MVPbuzzChat Episode 88 with Rocky Lhotka

Episode 88 of the #MVPbuzzChat series. Conversation between Microsoft Regional Director and MVP Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Founder & CEO of CollabTalk LLC, and fellow Microsoft Regional Director and Developer Technologies MVP Rockford Lhotka (@RockyLhotka), an open-source architect and Chief Technology Officer at Magenic, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Rocky is a 16-time MVP, the author of numerous books, he regularly speaks at major conferences around the world, and is the creator of the widely used open source CSLA .NET development framework. Recorded in April 2020. In this episode, Rocky and I cover a few topics, starting off with his background with Magenic and the creation of CSLA (Component-based Scalable Logical Architecture), a software framework that provides a standard way to create robust object-oriented programs using business objects (you can find it on GitHub). He shares some detail on his current speaking topics, which turns into a discussion of the state of modern software development, with portable code on the server and portable code in the browser, and a great discussion of the need for personnel in the DevOps space. In fact, we talk about the path toward DevOps, and share some ideas about where students can/should focus to move into the DevOps field...but ultimately agree that the path requires people to have experience in at least two or three areas within the software development process (development, QA, security, release management, operations, etc). We wrap up the conversation on the topic of job vs career, and the importance of understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, and carving out a career path that plays to your strengths. You can watch this entire episode on the CollabTalk YouTube page at https://youtu.be/uad-7ZdIZiU