.NET Rocks!

MSDeploy can do it! Carl and Richard talk to Robert Schiefer about his experiences using MSDeploy to automate complex deployment solutions throughout the enterprise. Robert talks about the fact that MSDeploy is part of WebDeploy and includes a ton of features that are not always obvious - doing far more than just installing software, it can also modify security settings, update registry keys, even handle the deployment of databases using DACPAC. The documentation isn't great, but if you dig around, there's lots of capability there. If you're looking to save money, spend a little time understanding MSDeploy better!

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What do you know about genetically modified foods? Time for a Geek Out! Richard starts with some history as usual - humans have been modifying food plants for 12000 years! With selective and cross-breeding, humankind has managed to create and modify domesticated plants and animals in remarkable, and sometimes shocking ways. So genetic modification has been going on a long time now - why is there so much concern today? Technology has brought much more precision and options to genetic modification, and that raises all sorts of questions on what sort of changes make sense, and what should be done. There's lots of hype around GMO - what are the facts?

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Ready for the new Angular? Carl and Richard talk to John Papa about Angular 2 being in beta. And really in beta - John mentions that for the past few betas, updating his samples have only taken a few minutes, not hours. The conversation also dives into the controversy around the significant differences between Angular 1 and 2, although John sees it as simplification. A lot of ceremony that existed in Angular 1 has been eliminated, or implemented as part of standard tags. The role of Reactive Extensions for Javascript is significant as well: Everything is becoming asynchronous!

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How is C# 7 coming along? Carl and Richard talk to Kathleen Dollard about her involvement in the very public process that is the open source development of the next C#. Kathleen talks about how there are issues in the GitHub repository for Roslyn that are actually design notes - summaries of the current thinking on the new features coming. Where things get really exciting is the comments on those notes. If you're interested in being part of what goes into C# 7, that's where decisions are being made. Kathleen digs into some of the new features coming, including local functions, sophisticated pattern matching and more... be part of the discussion!

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How do you build cross-platform desktop applications? Carl and Richard talk to Curtis Wensley about eto.forms, an open source project he started back in 2006 to deal with cross-platform challenges. Originally focused on mobile, Curtis recognized that Xamarin was moving seriously into that space and pivoted to the desktop side, just in time for Silverlight to go into limbo. Under the hood, eto depends on various Mono related elements, although Curtis sees a day when it will all be .NET Core. The mobile stuff works too, so it is possible to build an app that works on desktop, tablet and phone. Is eto more universal than Universal Apps? Check it out!

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Ready to transpile your Javascript? Carl and Richard chat with Craig McKeachie about BabelJS, an open source tool for transpiling Javascript. Why would you want to do that? So you can write in the latest version of Javascript and still have it run everywhere! Craig talks about how the rate of evolution in Javascript is increasing, and the jump that is ECMAScript 6, also known as ECMAScript 2015, makes the language a lot more, well C#-like. But the implementations in browsers is not as even, and that doesn't account for features coming in ECMAScript 7! Babel deals with this problem by transpiling into Javascript that runs everywhere. Check it out!

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Where do development patterns fit into your world? Carl and Richard talk to Gael Fraiteur about the evolution of PostSharp into a library for implementing patterns. The combination of aspect-oriented programming and patterns is powerful - providing a means to implement a pattern while keeping it separate from your business code. Gael explores one particular pattern - multi-threading. Postsharp implements half a dozen different multi-threading strategies, so that you can apply the pattern as an aspect to your objects and make multi-threaded coding simpler and safer. Check it out!

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What's missing from most document data storage technology? Carl and Richard talk to Jeremy Miller about Marten, an open source document data store library that runs on top of PostGreSQL. Why would you run a document store on top of a relational database? For the features! Jeremy talks about how PostGreSQL brings the backup systems, development tooling and all that DevOps goodness to Marten. Under the hood, documents are stored as JSONB files - better than BLOBs, they're actually searchable JSON. You can treat Marten like a pure document store, or go under the hood and write SQL. Another cool way to up your data storage game!

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Can you continuously deliver software on Azure? Carl and Richard talk to Jeffrey Palermo about his approach (and toolkit) to do continuous delivery - and Azure makes it far more feasible! The conversation starts out with some definitions, recognizing that the development community has been working its way toward faster delivery of value to customers for a long time - it's part of the Agile Manifesto. The question is purely how fast, or rather, how continuous is continuous? Jeff also notes that delivery doesn't mean deployment, but it does mean that you're at the place where you can immediately deploy when you're ready. Lots of tools and thinking on how to get this done, it isn't simple!

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How do you manage your software releases? Carl and Richard talk to Kevin Mack and Brandon Rohrer about the various tools that come together to help automate software releases. The focus on this approach is a product formerly known as InRelease by InCycle, which was acquired by Microsoft back in 2013. Now it's known as Release Management Services for VSTS and deeply integrated with the Studio toolset. The conversation also dives into the challenges around databases when it comes to release management - how do you get your database to be part of your release? Lots to think about here to up your VSTS game!

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