.NET Rocks!

What's being announced at Build? Carl and Richard talk to Scott Hunter about the latest from the Virtual Build conference. With .NET 5 out last November, and .NET 6 coming next November, this is a time for interim features - including some huge performance improvements! Scott talks about being able to modify code while running to shorten your development cycle, and the latest version of Upgrade Assistant to help move your existing .NET applications to the latest version. Lots of great stuff!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Oracle for Startups? Carl and Richard talk to Jason Williamson about Oracle's programs to support startups using Oracle's Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Jason talks about how startups can get credit on OCI, migrate workloads from other locations, and even interoperate with other clouds - for redundancy, special services, or even to save money. The conversation also dives into what Oracle brings to the table - access to investors in the Silicon Valley, even to existing Oracle customers! If you'd like to take Oracle for Startups for a spin, go to https://www.oracle.com/startup/ and use the promo code NETROCKS for $2,500 USD in free cloud credits!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

What's new in Visual Studio 2022? Carl and Richard talk to Simon Calvert, Anthony Cangialosi, and Andy Sterland about the upcoming version of Studio. First on the docket is 64-bit: While Studio has been able to build 64-bit applications for more than a decade, the devenv.exe itself has remained a 32-bit application. The team discusses why it makes sense to move to 64-bit and what that means for development going forward. But there's much more to Studio 2022, including improvement to debugging and diagnostics across platforms, being able to collaborate with developers in real-time using Live Share, and getting smarter about how you navigate and explore existing code. Cool new things are coming!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

What happens when your company brings on investors? Carl and Richard talk to Paul Stovell about the recent investment made by Insight Partners into Octopus Deploy. Paul talks about how a great investment group brings important skills and insights to a company - not just money. The conversation also digs into deciding when to take investment, what new opportunities open up, and how the investment can affect the culture of the company - preferably for the better!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How do you do smarter testing? Carl and Richard talk to Simon Cropp about Verify, Simon's open source project to add snapshot testing capabilities to many of your favorite testing stacks. Simon talks about how snapshots can help you look at the output of code, rather than the code itself, to test its validity. And as code changes, the new snapshots reflect those changes - no need to rewrite the tests!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Xamarin Forms 5 is being replaced by .NET Maui - what's a mobile dev to do? Carl and Richard talk to Gerald Versluis about what to expect from .NET Maui and what to expect when migrating your Xamarin Forms apps. There are going to be some changes, and you can expect support for Xamarin Forms to end sometime in 2022. Gerald talks about how the skill sets are similar, so the move isn't too hard - and it's still worthwhile to learn and build in Xamarin Forms today!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How are you doing TDD today? Recorded online at NDC Manchester, Carl and Richard chat with Ian Cooper about his views on TDD, going back to his old talk on Where TDD Went Wrong. Ian talks about how folk struggled to understand TDD, focusing solely on writing tests, rather than understanding how people use their software. This leads to a conversation on how development approaches have evolved with the cloud and modern software - is it time for a new development methodology?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How do you test the security of your applications? Carl and Richard chat with Kim Carter about purpleteam, an open-source library for testing web applications as part of your CI/CD pipeline. Kim talks about OWASP in general and yes, SQL injection (and injection in general) is still the number one security risk - but there are plenty more. Don't be an easy victim, start making security testing part of your build and deployment process!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

What is the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the environment? Carl and Richard talk to Amber McKenzie about her examination of resource consumption when creating machine learning models. As Amber explains, using ML models is not particularly resource-intensive, but creating them is - which leads to a discussion about using technologies like transfer learning to avoid making models unnecessarily. The conversation also digs into the broader thinking about resource consumption in computing - do you know how much power your apps use?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How is Visual Studio working for you? Carl and Richard chat with Mads Kristensen about his new role on the Visual Studio feedback team - not that he's ever far from VS extensions! With a dash of home automation thrown in, Mads talks about how you can provide feedback to the Visual Studio team, and how that feedback is part of the continuous development plans for improving Visual Studio!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations