SummaryMichael Dowden tells me about his experiences building and managing remote teams.DetailsWho he is, what he does. Managing a remote team, first employees hired over social media; skipped formal interviews some times; impact of Covid on team, meetings instead of email, stress. Not "work from home"; types of remote work, being available, meeting occasionally; how the team handled remote work; improving communication, document outcomes/decisions, documentation is the "source of truth", message overload; employees dedicated to managing communication; handling difficult conversations, don't let it linger; handling HR/legal issues across country/world; agile and remote work, Live Share; tips for remote work, Support this podcastFull show notes@mrdowdenAndromeda Galactic SolutionsOther episodes with MichaelManaging Distributed TeamsThriving in ChaosWinning as the Home Team

SummaryMads Torgersen and I chat about his recent diagnosis with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and how it has changed his life for the better.DetailsWhy we are making this podcast. The diagnosis; his symptoms. Hard time focusing + stress and fear, low self esteem, fear of what others think; good emotional intelligence. Biological disorder. Diagnostic process. Looking back at his childhood through the lens of ADHD, new perspective on old events, better understanding of paths/decisions. Conscious forgetfulness. Baking bread, (fast and) slow; long process, sticking to the recipe helps. Other superpowers. Handling stress, mutually beneficial delegation. Effect on relationships, people pleaser, allowing people to walk over him. Imposter syndrome, not belonging to the group, too busy being distracted. Hard to know what's going on with a person from the outside, extra effort to do things that require attention, biking uphill all the time. The Mads wiggle/explanation dance, the brain/body needs activity; staying still in schools. Treatment, changing habits, learning about AD/HD; stimulant medication, biking on flat ground, better focus, less anxiety, no side effects; needs to consciously take breaks; ADHD in the morning and taking the pill. Nonmedical routes, meditation, relaxing, diet. Talking publicly, sharing with others. Genetics and looking back on family history; understanding the past. Getting a diagnosis can help you get a good life; some resources (links below). What's next for Mads. Be open to people's differences.Support this podcastFull show notes@MadsTorgersenAddressing Controversy in ADHD: An Interview with Russell A. Barkley, PhD | Technology NetworksJessica McCabe's YouTube channel - How to ADHDDani Donovan - posters and cartoons on ADHDThe Ologies podcast has a fantastic double episode on ADHDRussell A. Barkley booksEdward Hallowell booksCheck your library for electronic versions of these books

SummaryJared Parsons, C# compiler lead at Microsoft continues talking about the C# compiler.DetailsMany ways of doing the same thing, evolving language, succinct code. Null parameter checking, listening customer feedback; preview features. String literals, JSON interpolation. Backward compatibility hindering the language; better ways of releasing .NET and C#; breaking compatibility; adding Records. No tiny changes to overload resolution. What it would take to make major break in compatibility; removing old APIs while maintaining binary compatibility. Yearly cadence; much better for features and bugs but not everything can be done in a year. The move to open source - better processes, better docs, community PRs, more time reviewing code; dealing with abuse; more direct contact with customers.Support this podcastFull show notes@jaredparJared's blogMore C# podcast episodesWorking with JSON in .NET, a better way? (Bryan's blog post)

SummaryJared Parsons, C# compiler lead at Microsoft talks about the C# compiler.DetailsWho he is, what he does. The compiler team, team size, unlimited resources might not be better. Other roles he performs. What the compiler is, what it does. Impact of the operating system on compiler. Runtime teams. Implementing C# language features. How much work is involved in implementing a feature; review process; a language is more than the compiler. An example of a "small change" - structs with parameterless constructors. Influence of the compiler team on the language design. Where does C# end and .NET begin. Global using and top-level statements. What dotnet build is; ready to run and trimming.Support this podcastFull show notes@jaredparJared's blogMore C# podcast episodes

SummaryMartine Dowden explains what accessibility is, and how to make your sites and apps more accessible.DetailsWho she is, what she does. What accessibility is. Following standards; screen readers; captions; alt text. Why I should make a site more accessible, being a good human. Accessible sites are better for everyone. Getting buy-in from managers, teammates. Laws around accessibility. How to get started; automated testing - Lighthouse, Accessibility Insights; manual testing still needed. Common problems and fixes. Get feedback from users. Ads and accessibility. Changes that are too difficult to make. No difference with single page applications. Lack of tools to help with problems, be wary of copy/pasting code; CLI tools, linters. Finding more info, Martine's book.Support this podcastFull show notes@Martine_DowdenMartine's HomepageAndromeda Galactic SolutionsApproachable Accessibility: Planning for Success (book)#147 Martine and Michael Dowden, Teaching Children to ProgramWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)Accessibility InsightsAndromeda Galactic SolutionsLighthouse

SummaryKate Ball talks about burnout - what it is, how to spot it, and how to deal with it.DetailsWho she is, what she does. What burnout is; how it is different from normal stress. Who is susceptible, affect of age. Causes. How to recognize burnout in yourself. What to do about it; advocating for yourself, exercise, diet, sleep, asking for help. Recognizing burnout in others. Self-regulation, helping yourself. Talking to a manager; making a change.Support this podcastFull show notesKate's LinkedInNational Alliance on Mental IllnessNational Institute of Mental HealthHelpGuidePsycomAnxiety & Depression Association of America

SummaryBrandon Minnick of Microsoft talks about the upcoming release of .NET MAUI.DetailsWho he is, what he does, travelling. GitTrends. Overview of MAUI - Multi-platform App UI. Existing UI options; some details on Blazor, web on the desktop. A deeper dive on MAUI; layers, modules, platforms, cross platform. Migrating to MAUI; waiting on libraries. How to get started with MAUI, Visual Studio 2022 preview. When it is coming. Community Toolkit; promoting feature back into MAUI. How to get in touch with Brandon.Support this podcastFull show notes@TheCodeTravelerBrandon's dev blog on MicrosoftWhat is .NET MAUI?.NET MAUI Community ToolkitBrandon's podcastGitTrendsOur other podcasts

SummaryMark Eisenberg talks about the move to DevOps in large enterprises, the challenges they face, and the lessons they can learn from other companies.DetailsWho he is, what he does. What an enterprise is, examples; pets vs cattle. A definition of DevOps; collaboration and automation; build process to be automatable vs automating a human process. Why companies are moving to DevOps; better, faster, cheaper; wanting to change the outcome without changing the process or people. More on collaboration and building differently, don't have a separate DevOps team or site reliability engineering team. Politics of moving to DevOps; ops team don't always want devs working on the system; devs vs DBAs. Cultural change should be an outcome, not a driver, the "DevOps industrial complex". Importance of unit testing. Shift left; dev sec ops; observability and traceability. Some final thoughts and reading recommendations.Support this podcastFull show notes@CloudBizAndTechMark's LinkedIn

SummaryMads Torgersen answers questions from listeners about the upcoming release of C# 10.DetailsDeprecated features. Extension everything, some background, some possible features, starting over, an extension interface. Roles and shapes, maybe preview in C# 11, maybe release in C# 12 - "the edge of programming languages". Is the work in the design or the implementation of a feature; keeping the spirit of the language, harmony, and philosophy. Hot reload and impact on language. Performance improvements. C# and Linux; .NET is a cross-platform framework, not tied to Windows, Bryan has written a lot of .NET that runs on Linux, even MS SQL apps. Mads is not making C# into F#.Support this podcastFull show notes@madstorgersenMads' blogWhat's new in C# 10.0GitHub dotnet/csharplangBryan's blog posts on running .NET in Linux containers

SummaryMads Torgersen talks to me about the upcoming release of C# 10.DetailsWho he is, what he does. The design team. Danes and language design. Aims for C# 10; yearly cadence; simplification, removing boiler plate; minimal API, fuller lambda expression. Relationship with .NET team. Users driving changes. Picking the changes to make; championing a change request. Versioning, guidelines vs rules. New features Mads likes, global using, struct records, with expressions. Moving from C# 9 to 10, suggestions and fixes in Visual Studio, what about VS Code. Is .NET 6 a Framework? Naming challenges. Many ways to do the same thing in C#. ''Modern C#'' - a sliding window of how to use the current C#. Newer features improve the code, not just the semantics. A new math feature that Mads is excited about; static abstract members on interfaces. What didn't make it into C# 10. The compiler team building the language.Support this podcastFull show notes@madstorgersenMads' blogWhat's new in C# 10.0Preview Features in .NET 6 – Generic Math