.NET Rocks!

Carl and Richard chat with Scott Hunter about how Microsoft is working to evolve web development for ASP.NET developers. While the focus of the discussion is on ASP.NET vNext, you can't talk web without also talking cloud, and that means Azure. Scott digs into many of the new features in Azure that can make a web developer's life easier, before digging into ASP.NET vNext. No punches are pulled - vNext represents some breaking changes, especially for web forms developers. But web forms continues to be supported and added to in future versions of ASP.NET, just not at the rate that vNext is capable of. ASP.NET developers? Have a listen!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Seth Juarez about the latest developments in the machine learning space for the Microsoft space. The conversation starts out focused on Seth's open source library for doing machine learning in .NET. Seth talks about the challenges of getting your head around machine learning, building models and testing data. Then the discussion turns to the Azure Machine Learning tools, at the moment in preview. This can greatly simplify your experiments with machine learning, providing a huge range of tools for novices and experts a like. It's an exciting time for machine learning, you should check it out!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Dan Rosenstein about his work bringing the Windows Developer Program for Internet of Things (IoT) to life. The conversation starts out with a discussion about Microsoft's focus on IoT and the recognition that this a thing that is happening, and developers need tools to be productive. Dan focuses on the work Microsoft has done with Intel's Galileo device, which can work with Arduino, but uses a full x86 chipset. And while there isn't .NET available for the system yet, "one could speculate" that this is coming. Check out the links below to get involved!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Rick Strahl about his latest efforts to build mobile web applications. The conversation starts out with a recap of the continuing debate about native vs web on mobile devices. As Rick says, there are no easy answers there. Every approach to cross-platform development (and different browsers on different phones represent different platforms) have compromises that need to be made. There is no "one size fits all" available. But the web continues to evolve, and Rick is optimistic that it is all coming together. Also, check out his open source, free-to-download web load testing tool!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Mike Wood about migrating your applications to Azure. The conversation starts out thinking through the fundamentals of working in the cloud - how architecture and deployment are different. This inevitably leads to the hardest debate: Is your organization okay with data in the cloud? After that, Mike gets into some of the more interesting angles on cloud development - actually using virtual machines for your development environment. Is it cloud or is it virtual? Is there a difference? And a great list of resources for getting started with Azure!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Adam Tornhill about his work understanding the psychology of programming. The conversation starts out with some thinking around getting into "the flow," being able to focus effectively on programming. Adam then digs into where bugs come from and the role of complexity in code. He has been studying code repositories to determine where bugs are likely to appear based on the idea that complex code changes more than simple code. The discussion also explores the idea that while coding parallel code is challenging, parallel development is even harder - can you really get multiple people working on the same project at the same time? You think you do, but do you really! Time to study your source tracking system!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about what it means to build modern apps today. In past shows, Rocky has been pretty frustrated with the native development options and focused primarily on web development with HTML 5 and JavaScript. But things on the native side have gotten better, and Rocky talks about his experiences with Xamarin and the potential of the universal app template in Visual Studio. Could native be making a comeback? Rocky talks about the advantages of the native model with cross-platform development techniques and a sense of an improving future. It's a fun time to be a developer!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Jeff Fritz about ASP.NET vNext - and yes, ASP.NET is now open source! So what does that really mean for ASP.NET developers? Jeff digs into the impact of taking open source on the development process of ASP.NET and how we can all get more involved! This leads to a discussion about the expanding reach of .NET into other platforms such as Linux using OWIN and Katana, and the Microsoft stack being a friendly place for developers of all kinds to hang out. Azure is also a big part of the future web story, and Jeff digs into the cloud-optimized stack and how you can get your web app there.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

