.NET Rocks!

More analysis from Build - during Build! While at Build in Seattle, Carl and Richard talked to Holger Mueller about his impressions of the show, shortly after the first keynote. Holger runs the gamut, talking about .NET Core, Visual Studio 2017, Azure, DevOps, Containers and more. A lot happened at Build, here's a view from the early point in the event itself!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

What does the military want with a space plane? Time for a Geek Out! The conversation begins with that question - what space plane? Richard digs into the history of the space shuttle, which did have substantial funding from the US Air Force for specific military missions, none of which ever happened for a variety of reasons. And then off into the various projects to try and build a military space plane, including the DC-X, X-33, X-37B, DARPA RASCAL and the latest attempt, the DARPA XS-1. Each project brought some capabilities to the fore, but there's still a long way to go!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Want to manage your Azure apps on your smartphone? Carl and Richard talk to Jakub Jedryszek and Michael Flanakin about their work building the Azure Mobile App. Not just a mobile version of the Azure Portal, the app is built with Xamarin Native for iOS and Android, and focuses on using the phone efficiently to let you do what you need to! The discussion dives into the challenges of working on varying form factors and the tools that make things easier. And of course, there are great instrumentation and feedback mechanisms. It's early days for this application yet, so check it out and let them know what you need!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Are you ready to take your UX design to the next level? Carl and Richard talk to Mark Miller about his latest research into the science of great design - and it's definitely a science! Mark walks through some core concepts related to user interface design and the design of the application as a whole, helping users stay focused on what they need to do without interrupting or confusing them along the way. The discussion also embraces a lot of design decisions in the non-digital world as well - how you walk and drive a car are impacted by the design of a number of things!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

What happened at Build? Lots! Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about his impressions around the various announcements at Build. The conversation ranges over how this Build was somewhat different from others - perhaps more aspirational? Topics covered included the amazing AI/vision system demos that were exciting and frightening at the same time, as well as the XAML and .NET Standards, Hololens, VR, Project Rome and more! So much happened at Build!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Azure Service Fabric is here - should your application take advantage of it? Carl and Richard talk to James Sturtevant about his experiences moving applications into Azure Service Fabric. Yes, it is possible to "lift and shift" your application into Service Fabric via Guest Executables, but that doesn't mean you'll get much of the benefit that Service Fabric can provide. James talks about picking a feature in your application to peel off into a microservice, perhaps as an Azure Function or other serverless strategy - or even into a container! Instrumentation is a key aspect to understanding what will improve your application, and it takes time - all apps are on a continuum of development!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

How do you get better uptime than the cloud? Two clouds! Carl and Richard talk to Vishwas Lele about his experiences building ultra-reliable applications, both on-premises and in the cloud. The discussion digs into the decisions around reliability - it's easy to want it, but will you pay for it? It's important to calculate the cost of downtime, as that helps set the budget for what it takes to stay up. And that leads to a conversation about how you build highly reliable software - it can't just come from the infrastructure, there is code involved as well! And the next question is - how do you make your app work in two different clouds?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Banish Your Inner Critic! Carl and Richard talk to Denise Jacobs about her new book on creativity. And yes, we're all creative, we just have to get that inner critic under control. Denise talks about her own battles with feeling good enough to actually do work well and share it with others. It comes down to a sense of self-compassion - often we are harder on ourselves than we are on others. Give yourself a break and have some fun - the creativity will come!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Troy is back, put on your tinfoil hat and get under the bed! Carl and Richard talk to Troy Hunt about the latest security exploits going around. Ransomware is hitting new highs, where a user's files get encrypted via malware, and the only way to get them back is to pay a ransom in Bitcoin. Or are there other ways to recover? And don't be so sure paying the ransom will fix anything, there are some unscrupulous criminals out there that just delete your files instead! The conversation also dives into the comprehensive move of the World Wide Web over to HTTPS - and with HTTP/2, HTTPS can actually be faster than HTTP!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Ready to get off the hourly treadmill? Carl and Richard talk to Jonathan Stark about ditching the hourly crusade. Jon talks about the fact that software development really isn't an hourly business - you don't provide value every hour with software, the value only comes when it's finished. The conversation focuses on value - what value does this software bring to the organization? If you don't know that, how can you be successful? But once you do know, pricing is different, and so is focus for you. Provide value to your customer, not an hourly rate!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations