I Co-Wrote 88 Unit Tests Using AI: A Developer's Journey

Testing has always been one of those tasks that developers know is essential but often find tedious. When I decided to add comprehensive unit tests to my NoteBookmark project, I thought: why not make this an experiment in AI-assisted development? What followed was a fascinating 4-hour journey that resulted in 88 unit tests, a complete CI/CD pipeline, and some valuable insights about working with AI coding assistants.

(Version française ici)

The Project: NoteBookmark

NoteBookmark is a .NET application built with C# that helps users manage and organize their reading notes and bookmarks. The project includes an API, a Blazor frontend, and uses Azure services for storage. You can check out the complete project on GitHub.

The Challenge: Starting from Zero

I'll be honest - it had been a while since I'd written comprehensive unit tests. Rather than diving in myself, I decided to see how different AI models would approach this task. My initial request was deliberately vague: "add a test project" without any other specifications.

Looking back, I realize I should have been more specific about which parts of the code I wanted covered. This would have made the review process easier and given me better control over the scope. But sometimes, the best learning comes from letting the AI surprise you.

The Great AI Model Comparison

GPT-4.1: Competent but Quiet

GPT-4.1 delivered decent results, but the experience felt somewhat mechanical. The code it generated was functional, but I found myself wanting more context. The explanations were minimal, and I often had to ask follow-up questions to understand the reasoning behind certain test approaches.

Gemini: The False Start

My experience with Gemini was... strange. Perhaps it was a glitch or an off day, but most of what was generated simply didn't work. I didn't persist with this model for long, as debugging AI-generated code that fundamentally doesn't function defeats the purpose of the exercise. Note that at the time of this writing, Gemini was still in preview, so I expect it to improve over time.

Claude Sonnet: The Clear Winner

This is where the magic happened. Claude Sonnet became my co-pilot of choice for this project. What set it apart wasn't just the quality of the code (though that was excellent), but the quality of the conversation. It felt like having a thoughtful colleague thinking out loud with me.

The explanations were clear and educational. When Claude suggested a particular testing approach, it would explain why. When it encountered a complex scenario, it would walk through its reasoning. I tried different versions of Claude Sonnet but didn't notice significant differences in results - they were all consistently good.

The Development Process: A 4-Hour Journey

Hour 1-2: Getting to Compilation

The first iteration couldn't compile. This wasn't surprising given the complexity of the codebase and the vague initial request. But here's where the AI collaboration really shined. Instead of manually debugging everything myself, I worked with Copilot to identify and fix issues iteratively.

We went through several rounds of:

1. Identify compilation errors
2. Discuss the best approach to fix them
3. Let the AI implement the fixes
4. Review and refine

After about 2 hours, we had a test project with 88 unit tests that compiled successfully. The AI had chosen xUnit as the testing framework, which I was happy with - it's a solid choice that I might not have picked myself if I was rusty on the current .NET testing landscape.

Hour 2.5-3.5: Making Tests Pass

Getting the tests to compile was one thing; getting them to pass was another challenge entirely. This phase taught me a lot about both my codebase and xUnit features I wasn't familiar with.

I relied heavily on the /explain feature during this phase. When tests failed, I'd ask Claude to explain what was happening and why. This was invaluable for understanding not just the immediate fix, but the underlying testing concepts.

One of those moment was learning about [InlineData(true)] and other xUnit data attributes. These weren't features I was familiar with, and having them explained in context made them immediately useful.

Hour 3.5-4: Structure and Style

Once all tests were passing, I spent time ensuring I understood each test and requesting structural changes to match my preferences. This phase was crucial for taking ownership of the code. Just because AI wrote it doesn't mean it should remain a black box. Let's repeat this: Understanding the code is essential; just because AI wrote it doesn't mean it's good.

Beyond Testing: CI/CD Integration

With the tests complete, I asked Copilot to create a GitHub Actions workflow to run tests on every push to main and v-next branches, plus PR reviews. Initially it started modifiying my existing workflow that takess care of the Azure deployment. I wanted a separate workflow for testing, so I interrupted (that's nice I wasn't "forced" to wait), and asked it to create a new one instead. The result was the running-unit-tests.yml workflow that worked perfectly on the first try.

This was genuinely surprising. CI/CD configurations often require tweaking, but the generated workflow handled:

• Multi-version .NET setup
• Dependency restoration
• Building and testing
• Test result reporting
• Code coverage analysis
• Artifact uploading

The PR Enhancement Adventure

Here's where things got interesting. When I asked Copilot to enhance the workflow to show test results in PRs, it started adding components, then paused and asked if it could delete the current version and start from scratch.

I said yes, and I'm glad I did. The rebuilt version created beautiful PR comments showing:

• Test results summary
• Code coverage reports (which I didn't ask for but appreciated)
• Detailed breakdowns.

The Finishing Touches

No project is complete without proper status indicators. I added a test status badge to the README, giving anyone visiting the repository immediate visibility into the project's health.