In what is likely to become a multi-part series, Richard and Carl chat about fusion power, focused on the "hot" side of fusion - megaprojects like the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). But first, a review of what is actually involved in fusing atoms together and how it differs from fission (as discussed in the older nuclear power shows. Richard then delves into a quick history lesson of power demand and why we need fusion as well as the stories of the first nuclear fusion projects before hitting the big time: NIF and ITER. Do they work? Will they work? Does it make sense? What is the impact of Big Science (tm) on getting science actually done?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Atley Hunter about how he monetizes phone apps. A newcomer to .NET Rocks, Atley was a regular guest on the TabletShow and has talked about monetization before - but now he's learned even more techniques! Atley talks about the advantages of in-app purchases over try-before-you-buy, as well as asking for donations. He also digs into the idea that you can offer a variety of prices and how to encourage your customers to spend more! Lots of great thinking on how to make an income from your apps from one of the masters!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Daniel Simmons about his work with PasTrak, building RFID tools for small businesses. The first half of the conversation focuses on what RFID is all about - different types of tags, scanners, security concerns, and so on. There's a lot of choice out there when it comes to RFID and its cousin Near Field Communications (NFC). Then Danny digs into the coding side of things - the various APIs you work with to handle different readers, how your code responds, how to deal with duplicate data and data overload...all the fun things that happen when you interact with the real world!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with David Graham about what it takes to create a new developer. David starts out the conversation talking about the shortage of developers today, and how the shortage is getting worse, not better. This leads to a conversation about existing training approaches, such as a four-year computer science degree. While we all agree that the best way to learn to program is to actually program, what are the best tools to start out with? How do you get out into the industry and continue to grow?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Jason and Brian Kriesel about their work building Amazon Fire Tablet applications. The conversation starts off talking about the differences between the Android world and the Amazon world - they aren't that far apart! The brothers Kriesel talk about what it takes to maintain an application that runs in regular Android tablets and phones as well as the Amazon Fire world - what features Amazon brings to the table and the strengths of their platform and app store. The discussion also digs into the new Amazon Fire Phone and the concerns around the FireFly SDK. There are pluses and minuses to all the platforms!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Michelle Smith about building great development teams. Michelle talks about what a great team looks like, the differences in productivity and focus. This leads to a conversation about team building, creating trust within the team and dealing with remote workers - how do you create trust when you can't see each other. Then there's the process of recruiting and interviewing, where Michelle focuses on the interaction with the team even more than technical skills. Great teams don't just happen, but how much management does a great development team need?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

On the last day of the NDC 2014 Conference in Oslo, Carl and Richard assembled a panel of speakers: Robert Virding, Steve Sanderson, Venkat Subramaniam, and Anthony Eden. The discussion focused initially on the motivations around building software, but ultimately evolved into the best way to build sustainable software. Is the profit motive for software development a good one? What about open source? How do you know when your software is 'done?' How do you decide what features to add and what to leave out or even remove? Great thinking from a remarkable set of minds!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Rob Eisenberg about the crazy changes going on in his life - starting with joining Google! Rob talks about meeting the AngularJS folks at the ng-conf conference and deciding that upcoming versions of DurandalJS and AngularJS are on a collision course. So why duplicate effort? Rob talks about the significant rethinking going on with AngularJS 2.0 to be more effective in mobile environments, dealing with rendering performance and connectivity issues. The whole process is taking place in public on GitHub. You should check it out!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC, Carl and Richard chat with Troy Hunt about specific common web security breaches and things you can do about them. The conversation starts out with a continuation of an earlier show, talking about the vulnerabilities around open WiFi connections. From there, Troy talks about the most common breach of them all - SQL Injection. Yes, it's still a problem. Troy also digs into the importance of transport layer security, typically using SSL. There's a reason all the big web sites have switched to HTTPS all of the time. Maybe it's something you should consider also?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC is Oslo, Carl and Richard talk to Martin Jul about the state of visual computing technology today. As Martin says, the future is very bright - amazing free libraries are now available that make it simple to do image and character recognition with all sorts of cameras, even one on the Raspberry PI! The conversation digs into a project that Martin built to identify when the pizza guy is at his front door, exploring what it takes to recognize a pizza box in video. There are digital cameras everywhere today, shouldn't we be building apps to take advantage of them?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC in Oslo, Carl and Richard talked to Nik Molnar and Anthony van der Hoorn about instrumenting web application. Of course the conversation starts out with a catch-up on Glimpse, the awesome session-based instrumentation tool for your web pages. Then the conversation moves to looking at instrumentation end-to-end on web applications, in the aggregate, so that you can see where your pain points are and where to focus your attention on tuning. Nik talks about starting at the high level view point so that you focus on the right things - it's not always about the code!