This talk will cover the basics of talking to the Slack API with a handful of Node libraries: node-fetch, ws, and express. I’ll show some incremental examples for building a (zombie horror) Choose-your-own-adventure app, and how the building blocks used for that can be extended to build a productivity app, namely an iCalendar processor that gives in-channel notifications when meetings are about to start.

We’ll cover:

• Creating personal Slack teams
• Granting auth to a new app
• Using await/fetch with bearer tokens for simple data collection and message posting
• Using WebSockets for real-time messaging
• Callbacks and triggers from user button clicks
• Registering slash commands
• Surviving the zombie apocalypse

Curtis Autery is a software engineer at Beam Dental, campus instructor for Girls Who Code, runs a coding club at Graham Expeditionary Middle School, and is an occasional speaker and mentor for the Columbus freeCodeCamp chapter.

It’s a common misconception that Design Systems are for designers. While this is true, they are just as much, if not more for developers. Design Systems are a collaboration tool to increase communication and reduce the time to market for your products. We will talk about what Design Systems are and how you can begin using them today.

Burton Smith has been building software and applications for over 10 years and focuses primarily on web and mobile software engineering. At his current company, he works with internal business stakeholders and external customers to build digital products.

In his free time, he loves spending time with his wife and three daughters, practicing martial arts, jamming on his ukulele, and learning new things (usually about software engineering).

People can reach him on Twitter @stuffbreaker or email directly at burton@breakstuff.io.