Devtalk 2026 Update!

Announcements
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Sorry we’re a bit later than usual - it’s the Elixir Forum’s tenth birthday this month so we waited a while to post our updates.

Welcome to another update everyone! Let’s have a quick review of the year before we share what we’ve got in store for you :icon_biggrin:

2025 was another interesting year in the dev world. AI continued to dominate, and perhaps unsurprisingly, with more and more attention being drawn to the darker side of its use, such as Palantir’s role and use of AI in crimes against humanity.

We also saw what many feel is a major attack on freedom of speech - with the US forcing the owners of TikTok to sell their US operations to Oracle, a company that many consider to be ‘evil’. Like often happens though, many users have flocked to UpScrolled an app that promises no shadowbans and equality for all. Will it take off? Your guess is as good as ours!

Meanwhile, LLMs continue to get better with some arguing we saw the biggest jump in ability this year - will these jumps only increase? Or will they peter out? Again, only time will tell!

You don’t need to speculative what we’ll be bringing you though - here’s our 2026 giveaways and discounts :003:

Our 2026 Giveaways!

We’re back with our awesome giveaways, giving away 5 prizes every month!

For those of you who want even more chances to win, we have similar giveaways on the Elixir Forum and the Erlang Forums too!:

Elixir Forum

Erlang Forums

Pragmatic Studio Winners

To make the giveaways a bit easier to manage we moved some of them to annual giveaways (instead of monthly giveaways). If your name is listed below you won in the Pragmatic Studio giveaway! Please PM @AstonJ with your: Full name, email address, country of residence, and the URL of the course you would like and we’ll get your details sent over to the Pragmatic Studio team!

@alvinkatojr

@Andrea

@brennan

@chris.johan

@DevotionGeo

@dyowee

@faust

@gflashner

@jaeyson

@jmagnani

@joeb

@peterchancc

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Discounts

Can’t wait? We got you covered!

  • 35% off any ebook published by PragProg!
    Simply use coupon code devtalk.com

  • 45% off any ebook, print book or video published by Manning!
    Simply use coupon code devtalk.com

  • 20% off ANY Pragmatic Studio course!
    Simply use coupon code devtalk.com

  • 10% off Honeybadger… for 12 months!
    Mention Devtalk when you sign up for 10% off your first year following a 30-day free trial.

Don’t forget to check out our amazing sponsors who help make all this possible! :blue_heart:

Members of the Year

Platforms like this would be nothing without helpful members like you. Whether that’s through keeping members updated by regularly posting news or other interesting threads, documenting your learning journey or encouraging others to, welcoming and posting in other people’s threads or simply helping them the good old fashioned way by answering questions. If you consistently add value to the community we are likely to notice you!

Last year’s MOTYs

We’ve got so many awesome members here - all of you adding value in your own way, whether it’s by being active, helpful, or using the platform to announce blogs and podcasts - it all helps and we’ve tried to recognise as many of you as we can. (We’ve also just focused on the main Devtalk areas, rather than the book errata sections.)

If you’re named here thank you and well done - and please read the bit at the end as we have an ebook for you!

@adamaiken89

@alvinkatojr

@Andrea

@apoorv-2204

@apsori

@bic

@brainlid

@brennan

@bunnahabhain

@Chrichton

@chris.johan

@conradwt

@dani

@daniel-gagnon

@DevotionGeo

@dhmitchell

@dyowee

@Eiji

@faust

@Fl4m3Ph03n1x

@gflashner

@gfqdjb

@iPaul

@iprog4u

@jaeyson

@Javaru

@jkdiaz

@jmagnani

@joeb

@joevgreathead

@jss

@KnowledgeIsPower

@mafinar

@mercyf

@mindriot

:041: :041: :041: :041: :041:

As a thank you, we have an ebook for each of our winners! We’ll be using our Manning books this year so if you are listed above, please PM @AstonJ with your book choice along with your full name, email address and country of residence - we’ll then get these details sent over once we’ve heard back from everyone (please note it could take some time so please allow 6 weeks before chasing things up) :023:

In Closing

We sure do live in interesting times - and like many of you, we’ll be curious to see what 2026 brings. Will it be more of the same? Will we see AGI? Or will other new technologies emerge and grab our attention?

As usual, one thing is for sure - we’ll be looking forward to discussing it all on Devtalk! :048:

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2026!

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Woooow! I’m really really really sure AI can’t do this announcement. :man_bowing:t5:

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Thank you so much, Aston, and everyone else!

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Yey! Thanks for all the effort you put into this!

AI is worrying me quite a bit true, but at the same time, I would like to steal a citation from author Dave Thomas:

When you read a technical book, you gain something that you can’t get from search results and LLMs; a book changes how you think about your work. Not by giving you a single solution, but by reshaping the mental models you bring to problems in the first place. That’s where insight, intuition, and inspiration actually come from—not from isolated answers, but from spending time in the author’s world, absorbing their understanding.

Because I am a human, I am obviously biased, but I truly do believe this. AI can do many things, but it cannot do what Dave describes.

At the end of the day, I believe that if you invest in yourself, in your education, in your person, in your expertise, you will beat any slop code CoPilot can come up with. Probably a hot take I know :smiley:

This said, I am very thankful to be selected as a MOTY. Let’s see if I can be more active this year !

giphy

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Thank you! I really appreciate this forum—it’s one of the few places I can find news about new book releases

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Indeed. Genuineness is one of the many factors machines cant and will not take away from our hands

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Wow, another year and more goodness. Thank you, Aston, the DevTalk team and all the sponsors for giving us a space like this.

I can’t wait to see what the year brings and to have more interactions with smart and happy people!

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Thanks, Aston, and everyone who helps keep this community alive! A little late, but wishing everyone a great 2026.

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Thanks Aston, looking forward for 2026 news and articles.

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