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Paul Stovell, one of the principals behind Octopus Deploy. Octopus Deploy is all about getting your organization to continuous delivery - by automating every step. Paul talks about how the product came to be, from the frustrations he was having with deployment using Word documents and remote desktop. Octopus Deploy is free to download and use for small projects. Once you're addicted to one-button deployment, you can pay for larger projects and teams. And under the hood, it's technologies like PowerSshell that make it all work. This is a great addition to your DevOps toolkit.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at the Norwegian Developers Conference in Oslo, Norway, Carl and Richard talk with Mark Seemann about his thinking around how developers 'get into the zone.' As Mark explains, this behavior isn't all that unusual - psychologists call it 'flow,' and it is a common state for athletes, musicians, writers and more. The conversation digs into the truth around flow, primarily that it doesn't guarantee productivity. Mark discusses techniques for getting into flow faster, so that you're less sensitive to interruption, and the conversation ultimately spins into thinking around how we can practice more effectively using flow and put in the hours it takes to become truly proficient in our area of focus. Throughout the conversation there are references to great books you should read - check the links!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Celebrate the millennium with us in this special episode of .NET Rocks! We do a little looking back, a little looking around and a little looking forward. Jason Olson joins us for a mini-show about audio and MIDI in Windows - and an epic giveaway. Mary Jo Foley shares her story of how the world is a better place because of .NET Rocks!, as do you, our listeners! You told us your stories of success, and now it's your turn to shine.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Stephen Forte about the continuing evolution of wearables and their role in the workplace. The conversation starts out focused on the most visible of the wearables today - Google Glass. Does it have a role in the enterprise? That's a tricky concept. Steve talks about retail and more industrial applications, places where workers in motion get additional contextual information to improve their work. Human instrumentation is a big part of the wearable market as well, like FitBit. Steve talks about making sure workers move enough - not sitting too long, not walking too far, and so on. And there's more instrumentation to talk about, check out the links in the show notes!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Well here we go - a tough geek out topic if ever there was one. The most requested Geek Out we haven't done yet: nuclear weapons! Starting back before World War II, Richard digs into the science history that created the first proposals for nuclear weapons. The war ultimately provided the catalyst in the form of the Manhattan Project, culminating in the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then the story continues into thermonuclear weapons and other variations. What defense is there against nukes? And what about non-proliferation and arms reductions treaties? How safe is the world today from nukes?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC, Carl and Richard chat with Cory House about his experiences building Single Page Applications for the automotive industry. Cory talks about the challenges of the industry, including supporting both IE7 and IE8 running on Windows XP and iPad devices. Quite a span of technology there! The conversation digs into UI design, the integration of third party services and meeting the expectations of a customer that is not all that focused on technology. Cory digs into the idea of SPA as a classic desktop application replacement - it can be done!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC, Carl and Richard talk to Michael 'Doc' Norton about his experiences figuring out the right metrics to measure in productivity of a development team. The discussion focuses in on the key issue - that velocity is a dangerous metric. As Doc explains, pushing developers to do more features per sprint creates serious problems. So what measures make sense? Great thinking around what makes people productive, what impairs productivity, and how to do the right things the right way.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC in Oslo, Carl and Richard talked to Bryan Hunter about his experiences building communities around functional programming. Bryan talks about the transformative moment he had first encountering functional code in the form of an Erlang service. The conversation digs into the thinking around the weaknesses of object orientation, it's motivations and the idea that maybe, today, it is obsolete. Is functional programming really the way? Bryan discusses how communities are forming around functional that are inspiring and forward thinking. Maybe it's time for a change?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC is Oslo, Carl and Richard talked to Chris Hardy about Xamarin's latest work - Xamarin.Forms. As Chris explains, Xamarin.Forms brings a XAML-like experience to building forms for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The conversation focuses in on what Xamarin.Forms is best suited for, when you should stick to the standard class based tools for building clients, and what it takes to have 100% code sharing. Is it worth it? Depends! Chris also digs into the role of MVVMCross in Xamarin development as well as Xamarin Test Cloud and University. Cool stuff from the Xamarin team as usual!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at NDC in Oslo, Carl and Richard chat with Dominick Baier and Brock Allen about their latest thinking on consumer and enterprise identity solutions. Dominick talks about the conflict between WS-Federation, the confusion that is OAuth2 and how OpenID-Connect is bringing them together in a better solution. Brock digs into how a centralized security service simplifies coding for developers as well as strengthening the overall security of the system. Overall, the news is good - granular authentication and authorization is getting easier to implement, deploy and manage.