Carl and Richard Geek Out on Nuclear Power

What's missing from most document data storage technology? Carl and Richard talk to Jeremy Miller about Marten, an open source document data store library that runs on top of PostGreSQL. Why would you run a document store on top of a relational database? For the features! Jeremy talks about how PostGreSQL brings the backup systems, development tooling and all that DevOps goodness to Marten. Under the hood, documents are stored as JSONB files - better than BLOBs, they're actually searchable JSON. You can treat Marten like a pure document store, or go under the hood and write SQL. Another cool way to up your data storage game!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

10 Mars 201649min

Can you continuously deliver software on Azure? Carl and Richard talk to Jeffrey Palermo about his approach (and toolkit) to do continuous delivery - and Azure makes it far more feasible! The conversation starts out with some definitions, recognizing that the development community has been working its way toward faster delivery of value to customers for a long time - it's part of the Agile Manifesto. The question is purely how fast, or rather, how continuous is continuous? Jeff also notes that delivery doesn't mean deployment, but it does mean that you're at the place where you can immediately deploy when you're ready. Lots of tools and thinking on how to get this done, it isn't simple!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

9 Mars 201656min

How do you manage your software releases? Carl and Richard talk to Kevin Mack and Brandon Rohrer about the various tools that come together to help automate software releases. The focus on this approach is a product formerly known as InRelease by InCycle, which was acquired by Microsoft back in 2013. Now it's known as Release Management Services for VSTS and deeply integrated with the Studio toolset. The conversation also dives into the challenges around databases when it comes to release management - how do you get your database to be part of your release? Lots to think about here to up your VSTS game!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

8 Mars 201654min

Have you used the biggest, most complex Single Page Application (SPA) in the world? It's the Azure Portal! Carl and Richard talk to Jakub Jedryszek, one of the folks building the framework that runs the Azure Portal. Jakub talks about the portal framework being built on TypeScript and Knockout so that all the different Microsoft teams building Azure products don't get delayed in delivery because they can't get on the portal. The challenge is to keep everything orderly so that folks using the Portal can actually make sense of it, and that takes a lot of negotiations and management within the teams. Software is hard, but expectation management is even harder!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

3 Mars 201651min

What does Virtual Reality and XAML have to do with each other? Carl and Richard talk to Laurent Bugnion about his work around building virtual reality software. The challenge, as Laurent puts it, is the whole 3D issue. Building 3D software is tricky, and the tooling is hugely important. The conversation turns to tools like Unity3D, which is very popular in the 3D space. But can XAML do the job? What is the development experience like? What can you build and how do you test it? And what can we really do with virtual reality beyond gaming? Great conversation with a guy who's built a ton of awesome software!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

2 Mars 201655min

So where are containers and microservices going? While at NDC London, Carl and Richard hosted a panel discussion with Michele Bustamante, Mark Rendle and Ben Hall to talk about microservices and the role that containers play in making microservices manageable and practical. Docker is the most well-known of the container services, but its not alone, and the panel debates the relative merits of the different container technologies. When it comes to the microservices, how important are containers? How micro is micro, and how many do we need? Could Azure Service Fabric be an example of how to do microservices at a platform level, rather than container? Lots of questions and discussion on this hot topic!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

1 Mars 201651min

Do agile development practices make economic sense? Carl and Richard chat with Matthew Renze about his views on the economics, psychology and science behind agile development. The conversation turns to the benefits of agile done well - moving rapidly to build effective solutions for a business. This touches a lot of points that developers care about, like their software actually being used and being valued. Matt talks about how money is not a primary motivator at a certain point - that the autonomy that agile practices bring become a more powerful drivers, and that gets great results and provides great value!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

25 Feb 201653min

How do you get started with machine learning? On the last stop of the Scot Net Rocks tour, Carl and Richard talked to Gary Short about his work independently and now with Microsoft building machine learning solutions for a large variety of companies. Gary talks about the evolution of machine learning, and how the cloud has become a critical part of the equation. With the cloud, you can harness as much compute power as you need when you need it, and turn it off when you don't. That solves a ton of machine learning problems - as Gary explains, you don't have to pick a perfect algorithm, you can just run them all and then analyze them together!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

24 Feb 201655min