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Every Tuesday at 12pm Mountain Time

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A casual weekly virtual chat mostly focused on web and software development.

Weekly Dev Chat is a place to ask questions, hear different viewpoints, and get to know your fellow developers. Every week there is an initial topic posted to get the discussion started. Sometimes we discuss the initial topic the entire chat, and other times the topic changes several times through the natural flow of the conversation.

Everyone and anyone are welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others.

Electron and other frameworks

Last week Discord announced they were dropping Electron (the Chromium-based framework) in favour of a native Rust rewrite. They claim it drops memory usage to 290 MB.

This would be impressive if it pans out. On my machine, at the moment, I see 842.4 MB being used by Discord.

What's your opinion of Electron? It's been the foundation of many apps I use daily (Slack, VS Code, Discord). Is it worth the price paid in memory (which isn't cheap!)? Is Discord going to lead a trend? If starting a new project, what framework would you use?

Everyone is welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others. Proton Meet link will be posted at 12 pm Alberta Time aka Central Standard Time (ABT/CST/UTC-6).

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Show and Tell (IRL) Is Back on November 19th

Our first Show and Tell went so well that we're doing it again. Join us in person on Thursday, November 19th at the Edmonton Public Library - Strathcona to show what you've been building and see what other Edmonton developers are working on.

Last time we saw a 3D engine written from scratch in Vulkan, an optimized picoCTF solution, a deep dive into processes and threads, an AI chess tutor, and a game concept. This time we want even more of the real thing: no slides, just code and prototypes.

The Format

Demos are 5–10 minutes, followed by a few minutes of questions. Open your editor, run your prototype, step through your terminal, or bring your hardware. Some ideas:

  • A side project or product you're building, even if it's half-broken
  • A piece of code you're proud of (or confused by)
  • A bug you finally squashed or a problem you recently solved
  • A CTF challenge walkthrough
  • Something you learned and can demonstrate live
  • A hardware or electronics project

Works-in-progress are welcome. We'll have a table, a podium, and a TV with HDMI, so bring your laptop and any adapters you need.

Planning to demo? Let us know when you register so we can plan the lineup.

Not presenting? Come anyway to watch, ask questions, and meet other devs. Light snacks and drinks are provided.

Schedule

  • 6:45pm – Doors open
  • 7:00pm – Intro
  • 7:10pm – Demos
  • 8:30pm – Closing remarks and cleanup

More information and registration:

https://luma.com/q9gart2z

Can't make it in person? Join our weekly online chat every Tuesday at 12pm Alberta Time. Everyone and anyone is welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others.

IRL Show and Tell

It's Five/Four/Six O'Clock Somewhere in Western Canada?

The initial topic for today's (Nov 3, 2026) chat: What time is it? A simple question that was complicated in Alberta and other western Canadian provinces this week as they stopped observing daylight saving time last weekend (Nov 1st).

I've spent the last couple days double checking the time on my operating systems and various calendars. Not all providers have added the new Alberta Time (ABT) time zone yet, or if they did I needed to manually set it, move existing events, etc. I also have an older Synology NAS that I don't think will ever get the new time zone.

Let's chat about time, time zones, and how you deal with it in software and databases. We can also chat about how you would "fix time" if you were supreme ruler of Earth.

Everyone and anyone is welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others.

P.S. - The image was created by ChatGPT. For some reason Alberta is to the right and both Saskatchewan and B.C. are to the left.

Cartoon of a clock above a sign reading "It's Five/Four/Six O'Clock Somewhere in Western Canada?", with signposts for Alberta (ABT), Saskatchewan (SST), and British Columbia (PST) and a Nov 1 calendar marking the end of daylight saving time