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Anthony Eden about his work creating DNSimple and the languages he uses to create awesome. Yeah, the boys fangirl a bit on DNSimple, since they do love it so. But so what? It's a great product and you should use it. Anthony talks about his inspiration for building DNSimple, his experiences working in Erlang to build parts of the server, as well as Google's super-cool language Go. This is what polyglot programming is all about - using the best languages for the job.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard bring Stuart Lodge back to talk about the latest development in MvvmCross. Previously on The Tablet Show, Stuart talked about how he helped lead the MvvmCross open source project to make cross platform mobile applications easier to build. Now as MvvmCross moves into its third version, the number of contributors has jumped and its capabilities have also. Check out the awesome links for more info on MvvmCross!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Clemens Vasters about his latest work at Microsoft around making the Internet of Things (IoT). Clemens starts with a definition of IoT, describing massive numbers of devices sharing data seamlessly... and confusing people at the same time. What's an IoT device and what isn't? The conversation digs into the challenges around connectivity, thinking through the architecture and security necessary to deal with huge numbers of occasionally connected devices with data demands - such as cars! The foundations are being laid to bring IoT to life, have you got your head around the ideas?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Shawn Wildermuth about his experiences in code reviews - what good and bad reviews look like and what he's learned reviewing lots of different projects. Shawn runs down the challenges of team dynamics when it comes to code reviews, how some folks don't dare show their code, and how to get past those types of hurdles. Then the conversation turns to the brass tacks - common problems, different styles of coding, and so on. The more code you look at, the more you learn!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Amir Rajan about an amazing tale of getting to the number one spot on the Apple App Store! The app in question is called A Dark Room, a simple text-based game with an awesome story and experience. Originally a web game, Amir helped build an iOS version of the game. The conversation then digs into all the subtle things done in the game to help encourage players to promote it - when to ask for a review, when to put the game on sale, the impact of magazine reviews of the game, and more!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Vishwas Lele about the architectural patterns of cloud development. Vishwas talks about how the cloud influences application design, focused on more asynchronous, scalable and flexible messaging focused architecture. While the patterns could be applied to any cloud technology, Microsoft Azure is particularly well-suited to these architectural patterns, providing services that cover each pattern approach for optimal results.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with SharePoint legend Ted Pattison about his experiences with the latest version of SharePoint. Microsoft is pushing hard to make SharePoint a service that you pay by the month for - but is that what customers actually want? Ted discusses his customer's ongoing focus with on-premise SharePoint, how development models are evolving, and the best opportunities for developers going forward. Ted sees SharePoint changing significantly in the next few years - both users and developers will be impacted.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Jonathan Peppers about his experiences building phone games for different languages and cultures. The conversation starts out talking about Jon's game Draw a Stickman, originally made for the US market. The game was also very popular in China, but as a pirated game. Jon tells the story of how they evolved Draw a Stickman to be a free game with in-game purchases and culturally oriented for China to make it profitable and successful there. Can your game be successful across multiple countries and cultures?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Brian Randell about the latest version of Team Foundation Server and it's ability to support a DevOps practice in your organization. The conversation starts off with Brian's thoughts on DevOps in general, focusing on automation of deployment and package management. Brian also talks about the role of the cloud in building software fast, as well as the challenges around instrumentation in production. While the tools are still evolving, Microsoft is making some serious strides - you should check them out!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard welcome coffee roaster Hugh Griffin to chat about liquid sleep, otherwise known as coffee. Coffee has a *ahem* rich history, and while we know what we like, many of us don't know our blonde from our Sumatra from our Colombian. So pour a cup and listen up!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at DevIntersection in Orlando, Florida, Carl and Richard chat with Douglas Crockford about the better parts of JavaScript. Douglas wrote JavaScript the Good Parts back in 2008 and was a key influencer in making JavaScript the important language it has become. The conversation digs into the strengths and weaknesses of JavaScript and how it is evolving. Douglas also talks a bit about JSON and the wonders of not recreating the wheel. Great thinking from one of the important minds of the Web today!