The Nantes 2024 DevFest was held under the sign of Halloween on October 17 and 18. With "The Dark Chapter" as its theme, this not-to-be-missed event for western developers plunged its participants into a spooky but stimulating atmosphere. Damien and Thibault, our local experts, were on hand to follow these two enriching days and draw lessons applicable to their future projects.
AI and RAG: indomitable creatures?
DevFest 2024 couldn't escape the subject of AIs, now an inescapable fact of life. The rise of LLMs (Large Language Models) like GPT raised many questions. With talks such as David Pilato's "La météorite GPT annonce-t-elle la disparition des dinosaures 'moteur de recherche'?", the debate on the coexistence of AI and search engines was revived. For David Pilato, far from causing their extinction, LLMs are actually breathing new life into data retrieval.
As for Hugo Vassard from Ippon Technologies, he plunged us into the depths of RAGs (Retrieval Augmented Generation) and the challenges of evaluating them. His advice on the importance of testing the performance and risks of chatbots is invaluable for our projects where the user experience is at the heart of the concerns.
For our developers, these exchanges have opened up new perspectives on how to integrate AI and RAGs into concrete applications, while keeping a watchful eye on their evaluation. It's a real balancing act, but one that's essential if we are to offer our customers cutting-edge solutions.
Breaking the obsolescence curse
OCTO Technology's Tristan Nitot, meanwhile, proposed a bold reflection on the end of Moore's Law with his talk "J'ai une idée pour réduire l'empreinte environnementale du numérique par 4" ("I've got an idea for reducing the environmental footprint of digital technology by a factor of 4"). He addressed the colossal environmental impact of the digital industry and invited developers to return to software optimization, to prolong the life of devices rather than replace them.
This vision resonates particularly with our experts, for whom sustainability is an increasingly central issue in our projects. Imagining more sober and optimized solutions also means meeting the expectations of our customers, who are seeking to combine innovation and responsibility. What if optimization became our next "magic formula" for greener projects?
On the road to a brighter future
This 2024 edition, beneath its frightening allure, has brought its share of new ideas and innovative perspectives. The lessons learned from the conferences and peer exchanges will be invaluable in enriching our methods and approaches. These are all avenues to be explored and implemented in future projects, with a focus on performance, sustainability and innovation.
This "Dark Chapter" in the history of DevFest closes on an enthusiastic note, proving that even in the heart of darkness, the light of innovation always shines through.
Damien Viaud
Design and development engineer
Thibault Noël
Cloud Solution Architect
