs before they even have a chance to write HELLO WORLD.

Fortunately, as technology has shifted to the cloud, things have gotten a lot better! The limitations of needing a hearty processor and a ton of RAM need no longer be an obstacle. On-demand pre-configured development environments are now a reality thanks to platforms like Gitpod, Microsoft's VS Code for the Web, and GitHub's CodeSpaces.

This shift in technology is enabling an entirely new generation of coders to learn and develop without needing to overcome the hurdles of buying and setting up a new dedicated machine. For enterprises with dozens or hundreds of developers, the potential upside to shifting to browser-based development is enormous and should not be ignored!

Walk away from this session with a better idea about:
- How traditional local dev environments are secretly draining your resources
- Overcoming onboarding dread
- The reality of no more underpowered local machines
- Why "it worked on my machine" will soon mean it worked in Dev and Production
- Making your own transition plan