.NET Rocks!

Do constraints liberate? Carl and Richard talk to Mark Seemann about the very constraints that developers often argue against - pointing out how those constraints can actually make us more productive. Mark talks about memory management, such as garbage collection in .NET, while a constraint (you can't do what you want with memory) actually liberates you from thinking about memory. The same with static typing - decide on a type once, and stop worrying about it. The question is, are you surrounding yourself with the constraints that liberate you?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Where do you store your objects? Carl and Richard talk to Kamran Ayub about the latest version of RavenDB. Kamran talks about his experiences implementing Raven in different projects all the way back to version 2 - and how much he appreciates that this latest version offers a ton more features and the kind of stability you need in a data storage tool. The comparisons to MongoDB are inevitable, and it's impressive how similar they are - but clearly RavenDB has a .NET spin! Of course, it's open source and cross-platform, so you can run RavenDB anywhere you like - even a Raspberry PI!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How do you build your web UI? Carl and Richard talk to Frank Krueger about his work on Ooui (pronounced whee), an open source project for implementing a Xamarin-forms like UI experience to the browser. The result is pretty amazing, including a web-based XAML editor that all runs in the browser... super fast! Frank talks about his experiences building code that runs with WebAssembly and the challenges of thinking through new UI experiences. The challenge is the variations in implementation - is XAML destined to fragment further, or can they all come together?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Blazor is getting some buzz, but is it really useful? Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about his thoughts around how Blazor uses WebAssembly (WASM) to let C# run on the browser - and what that means for client-side development, both web-based and regular desktop client. Rocky talks about how WASM is an equal-opportunity feature for all sorts of languages, and covering the four big browsers: Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Could the future of enterprise apps be all in the browser? Between Progressive Web Apps and WASM, this might be the way forward!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

What does it mean to have clean architecture? Carl and Richard talk to Steve Smith about his work on an e-book and template for clean architecture using ASP.NET Core. Steve describes the new tools that make life easier for following clean architectural principals as well as the separation of concerns, between business logic, infrastructure, and clients. The conversation also digs into Domain Driven Design, Test Driven Development and the ever popular Pain Driven Development. Great, common-sense thinking from Steve Smith!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

What's new with Xamarin? Carl and Richard talk to Laurent Bugnion, now a Microsoft Cloud Developer Advocate, about his latest experiences with the cross-platform mobile development tool. It's been two years since Xamarin joined Microsoft, and a lot has happened - and far more to come. Laurent talks about both .NET and XAML Standards, and the challenges of reconciling development approaches for an array of mobile devices, the PC and the web. The conversation also dives into the truth that there is no one right way to build cross-platform mobile applications. New approaches and tools continue to be developed!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Test Driven Development (TDD), good idea in theory, but in practice? Carl and Richard talk to John Callaway and Clayton Hunt about their success with TDD. At it's simplest level, TDD is about writing tests first, before coding. In practice, everything is more complicated than that. Writing testable code isn't as simple as it seems, and refactoring existing code to become testable can cause it to break - which is why you wanted tests in the first place. John and Clayton talk through their experiences getting things right and exploring the advantages that TDD brings - more reliable software that sustains for longer and can continue to evolve!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How do you do desktop deployment? Carl and Richard talk to Paul Betts about the open source project called Squirrel, which is all about making desktop deployment less painful. As Paul says, like ClickOnce, only doesn't suck! This leads to a discussion about the various installation tools out there and what they focus on. Paul talks about what makes Squirrel different - providing the tooling to make it easier for a developer to provide unobtrusive updating of applications - as in, not when they start up!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How productive are you with Visual Studio? Carl and Richard chat with Kasey Uhlenhuth about her work making Visual Studio even more productive for developers. The conversation focuses on the huge array of features that Visual Studio has, to support all sorts of different styles of programming. Kasey talks about balancing the needs of developers - some want lots of support and hints from Visual Studio, and some want it to just get out of the way while they program. There are a ton of options, you just have to discover them. Kasey points out a productivity guide that she has helped create to help you take advantage of the power of Visual Studio - check out the link in the show notes!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Programming for the Cloud! Carl and Richard talk to Vishwas Lele about the Microsoft Business Application Platform, which organizes the huge suite of tools available in Azure along with PowerApps and PowerBI to create a great place to build applications that run on Windows, iOS and Android. Vishwas talks about moving up into a higher layer of coding using Logic Apps and Azure Flow to pull together the various sources of data that already exist in your organization, including Office, SharePoint, Sales Force and so on - you already have the data, how do you surface it in an app that your users like to use?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations