Viva re:Invent!

Las Vegas 2025

You should go to re:Invent. That’s the simple message I’d heard over and over again. Odelay. I have served as Subject Matter Expert for Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the last three years, contributing to Associate and Professional Certification Level exams. At every workshop – I’ve been to Seattle, Tempe, Arlington and Nashville – someone would inevitably say – “You should go to re:Invent”. re:Invent is the big AWS Tech Conference every first week of December in Las Vegas.

I had never been to Vegas and I don’t like to gamble. But the kitschy-ness of it, the Elvis-ness of it – drew me in. Other factors pulled me to re:Invent – one definitely being the sea change in the programming industry with the rapid adoption of Generative AI. Like a good drum break, we have a few moments now to assess the landscape before Generative AI becomes the norm rather than the exception. Secondly, I made it into the AWS Community Builders program this year, and I had a relatively affordable deal for a one week stay. Forget FOMO, I didn’t want to be known a loser, baby.

Job skill mutations are common in the programming profession, and almost always in favor of abstraction. Programming languages are evolving closer and closer towards spoken language. Natural Language Processing and Spec-Driven Development are two of the new weapons. Kiro is the new AWS-branded agentic-AI driven integrated development environment (IDE), built upon Visual Studio Code, but also available as a command line tool. Using Kiro you refine a specification in a command prompt well Kiro synthesizes the Requirements, Design Plan and Task List. Iterating through the Task List in waves, Kiro generates code, which can be quality-enhanced by linking Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers as “powers” to the Kiro admin. I use the AWS Infrastructure as Code power. These automations will hopefully pare down exhaustive meetings with shareholders. Story-pointing and backlog-grooming will be easier if not unnecessary. We can tackle new challenges and bring AI to the browser. As programming is moving closer towards Natural Language, HTML, CSS and Javascript is now more than ever the byte code of the internet, and Kiro is my agent of choice.

After a few days of workshops, Generative AI demos, the Toronto Raptors Shooting Challenge … it was time for a side quest.

I decided to take a few days off from Vegas to head east across the Mojave Desert to the Grand Canyon. Not an easy drive especially when you’re tired and hungover in a rental car. I got there after dark, it was was snowing. The next morning, I took the bus around the south rim of the canyon, but the trails were mostly closed. When you look across the Grand Canyon, I’ll tell you what …. it’s something. You realize that humans are only a small part of this planet we call ‘Earth’. I met up with my high school buddy, Henry, now living in Flagstaff. I had not seen him in 20 years. He had just gotten married. He now has, not to my surprise – four dogs, three trucks and two houses. But he is still the same good friend that I grew up with. We had a steak dinner at the El Tovar Lodge. Unfortunately, the Grand Canyon village was closing down for the winter due to a break in the water supply.

Returning across the desert in a Honda with no name but plenty of leg room, memories crept in of my dad and our many adventurous road trips – to the Rockies, the Gulf of Mexico, Astroworld, the Blue Ridge Mountains, even our last road trip together, diriving back from Yellowstone National Park along the Goodnight-Loving Trail from Wyoming to Texas. I stopped at a Dairy Queen on Route 66, the Hoover Dam and a combination Dunkin’ Donuts / highway foodmart. There was a giant tourbus with looked like a middle school wrestling team parked outside.

I got back around midday in stiff traffic in the Vegas strip, and made it to my hotel for the last night – The Flamingo. The Flamingo is a holdover from the Ratpack era. My room had a view of the Strip and wacky luxuries like a motorized blackout curtain and a semi-functional jacuzzi. I made it over the re:Invent Showroom and for an AWS Certifications lecture by my fellow SME Satabdi. Then to my shocking surprise the headliner for the closing night was announced: BECK! I was a fan of his act in the 90s, and even went to see one of his dad’s art shows (Fluxus artist Al Hansen) years ago in NYC.

Beck has a little Elvis in him he and was perfect for the stage at the Sahara Casino. He played none of his recent melancholy music – sticking to the raucous “Midnight Vultures” album. Beck can dance. He came out in a Sammy Davis Jr – era tuxedo and dipped into repertoire of b-boy moves, Jackie Wilson splits and silky falsettos. He also collapsed onstage several times like James Brown on the TAMI Show. Granted, some attendees might not have known Beck or cared for his music; there was also an EDM DJ named Kaskade performing as well.

I left Vegas wiser, more experienced and ready to use what I learned. Refreshed and re-invented.