Time for a Geek Out experiment! Richard dives into his notes on a bunch of the past Geek Out episodes to bring you up to date on current developments. This includes solar, wind and wave power, automated driving, various developments on the fusion power front and some space related news as well. It's a grab bag full of goodness, but does the format make sense? The Geek Outs are still experimental, and we take ideas from the listeners at FeatHub Geek Out List so send us what you'd like to hear! Su...
May 28, 2015•59 min
What happens when a bunch of developers get in a room with a bunch of IoT devices? Carl and Richard talk to Josh Holmes about the amazing workshops he's been running to get people looking at the potential of small computing devices in the world of Internet of Things. Josh focuses in on the key bits of what it takes to make something useful in the IoT space - the difference between prototype and production hardware, the role of the cloud, and how critical the security situation is. Lots of great ...
May 27, 2015•1 hr 2 min
So how are you using Azure for your apps? Carl and Richard talk to Mark Brown about his work inside and outside of Microsoft - after fifteen years at Microsoft, Mark is out on his own now and still working hard with Azure. The conversation digs into the amazing tool that is Web Jobs, letting you automate tasks based on time and events. Mark also talks about machine learning as his new focus, recognizing that the huge amount of data we're gathering needs to be analyzed too. Lots of great thinking...
May 26, 2015•56 min
So what does it take to be a craftsman, software or otherwise? Carl and Richard talk to Bob Reselman about his work building software and guitars. Trained as a musician, Bob found software later in his life, and guitar making later still. But the process of getting good at making guitars makes it no different than making good quality software. The path to craftsmanship involves hard work, making mistakes and sometimes injury! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations...
May 21, 2015•55 min
So how will you build mobile apps going forward? Carl and Richard talk to Atley Hunter about the impact of Windows 10 and various announcements at Build on your strategies for building mobile apps. After a quick conversation about the awesome that is HoloLens, the conversation dives into issues around Windows Phone adoption and app creation. Do the new tools make it more likely for companies to build Windows Phone apps? Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations...
May 20, 2015•55 min
So what has happened with the .NET Core? Carl and Richard talk to Jay Schmelzer about his involvement from the very beginning of the .NET Core infrastructure and the interesting future it has as an open source project. But first a call back to a project that Jay led for years - LightSwitch. So where has it gone and where is it going? Then the conversation turns to the .NET Core. Jay talks about how the development team at Microsoft is starting to do their development in public on the open source...
May 19, 2015•54 min
Can biology inform computing? Or computing help biology? Yes! Carl and Richard talk to MSR scientist Colin Gravill about biological computing. Alas, the conversation is not about making computers out of biological materials, but there is some discussion about using DNA to do some kinds of computing as well as building synthetic life from modified cells. Colin talks about the tools they're building to be able to simulate cell generations and understand how stem cells evolve into specialized cells...
May 14, 2015•49 min
What does it take to grow new developers into something more experienced? Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Casimir about his approach to shepherding developers, helping them to grow into experienced developers. But what sort of experiences should you have? The conversation digs into the ideas around intentional practice, something rarely done in software. Jeff also talks about the scarcity of mentors and what it takes to get your code reviewed on a regular basis with an expert - and what an expert ...
May 13, 2015•56 min
So where does BizTalk fit into your Azure application? Carl and Richard talk to Sam Vanhoutte about his work using BizTalk technology to integrate systems together with Azure in the middle. The conversation pokes a little fun at BizTalks's on-going battle for relevance - for the customers that really need it, it is awesome. But now it's available as a cloud product in Azure which can save a ton in hardware fees, enough to run the infrastructure for a long time. Sam also digs into Enterprise Serv...
May 12, 2015•57 min
How does your organization leverage open source? Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Strauss about open source coming into the corporate space and the challenges that exist there. Microsoft has gone into open source in a big way, how does that affect our development going forward? The conversation starts out talking about Microsoft's approach to open source, especially around the open source promise. From there Jeff dives into the range of open source licenses out there, from the various copyleft conc...
May 07, 2015•1 hr 2 min
We're back from Build! On the last day of Build, Carl and Richard went up to the TWiT.tv studios to record a Windows Weekly with Leo LaPorte, Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley. That show went more than two hours, so we thought we'd make a more condensed version and focus on our favorite bits of Build. And feeing Leo lots of Scotch, you wouldn't want to miss that. The conversation starts out with a bit more of an IT bent, talking about data lakes and docker virtualization. From there Carl digs into...
May 06, 2015•50 min
Akka.NET ships! Carl and Richard talk with Aaron Stannard about Akka.NET, a toolkit and runtime for building highly concurrent, distributed and fault tolerant event-driven applications. Akka.NET is a port of the original Akka framework in Java/Scala. Aaron talks about the reactive manifesto as the driver for Akka.NET, to provide tools for responsiveness, resiliency, elasticity and message driven. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations...
May 05, 2015•59 min
Ready for a GitHub Extension for Visual Studio 2015? Phil Haack is back and talking smack about the cool code being build at GitHub. The announcement about the product was made at Build, but this show dives deeper into the technology involved. This new tool goes well beyond Git integration, diving deeper into the social media aspects of GitHub and making it easier for cross-platform teams to collaborate at GitHub. You need Visual Studio 2015 to take advantage of this, but that's pretty easy to g...
Apr 30, 2015•56 min
What are the habits that make a successful developer? Carl and Richard talk with Llewellyn Falco about the ongoing process of being the best developer you can be. Llewellyn discusses his role as a consultant to different organizations, and how often he discovers that there are simple practices just not happening within a team that would make everyone more effective. How do you create change in that scenario? How many times do you have to repeat a new approach to things before it actually sticks?...
Apr 29, 2015•1 hr 1 min
So what is the state of open source in the .NET community? While at the .NET Fringe conference, Carl and Richard moderated a panel of Ian Cooper, Amy Palamountain, Scott Hanselman, Sebastian Lambla and James Nugent as they explore the past, present and future of open source and the .NET stack. Obviously having Microsoft open source huge tracts of the .NET stack is a huge topic on its own, but so is the role the Microsoft should play in the open source community. What makes this community differe...
Apr 28, 2015•44 min
So when will Moore's Law end? Time for a Geek Out! In honor of the 50th anniversary of Gordon Moore writing the article that 10 years later would be known as Moore's Law, Richard digs into how much work goes into keeping the Moore's Law promise and its impact on society. The conversation delves into the complexities of manufacturing microchips at the nanometer scale, and all of the problems that companies like Intel and Samsung have to overcome for each incremental improvement that leads to a do...
Apr 23, 2015•1 hr 3 min
So what JavaScript libraries are you focused on today? Scott Allen is back to talk about the latest bits he's excited about, including Rob Eisenberg's Aurelia! The conversation starts out focused on the on-going evolution of Javascript, with ECMA 6 and 7 picking up more and more features of modern programming languages - it's not the JavaScript you remember from the old days! This also impacts JavaScript libraries and opens the door for the on-going evolution of those libraries. Some change radi...
Apr 22, 2015•52 min
So how do you track errors in production? JD Trask talks to Carl and Richard about raygun.io, a service for instrumenting your clients and servers in production and feed errors directly to your project tracking and bug reporting systems. The conversation digs into how to deal with errors in your application in a way that actually delights your users - sending emails letting them know you saw they had a problem and are working on it, and being able to see the details of the problems early and oft...
Apr 21, 2015•49 min
Are you taking care of your personal brand? Eileen Fisher talks to Carl and Richard about what it means to have a personal brand, how to define, cultivate and care for it over time. In the end, a personal brand is simply what people know you for, and everyone has one, whether they're working on it intentionally or not! Eileen dives into what makes an effective brand and why you want to own and grow it - whether it is to get new projects or a promotion. This leads to a conversation around profess...
Apr 16, 2015•55 min
The Three Ps: Passion, People and Participation. Carl and Richard talk to Mike Benkovich about his passion around the three Ps. The conversation starts first with a tour of favorite technologies, including a long conversation around the evolution of XAML and the challenges of modern development with a diverse set of clients. That impassioned discussion turns meta as Mike brings up the three Ps and what it means to work on things you truly care about with people that matter you. Can you really ca...
Apr 15, 2015•52 min
So how does Docker change development? While at the Nebraska Code Camp, Carl and Richard chatted with Seth Lachner about his work with Docker and the impact it has had on him as a developer. Seth comes from the old school open source world of Linux and C, and has worked with Docker for a long time - he recognized the potential early on. The conversation digs into the concepts of Docker as a virtualization entity on top of an operating system, hooking tightly into the kernel of the operating syst...
Apr 14, 2015•50 min
How do you deal with failure? Carl and Richard talk to Dustin Thostenson about his experiences with failure and how they made him a better developer. The conversation starts out with a discussion of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and how that ultimately maps to our needs as developers as well. The needs build on each other, and you can have a higher-level need without a lower-level need being fulfilled. Dustin talks about how this hierarchy informs his understanding of a prospective employee during...
Apr 09, 2015•52 min
What does it mean to be a modern mobile developer? While at the Nebraska Code Camp, Carl and Richard talked to Heather Downing about her recent dive into mobile development. In only a few years, Heather has been involved in a number of cool projects and talks about learning on the fly to build native, hybrid, and web-based mobile applications. The conversation explores the advantages and disadvantages of each of the stacks, and the enthusiasm that comes from being effective and successful even w...
Apr 08, 2015•52 min
How did you learn to debug? While at the Nebraska Code Camp, Carl and Richard talked to Joel Kauffman about debugging practices. Rarely is debugging taught in classes, arguably because all school code is perfect. But code in the real world has bugs, and finding those bugs can be challenging. Joel talks about helping developers understand how debugging works, utilizing stack traces, working backward through code, using watches, and so on. The conversation also digs into various tools available fo...
Apr 07, 2015•51 min
At the Nebraska Code Camp, Carl and Richard moderated a panel discussion with Mads Kristensen, Lee Brandt, Josh Broton, and Robert Boedigheimer exploring the state of web development on the Microsoft stack. Of course, the first topic is the upcoming ASP.NET vNext and its switch over to open source, along the way letting go of some legacy features including Web Forms. The panel also discussed various JavaScript libraries, when they should be used and when plain old VanillaJS is a better way to go...
Apr 02, 2015•50 min
How are you thinking about UX these days? Carl and Richard chat with Danielle Cooley about her talk at the Nebraska Code Camp around user experience, efficiency and effectiveness of design. Danielle talks about her background in biotechnical design and the challenges of bringing biology (that's us) and technology together in an effective way - including web design! The conversation explores a variety of effective designs: it's not just about speed and simplicity, sometimes it's more important to...
Apr 01, 2015•57 min
What's the difference between an Azure Web Site and Web App? Not at thing! Carl and Richard talk to Scott Hunter about the latest announcements from Microsoft about Azure App Service. Azure App Service brings together Azure Web Sites, Mobile Services and a whole bunch of other goodness. Scott explains how Microsoft has unified all of these services under one umbrella to make it easier to buy and use. If it speaks HTTP or HTTPS, it's an Azure App Service. Then on to the new stuff, including Logic...
Mar 31, 2015•54 min
How do you do agile faster? Carl and Richard talk to Dan North about accelerating agile - but Dan has changed the name to Software, Faster. And even that is controversial, as Dan talks about focusing on delivering business needs, which may or may not involve code. The conversation also calls back to the Agile Manifesto and its abuse - it's not code with no documentation, its code over documentation! There's a great digression about the BBC giving away a million tiny computers to children to help...
Mar 26, 2015•57 min
Where can iBeacons take you? Carl and Richard talk to Greg Shackles about some of the opportunities available using beacon devices with smartphones. While iBeacons are specifically an Apple technology, there are lots of third party implementations that are more open. The balancing act of power and capability is a constant struggle for beacons. Things get really fun when you start looking at all the ways you can locate someone in an interior space using beacons - opening the door to a huge number...
Mar 25, 2015•53 min
Are you building in WPF? Are you using PRISM? Carl and Richard talk to Brian Noyes and Brian Lagunas about the PRISM project, which is a set of tools for building WPF apps. As Brian Noyes says, PRISM is the AngularJS of WPF! The conversation dives into the on-going evolution of PRISM, including support for Windows Phone and Universal Apps. The point of PRISM is composability, helping you to organize the elements of your application into something more maintainable, easier to test and continue to...
Mar 24, 2015•53 min
