How does Microsoft maintain mature applications? Carl and Richard talk to Dustin Metzgar about his work at Microsoft maintaining applications and libraries like Windows Workflow, older versions of ASP.NET and Entity Framework and more. These products are maintained for a long time, typically without adding features, but rather to make sure new operating systems still work with them, security is maintained and bugs are fixed. There's a ton of cool stories in this space, it's the ultimate brownfie...
Oct 04, 2016•52 min
You can't multitask! Carl and Richard talk about the myth and scourge of multitasking, which has been proven again and again to not actually work. Ben talks about how the human brain is not that different from a microcomputer CPU - the context shifts involved in multitasking are expensive, and if you do too much of it, you spend all your time switching contexts, rather than actually getting work done. The conversation digs into all sorts of good discussion around productivity, but first and fore...
Sep 29, 2016•55 min
Time to review the web application stack! Carl and Richard talk to Dan Wahlin about his current explorations into building web applications. The current stack for Dan is Angular 2 on the front-end, ASP.NET Core on the backend and Docker as the hosting environment. There are so many cool capabilities in this configuration that it can affect the way you build software as a whole, making it easier to automate deployment, accelerate testing, distribute sample versions, and so on. This could be the f...
Sep 28, 2016•55 min
Version 6 of nServiceBus is imminent! Carl and Richard talk to Udi Dahan about his on-going efforts to build a great service bus in a sustainable business way. The conversation starts out talking about sustainable open source businesses and what has worked (and not). Udi then dives into the cool new features of the latest version of nServiceBus, with a strong focus on asynchronicity. Reliability across clouds and on-premise systems is also a key focus of this version of nServiceBus, so you can r...
Sep 27, 2016•1 hr 1 min
Back from the wilds, Richard Campbell has stories of the Arctic Ocean! Carl asks questions to Richard about his experience on a 12-day sail around the Svalbard islands and up into the arctic ice to see polar bears, walrus and a huge assortment of sea birds. There's also stories about the crazy adventurers of the 19th and 20th century trying to get to be the first to the north pole - and most didn't make it. Ultimately the conversation comes back to the marine mammal known as the polar bear. Is i...
Sep 22, 2016•1 hr 3 min
Digging into what it's like to build mobile applications today with someone who's built more than just about anyone - Atley Hunter! Carl and Richard chat with Atley about what is working for him today and what's not. Atley talks about revenue potential from iOS, Android and Windows Phone apps (yes, there still is some revenue there), and what approaches make sense for actually building cross-platform apps today. While he's capable of native development, he's also looking close at the various evo...
Sep 21, 2016•47 min
Is it worth your time to take on the latest frameworks and tools? Carl and Richard talk to Uncle Bob about fighting against "The Churn" - that is, change for change's sake. The conversation starts out focused on being professionals and holding yourself to a higher standard for your industry than just your customer. And the same issue applies for tooling - often it is easier to dive into new tools than it is to get better at your existing ones. Is this really the most productive thing you could b...
Sep 20, 2016•55 min
The rumors of the death of WebForms is greatly exaggerated! Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Fritz, who runs with WebForms team (yes, there is a team!) about what's happening in the WebForms world. While WebForms is not coming to ASP.NET Core, it is a part of regular Windows-centric ASP.NET Framework, and there are new features continuing to be built. Jeff talks about what a modern WebForms app looks like - ViewState is gone, and PostBack checking is obsolete - you can use ASync Model Binding in We...
Sep 15, 2016•53 min
What's an "Emerging Experience" and why would you want one? Carl and Richard talk to Giorgio Sardo about Microsoft's overarching term for all of the new ways we connect humans to computers, and how much more fun it is to program beyond the keyboard and mouse! Of course it's easy to jump right to HoloLens, which is very cool, but there is so much more in the space. Giorgio talks about some of the Cognitive Services features available including LUIS, which is all about having a really natural conv...
Sep 14, 2016•50 min
What if a data storage library just stored and retrieved your data? What if it wasn't a mollusk? Carl and Richard talk to Mark Rendle about his refocusing on his open source library called Simple.Data - now with .NET Core! Mark talks about why Simple.Data is not an ORM, and why you don't want to use an ORM anyway. And yeah, the conversation gets sillier from there! Mark also talks about what it means to build a library that runs on all the platform (because Core) and the challenge of getting eve...