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Christian Weyer about his experiences working with cloud technologies in Germany. The conversation starts out pretty grim, digging into how the NSA revelations have chilled interest in cloud technology because of security and privacy concerns. Christian talks about how the technology of Azure is more compelling than ever, but customers just aren't willing to use it. This leads to a conversation about Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server, which brings many Azure technologies to your own internal networks. There's a number of different ways to use Windows Azure Pack, including as a self-service portal to provide testing infrastructure for developers - talk to your ops folks and try it out!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Mary Jo Foley about her impressions at Build. The Build conference in San Francisco had six hours worth of keynotes including the first keynote given by new CEO Satya Nadella. MJ talks about what she saw as most important at Build, including Windows 8.1 Update, Phone 8.1, the Internet of Things and more! Ultimately, the conversation focuses in on how Microsoft is changing and what MJ is looking forward to for Microsoft in 2014.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at DevIntersection in Orlando, Carl and Richard talk to Billy Hollis about WPF. Having established that WPF is not dead a few weeks back at Build, Billy admits that he's never stopped developing for it. His work is all about client applications, and HTML just won't do. The discussion digs deep into user interaction patterns that WPF is strong at and how user interfaces and interactions continue to evolve. Touch is not the end of the road!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Francesco Balena about migrating VB6 applications to .NET. Yes, that's still happening! With Microsoft ending support for Windows XP in April 2014, folks that have been hanging onto old platforms and applications are taking another look at migrating. Francesco makes an amazing tool called VB Migration Partner that analyzes VB6 apps to identify what parts of an application can be converted into VB.NET (or C#) and what parts need to be rewritten. While migration is never simple, Francesco provides great advice on how to make it possible. Still got some VB6 in your life?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with James Montemagno about his experiences building Xamarin applications. But first, a little history, James first getting involved in mobile development, finding Xamarin, culminating with being hired by Xamarin and going on the road trip with .NET Rocks! James talks about the kinds of apps he's been building using the tools, how he organizes his projects for cross-platform development, what's in his toolbox and what he's adding to the community-at-large to help developers be successful.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Udi Dahan about the state of NServiceBus. NServiceBus is Udi's on-going development effort to make the development and maintenance of complex, distributed systems easier. The conversation digs into how developers fall into the N+1 trap of adding more and more interactions between different applications until the system becomes unmanageable - or force the interaction to take place at the very back end of the system, like the database, leading to slow interactions and complexity in the database that shouldn't be there. Whether you use NServiceBus or not, Udi's thinking on bus-based application design will open your eyes!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Tim Thomas about his thoughts around holistic design. And Tim means it - thinking about all levels of design, not just the UI, but how the whole application goes together. The conversation digs into the debate around skeuomorphism and how technology users themselves are evolving. Lots of broad thinking about the state of technology and how to best interact with your users to inspire and delight!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Neil Black from the XBox team about SmartGlass. SmartGlass is Microsoft's technology for utilizing smartphones and tablets as an extension of the XBox. Neil talks about the various roles that the 'second screen' can play in XBox applications and games. The conversation digs into how SmartGlass works with television events to create a more social experience, how you can provide secret information to game players on an otherwise shared screen, and more! If you're up for doing some SmartGlass development, grab the SDK, the link is included in the show links!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at DevIntersection in Orlando, Carl and Richard sat down to chat with Zoiner Tejada about his work instrumenting cloud-based web sites. Zoiner talks about using a wide variety of features in Google Analytics to instrument his Azure apps, including going directly to the Analytics APIs to do instrumentation of other kinds of apps, connecting up just about anything that can speak HTTP! The second half of the conversation dives into utilizing this analysis - with a long chat about what a real Minimal Viable Product means and how the Lean Startup principles can be abused. Great conversation from a brilliant guy!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard chat with Brian Noyes about the state of affairs with WPF, Windows 8 and the Prism project. Brian starts out the conversation talking about WPF is far from dead - Microsoft continues to invest in it, and lots of folks, including Brian's customers, are building great applications with WPF. This leads to a discussion about how the changes to Windows 8 at Build affect the WPF story and development in general - a huge topic area that warrants a bunch more shows. Finally, Brian digs into Prism, Microsoft Patterns and Practice group toolset for building great Windows apps for all sorts of versions of Windows, including Windows 8. Prism has moved beyond Silverlight, and is worth a serious look!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations