Shaun Walker is the founder and CEO of Devessence, a global technology consultancy with a boutique approach. He’s also the founder of the Oqtane and DotNetNuke web application frameworks, which have earned the recognition of being amongst the most pioneering and widely adopted open-source projects native to the Microsoft platform. He has over 30 years of professional experience in architecting and implementing enterprise software solutions for private and public organizations.   Topics of Discussion: [4:38] While AI can be a useful tool, it won’t replace the need for traditional programming. [8:32] The gap between mainstream AI messaging and the reality of digital transformation. [9:22] While AI is a significant advancement, it should be seen as just another tool in a developer’s toolkit. [9:39] The history and evolution of Blazor. [13:31] The versatility of Blazor and its ability to adapt to various hosting models make it a powerful tool for different types of applications. [14:06] Challenges and best practices in Blazor development. [16:26] The decision to make Blazor official and its impact on the .NET ecosystem. [18:12] The evolution of Blazor Server vs. Blazor WebAssembly and why both are still relevant. [21:06] When to use Blazor Static, Blazor Server, or Blazor WebAssembly, based on project needs. [24:17] The tendency for technologists to be critics without actually using the technologies. [34:36] The advantages of Octane and why it streamlines Blazor development. [39:56] The TrailBlazor Conference.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Devessence Shaun on X DNN Software GitHub Oqtane Philosophy ErrorBoundary and Logging in Blazor Oqtane TrailBlazor Conference   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Matt McCleary is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft working on observability tools to empower developers to be successful. Matt started his career in engineering and has worked in tech for 10 years, the latest 8 at Microsoft. He’s been on the Azure Monitor team for most of that time. His passion is listening to customers and finding ways to make the product better. In his spare time, he finds himself coaching his 8-year-old son’s basketball team and playing in an adult men’s basketball league.   Topics of Discussion: [3:26] Matt recounts his early interest in engineering and a pivotal moment during a college tour, along with his transition from civil engineering to business intelligence consulting, which led him to telemetry. [6:29] The strategy around Azure Monitor. [10:04] The three pillars of logs, traces, and metrics. [15:02] Recording custom metrics. [17:29] What is a distributed trace? [24:08] The concept of a custom event. [27:29] Future plans for Azure Monitor. [31:04] Integration with .NET Aspire. [34:04] Guidance on the best practices for Azure Monitor. [36:40] Application insights resources.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Matthew McCleary LinkedIn Matt McCleary Twitter Matt McCleary Github Announcing Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry Distro   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Chris Ayers is a Senior Site Reliability Engineer on Microsoft’s AzRel Risk SRE team, drawing on years of experience in cloud architecture, software development, and DevOps practices. He’s passionate about continuous improvement, driving reliability, and sharing industry best practices. Outside of work, Chris is a devoted father, technology enthusiast, and avid gamer. Connect with him online to explore insights into cloud operations, agile methodologies, and more. He also organizes DevOpsDays Tampa Bay.   Topics of Discussion: [2:50] Chris Ayers’s career journey and formative moments in site reliability engineering. [3:33] The importance of being open to learning and stepping outside your comfort zone. [8:53] Chris’s talk on Aspire, Azure, and Open AI. [9:30] How Chris is improving Azure’s reliability through internal innovation. [10:16] Benefits of Aspire: orchestration, integration, and abstraction for infrastructure. [12:29] AI extensions in Aspire: how they enable developers to work with different AI models like OpenAI and local models. [14:09] Using OpenTelemetry for seamless integration and monitoring in Azure. [18:38] Prompt engineering: crafting prompts as part of business logic. [20:50] Exploring agentic AI development and multi-agent chatbots. [21:05] AI use cases in healthcare and responsible AI principles. [29:22] Simplifying Azure resource management with Aspire and opinionated defaults. [32:35] Using Honeycomb and other tools for effective telemetry and logging. [33:39] Hugging Face and KAITO: enabling access to a marketplace of specialized AI models and Kubernetes AI integration. [34:10] Running Olama models locally: balancing scale, cost, and use cases. [39:38] AI as a tool to enhance productivity rather than replace people.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Chris Ayers Speaking Chris Ayers Speaker Profile Build with Aspire   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Scott Ambler, a leader in Agile methodologies and creator of Agile Modeling, shares insights from his extensive career in the Agile landscape. He discusses the evolution of Agile practices, highlighting the importance of addressing enterprise data debt and the potential for a new Agile gold rush. Scott critiques the rise of meaningless certifications and the need for contextual applications of Agile methods. He emphasizes database refactoring and continuous data operations, offering best practices for teams to enhance their Agile journeys.

Ryan Booz, a PostgreSQL advocate with over 20 years of experience, dives into the evolution of databases. He discusses the crucial role of generalist developers in 2025 and the challenges of integrating different databases. The conversation touches on the future of Microsoft Fabric and how .NET developers can effectively transition to Postgres. Insights into migrating from SQL Server, the innovative edge of Postgres, and the significance of vector databases and indexing also make for a captivating listen.