Sep 13, 2016•54 min
Can you build a line of business web application and not write any JavaScript? Carl and Richard talk to Tomáš Herceg about his open source project called DotVVM. With DotVVM, you write your ViewModel in C# and your View in HTML. The JavaScript is generated at run time, and you never need to look at it. While there are free open source elements to the project, there are also "pro" editions of some features that you can pay for to keep the project going. Lots of controls to make your pages look go...
Sep 07, 2016•51 min
Are you building XAML-driven applications yet? Carl and Richard chat with Billy Hollis about what it takes to get going with building XAML applications. As Billy says, XAML is a "compositional" platform, which is a very different way to think about how to build user interfaces. Ultimately, these design principles become platform-agnostic - you can use whatever tools you want to build them. Is it hard to think this way? It does take time, but the products you make stand out as just a better way t...
Sep 06, 2016•59 min
Are you adding feature toggles to your apps? Carl and Richard talk to Daniel Piessens about his approach to adding feature toggles, using frameworks to keep things organized. The conversation starts out talking about different kinds of features toggles, starting with the classic one that allows you to build features over time, but keep the code in the trunk, just not visible to the users until you're ready. In some cases, that feature toggle because permanent because it is a tool for ops to redu...
Sep 01, 2016•53 min
How about *no* JavaScript libraries? Carl and Richard talk to Chris Love about his passion with making the smallest, fastest web applications possible. The conversation starts out with the idea that JavaScript libraries, like most code libraries, constantly grow - old code, support for things that don't matter any more, and features that you aren't using, all add up to a lot of bytes and compute time that you don't need to waste. Chris talks about how he doesn't write everything from scratch, he...
Aug 31, 2016•1 hr 2 min
React comes to Windows! Carl and Richard talk to Matthew Podwysocki and Eric Rozell about using React for Windows to build native Windows applications while programming in JavaScript! Originally intended for mobile apps, React Native works equally well building Windows 10 apps that work on phone, tablet and desktop. The conversation also turns to the conjunction of all things react and reactive - why do they go together? Matt talks about how the philosophy of streaming and event response build a...
Aug 30, 2016•47 min
We all want to believe we have good habits when it comes to programming - but what about the bad habits? Carl and Richard chat with Steve Smith and Brendan Enrick about some of the many anti-patterns that exist in software development. Part of this conversation also ties back to a cool product that Steve and Brendan create - the Software Craftsmanship calendar! Be part of the Kickstarter and get yourself a hilarious and inspirational calendar! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-...
Aug 25, 2016•54 min
Why would a client-side Javascript library have a command line interface? Carl and Richard talk to Joseph Woodward about the power of the Angular CLI. It's all about the scripting! Joseph talks about all those tedious tasks involved in getting an application set up when you're ready to push out to the world. Angular CLI is all about automating that process using NodeJS style modules. The conversation also explores utilizing as many existing tools as possible, like Bower, Sass, and so on. You don...
Aug 24, 2016•47 min
A new version of Akka.NET has shipped! Carl and Richard talk to Aaron Stannard about Akka.NET 1.1. The discussion starts out talking about some of the new features in the latest release, which is focused on providing the tooling needed to build highly reliable and scaling enterprise class software. Aaron also digs into the differences between Akka.NET and other actor model frameworks. Akka is growing up! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations...
Aug 23, 2016•52 min
More cloud choices! Carl and Richard welcome Chris Sells back onto .NET Rocks after three years and a career change - Chris is now at Google! And he's been busy, excited to announce that Google is provided extensive support for .NET in the Google Cloud, including Visual Studio add-ins to make your implementation even easier. The conversation ranges over the modern cloud development pattern of building code, packaging it into containers (aka Docker) and then deploying into the cloud - for Google ...
Aug 18, 2016•51 min
There has been lots of conversation about cross-platform mobile apps, but how about cross-platform desktop apps? Carl and Richard talk to David Neal about the Electron framework, letting you build cross-platform desktop apps using HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Electron is how visual Studio Code is built! The conversation also turns to Xamarin - would you rather code in C# and XAML? Lots of choices for cross-platform development, it's worth taking a few out for a spin! Support this podcast at — https...
