Making Open Source Work for Everyone with David Whitney

Test Driven Development (TDD), good idea in theory, but in practice? Carl and Richard talk to John Callaway and Clayton Hunt about their success with TDD. At it's simplest level, TDD is about writing tests first, before coding. In practice, everything is more complicated than that. Writing testable code isn't as simple as it seems, and refactoring existing code to become testable can cause it to break - which is why you wanted tests in the first place. John and Clayton talk through their experiences getting things right and exploring the advantages that TDD brings - more reliable software that sustains for longer and can continue to evolve!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

12 Apr 201851min

How do you do desktop deployment? Carl and Richard talk to Paul Betts about the open source project called Squirrel, which is all about making desktop deployment less painful. As Paul says, like ClickOnce, only doesn't suck! This leads to a discussion about the various installation tools out there and what they focus on. Paul talks about what makes Squirrel different - providing the tooling to make it easier for a developer to provide unobtrusive updating of applications - as in, not when they start up!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

10 Apr 201847min

How productive are you with Visual Studio? Carl and Richard chat with Kasey Uhlenhuth about her work making Visual Studio even more productive for developers. The conversation focuses on the huge array of features that Visual Studio has, to support all sorts of different styles of programming. Kasey talks about balancing the needs of developers - some want lots of support and hints from Visual Studio, and some want it to just get out of the way while they program. There are a ton of options, you just have to discover them. Kasey points out a productivity guide that she has helped create to help you take advantage of the power of Visual Studio - check out the link in the show notes!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

5 Apr 201843min

Programming for the Cloud! Carl and Richard talk to Vishwas Lele about the Microsoft Business Application Platform, which organizes the huge suite of tools available in Azure along with PowerApps and PowerBI to create a great place to build applications that run on Windows, iOS and Android. Vishwas talks about moving up into a higher layer of coding using Logic Apps and Azure Flow to pull together the various sources of data that already exist in your organization, including Office, SharePoint, Sales Force and so on - you already have the data, how do you surface it in an app that your users like to use?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

3 Apr 201850min

Falcon Heavy flies! Now what? Time for a Geek Out! Richard talks to Carl about the amazing Falcon Heavy launch - what worked, what didn't and why did it take so darn long to fly? The discussion dives into how the plans for the Heavy evolved, affected by the evolution of the Falcon 9. The impact of the launch is interesting - is it a new phase of spaceflight for humanity? The Heavy just barely sneaks into the super heavy lift class, and it's flight has caused a bit of a kerfuffle - both Russia and China have announced new super heavy lift rockets. And then there's NASA... does the Space Launch System still make sense?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

29 Mars 20181h 13min

How do you do concurrency? Carl and Richard talk to Riccardo Terrell about his new book on concurrency in .NET. More than just ASync and AWait, there are still a ton of concurrency options available in .NET, you just need to know when and where to apply them. The conversation ranges over a bunch of different technologies, including a lot of discussion on functional programming as a whole, since it lends itself to concurrency far better. But you don't have to use F# to write functional code! Riccardo talks through a number of strategies for deciding when concurrency makes sense and how to do it safely.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

27 Mars 201849min

Can Big Data actually hurt society? Carl and Richard talk to Cathy O'Neil about her book, Weapons of Math Destruction. Cathy has been deeply involved with machine learning and big data for decades and has a broad view of both the potential and dangers of the technology. The conversation dives into understanding how this technology amplifies bias and how that bias ultimately shapes behavior. The trick is to acknowledge that the bias exists - once you see it, it is possible to overcome its effects. Lots of great thinking from an expert in the space!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

22 Mars 201859min

Michele is back and surviving microservices! Carl and Richard talk to Michele Bustamante about her work with microservices and the challenges that her customers have. Starting with the normal problems innate to any re-architecting exercise - what is the benefit to the customer? You can't make microservices because they're fun, they have to solve a particular problem - and typically it's the problem of over-coupling within a group of services. Update one and you derail the others. Picking what service to separate is a challenge - and how do you do it! Great conversation about containers, DevOps and management strategies!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

20 Mars 20181h