James Montemagno is a Principal Lead Program Manager for the Developer Community at Microsoft. He has been a .NET developer since 2005, working in a wide range of industries including game development, printer software, and web services. Prior to becoming a Principal Program Manager, James was a professional mobile developer and has been crafting apps since 2011 with Xamarin. In his spare time, he is most likely cycling around Seattle or guzzling gallons of coffee at a local coffee shop. He co-hosts the weekly development podcast Merge Conflict mergeconflict.fm.   Topics of Discussion: [:36] Jeffrey introduces the concept of .NET Aspire and highlights its integration with Azure DevOps and .NET ecosystem tools. [2:51] The evolution of .NET mobile and desktop development since 2005. [4:45] An overview of .NET Aspire and its focus on simplifying app development and infrastructure orchestration. [11:45] How .NET Aspire supports both local development and cloud deployment. [16:24] Integrating DevOps automation for Azure deployments using bicep templates and Azure Developer CLI (azd). [25:30] Generating infrastructure manifests and deploying them with Azure Developer CLI. [32:51] Configuring Azure resources like Redis Cache for development and deployment scenarios. [35:11] Simplifying cloud deployment for developers using Azure Container Apps. [39:37] Polyglot support in .NET Aspire projects, allowing integration with Python, JavaScript, and more. [44:50] Plans to integrate development tunnels to streamline mobile app testing.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Ep 62 with James Montemagno James Montemagno James on YouTube James Montemagno GitHub James on DevOps James on X .NET Aspire Manifest plus + azd + Bicep == Mind Blown Aspire Dashboard   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Brady Gaster is a Principal Program Manager on the .NET and Visual Studio team at Microsoft where he works on Orleans, SignalR, microservices, APIs, and integration with Azure service teams in hopes of making it exciting for developers who work on .NET apps to party in the cloud!   Topics of Discussion: [6:27] Collaboration with Azure Developer CLI. [8:08] The challenges of integrating ASP.NET Core with existing deployment methods like App Service. [11:45] The main questions they heard at the panel. [13:53] Deploying your dashboard to Azure Container apps. [24:31] Aspire builds on .NET and everything you can do with .NET, you can keep doing. [27:03] Tips for developing against Aspire resources. [27:50] The future focuses on security. [30:02] Optimizing your development environment around DevOps. [34:28] How much is Kubernetes an actual dependency, or can normal .NET applications just use App Service and not be tied to Kubernetes? [39:37] Brady’s thoughts on the benefits of containers and the potential for easier alternatives in the future. [44:06] AI doing a better job of suggesting the right code.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! “Building new (and retrofitting old) apps with .NET Aspire to streamline your development process” Ep 295 with Brady Gaster   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.  

Aaron is a Developer Advocate at Microsoft. Having spent 15 years doing web development, he’s seen it all, from browser wars to the rise of AJAX and the fall of 20 JavaScript frameworks (and that was just yesterday!). Always tinkering with something new, he explores crazy ideas like writing your own implementation of numbers in .NET, creating IoC in JavaScript, or implementing tic-tac-toe using git commits. When not sitting at a computer, he can be found spending time with his wife and kids.   Topics of Discussion: [4:38] Aaron shares his career journey, including his time in consulting and technical sales. [6:48] The importance of understanding both technical and business aspects of software development. [7:36] .NET Aspire and the community toolkit. [15:21] Having a centralized place for discovering and contributing integrations. [17:02] Running Ollama. [21:12] Diving in more to the integration. [24:27] Deployment options for .NET Aspire applications, including Azure Container Apps and Kubernetes. [29:08] Testing and Acceptance with .NET Aspire. [35:02] The process of attaching debuggers to applications and the challenges of debugging distributed applications. [41:23] The community toolkit provides clear guidelines and contributing guides to help developers get involved. [43:42] How people can get more involved and contribute.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! GitHub Community Toolkit Aaron Powell Aaron Powell Website Aaron Powell Microsoft Aaron on X  Aaron on Mastodon Social Aaron on Twitch Aaron on LinkedIn Aaron on Bluesky Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

In this discussion, Sam Basu, a Developer Advocacy Manager at Progress Software and a recognized Microsoft MVP, shares his insights on AI's role in user interface design. He emphasizes the importance of meeting users where they are and adapting to their needs. Sam explores practical AI use cases for UI development while addressing challenges and future opportunities. He dives into the capabilities and limitations of GitHub Copilot, discussing the gap in developer training. Responsible AI development also takes center stage as a vital consideration in the tech landscape.

Jeff Fritz is an experienced developer, technical educator, and PM on the .NET team at Microsoft. He’s the producer of the .NET Conf online series of events, and regularly livestreams builds of websites and fun applications. You can follow Jeff for more .NET, .NET Core, and, Visual Studio content on Twitch and Twitter at @csharpfritz.   Topics of Discussion: [2:40] Jeff’s background and the many roles he is involved in. [6:17] Key announcements from .NET Conf. [6:18] Starting with .NET Aspire, and getting it right with version 3. [11:24] Version 3 covers the unattended deployment process. [12:20] Benefits of the aspireify.net website. [18:23] AI extensions for .NET. [22:28] Recommendations for hardware for AI development. [25:35] The static assets features. [28:57] Using Github Copilot. [30:13] Remembering that AI is just a text calculator. [36:21] How people can catch up with the content from .NETConf.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Ep 278 with Jeff Fritz TagzApp Fritz on the Web AI extensions for .NET Unified AI Building Blocks for .NET using Microsoft.Extensions.AI Introducing Phi-3 Introducing Whisper dotnet on YouTube Microsoft Ignite aspireify.NET   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.