Aug 17, 2016•49 min
Ready to move to .NET Core? Carl and Richard talk to Stackify's Matt Watson about their efforts to migrate their applications to the RTM editions of the .NET Core and ASP.NET Core. For better or worse, there have been a number of major changes between the two RCs and the RTM. But this is the version to stick to, so if you haven't started to move, now is a great time. Matt also talks about the challenges of losing certain libraries - projects that haven't been migrated to the Core editions yet. S...
Aug 16, 2016•58 min
Could there really be airliners powered by electricity? Time for a Geek Out! The conversation starts out with Richard talking about the Solar Impulse, a single seat aircraft with a wingspan larger than a 747, that has flown around the world powered solely by the solar panels covering it. So yes, electric aircraft are real, but could they be made commercially viable? NASA continues to fund various research projects to improve modern airliners by increasing fuel efficiency, decrease emissions and ...
Aug 11, 2016•51 min
What's a really modern web app look like? Carl and Richard talk to Qiming Liu about the Reactive Trader Cloud, demonstrating the synergy between the cloud, containers, microservices, the Reactive Extensions Framework and ReactJS on the client to make a real time currency trader application. The application is on GitHub, you can take it out for a spin for yourself and get a feel for this cool architecture. Qiming talks about treating all data as streams with the Reactive Framework for Javascript,...
Aug 10, 2016•48 min
What does it take to make an application support multiple customers? Carl and Richard talk to Paul Stovell about his work making multi-tenant applications. As with most things, making multi-tenant apps is more complicated than it seems! Paul talks about making architectural decisions around separation between various customers - do they each get their own database? What about web server and/or app-pool? What about customizations and deployment. Do customers get new features immediately, or do th...
Aug 09, 2016•50 min
How long does it take you to get an idea into a URL? Carl and Richard talk to Daniel Moore about HyperDev - a tool to make the shortest possible path between writing code and putting it online. Initially only implementing Node and HTML, you can use your Javascript skills to build a quick prototype that is easily shareable, even allow multiple people to work on the code together. At this point the system is relatively small, but it's easy to move off onto your own platform once you get your idea ...
Aug 04, 2016•49 min
F# that transpiles to Javascript! Wait, what? While at NDC is Oslo, Carl and Richard chatted with Tomas Petricek about the Fabel project, combining F# and the Babel project to turn F# into some tight Javascript code. Tomas talks about the easy parts of Fabel first, because Javascript does have some functional elements, and it is possible to write immutable-style code in Javascript if you really want to. Then come the more difficult parts, like typing. There's a judgement call to make about what ...
Aug 03, 2016•58 min
So how's your DevOps doing? While at DevTeach in Montreal, Carl and Richard hosted a panel of Stephane LaPointe, Dylan Smith, William Buchwalter and Alexandre Brisebois to discuss the ups and downs of getting teams to work closer together to make better products and provide better services. The conversation focuses first and foremost on culture - the chant of People, Process and Products around DevOps is not accidental, without a commitment in culture, nothing much can happen. How do we create o...
Aug 02, 2016•59 min
How do we get more women involved in programming? Carl and Richard talk to Astrid de Laval and Andreas Persson about CodePub, a gathering hosted by NetLight to get women coding. The events have been running in Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo and more over the past several months, drawing larger and larger crowds. Every event involves some coding exercises even for complete novices who have never coded before. CodeHub is looking to put on more events in more places - if you'd like to be a part of it, r...
Jul 28, 2016•37 min
Ready to learn R? While at NDC Oslo, Carl and Richard sat down with Jamie Dixon and Evelina Gabasova to talk about what .NET developers need to know to get conversant in R. Data science represents a huge opportunity for developers these days, helping businesses actually take advantage of the data the company has. Jamie comes at R from a traditional .NET developer perspective, talking about how there are some skills (like source control and testing) that developers have more experience with than ...
Jul 27, 2016•55 min
Time to get scared times three! While at NDC Oslo, Carl and Richard hosted a security panel of Troy Hunt, Niall Merrigan and Stephen Haunts in front of a live NDC audience. The conversation starts where most security conversation start - on passwords. Yes, passwords suck. The challenge is making them suck less. Beyond passwords, what aspects of application security are the responsibility of the developer, and what are more the focus of operations? Check out the links below for a number of tools ...
Jul 26, 2016•57 min