Key Takeaways

What Worked Well

1. AI as a Learning Partner: Having Copilot explain testing concepts and xUnit features was like having a patient teacher
2. Iterative Refinement: The back-and-forth process felt natural and productive
3. Comprehensive Solutions: The AI didn't just write tests; it created a complete testing infrastructure
4. Quality Over Speed: While it took 4 hours, the result was thorough and well-structured

What I'd Do Differently

1. Be More Specific Initially: Starting with clearer scope would have streamlined the process
2. Set Testing Priorities: Identifying critical paths first would have been valuable
3. Plan for Visual Test Reports: Thinking about test result visualization from the start

Lessons About AI Collaboration

• Model Choice Matters: The difference between AI models was significant
• Conversation Quality Matters: Clear explanations make the collaboration more valuable
• Trust but Verify: Understanding every piece of generated code is crucial
• Embrace Iteration: The best results come from multiple refinement cycles

The Bigger Picture

This experiment reinforced my belief that AI coding assistants are most powerful when they're true collaborators rather than code generators. The value wasn't just in the 88 tests that were written, but in the learning that happened along the way.

For developers hesitant about AI assistance in testing: this isn't about replacing your testing skills, it's about augmenting them. The AI handles the boilerplate and suggests patterns, but you bring the domain knowledge and quality judgment.

Conclusion

Would I do this again? Absolutely. The combination of comprehensive test coverage, learning opportunities, and time efficiency made this a clear win. The 4 hours invested created not just tests, but a complete testing infrastructure that will pay dividends throughout the project's lifecycle.

If you're considering AI-assisted testing for your own projects, my advice is simple: start the conversation, be prepared to iterate, and don't be afraid to ask "why" at every step. The goal isn't just working code - it's understanding and owning that code.

The complete test suite and CI/CD pipeline are available in the NoteBookmark repository if you want to see the results of this AI collaboration in action.

Full-Stack Azure Deployment Made Easy: Containers, Databases, and More

Automating deployments is something I always enjoy. However, it's true that it often takes more time than a simple "right-click deploy." Plus, you may need to know different technologies and scripting languages.

(Version française ici)

But what if there was a tool that could help you write everything you need—Infrastructure as Code (IaC) files, scripts to copy files, and scripts to populate a database? In this post, we'll explore how the Azure Developer CLI (azd) can make deployments much easier.

What do we want to do?

Our goal: Deploy the 2D6 Dungeon App to Azure Container Apps.

This .NET Aspire solution includes:

• A frontend
• A data API
• A database

The Problem

In a previous post, we showed how azd up can easily deploy web apps to Azure.

If we try the same command for this solution, the deployment will be successful—but incomplete:

• The .NET Blazor frontend is deployed perfectly.
• However, the app fails when trying to access data.
• Looking at the logs, we see the database wasn't created or populated, and the API container fails to start.

Let's look more closely at these issues.

The Database

When running the solution locally, Aspire creates a MySQL container and executes SQL scripts to create and populate the tables. This is specified in the AppHost project:

var mysql = builder.AddMySql("sqlsvr2d6")
                   .WithLifetime(ContainerLifetime.Persistent);
                
var db2d6 = mysql.AddDatabase("db2d6");

mysql.WithInitBindMount(source: "../../database/scripts", isReadOnly: false);

When MySQL starts, it looks for SQL files in a specific folder and executes them. Locally, this works because the bind mount is mapped to a local folder with the files.

However, when deployed to Azure:

• The mounts are created in Azure Storage Files
• The files are missing!

The Data API

This project uses Data API Builder (dab). Based on a single config file, a full data API is built and hosted in a container.

Locally, Aspire creates a DAB container and reads the JSON config file to create the API. This is specified in the AppHost project:

var dab = builder.AddDataAPIBuilder("dab", ["../../database/dab-config.json"])
                .WithReference(db2d6)
                .WaitFor(db2d6);

But once again, when deployed to Azure, the file is missing. The DAB container starts but fails to find the config file.

The Solution

The solution is simple: the SQL scripts and DAB config file need to be uploaded into Azure Storage Files during deployment.

You can do this by adding a post-provision hook in the azure.yaml file to execute a script that uploads the files. See an example of a post-provision hook in this post.

Alternatively, you can leverage azd alpha features: azd.operations and infraSynth.

• azd.operations extends the provisioning providers and will upload the files for us.
• infraSynth generates the IaC files for the entire solution.

💡Note: These features are in alpha and subject to change.

Each azd alpha feature can be turned on individually. To see all features:

azd config list-alpha

To activate the features we need:

azd config set alpha.azd.operations on
azd config set alpha.infraSynth on

Let's Try It

Once the azd.operation feature is activated, any azd up will now upload the files into Azure. If you check the database, you'll see that the db2d6 database was created and populated. Yay!

However, the DAB API will still fail to start. Why? Because, currently, DAB looks for a file, not a folder, when it starts. This can be fixed by modifying the IaC files.

One Last Step: Synthesize the IaC Files

First, let's synthesize the IaC files. These Bicep files describe the required infrastructure for our solution.

With the infraSynth feature activated, run:

azd infra synth

You'll now see a new infra folder under the AppHost project, with YAML files matching the container names. Each file contains the details for creating a container.

Open the dab.tmpl.yaml file to see the DAB API configuration. Look for the volumeMounts section. To help DAB find its config file, add subPath: dab-config.json to make the binding more specific:

containers:
    - image: {{ .Image }}
      name: dab
      env:
        - name: AZURE_CLIENT_ID
          value: {{ .Env.MANAGED_IDENTITY_CLIENT_ID }}
        - name: ConnectionStrings__db2d6
          secretRef: connectionstrings--db2d6
      volumeMounts:
        - volumeName: dab-bm0
          mountPath: /App/dab-config.json
          subPath: dab-config.json
scale:
    minReplicas: 1
    maxReplicas: 1

You can also specify the scaling minimum and maximum number of replicas if you wish.

Now that the IaC files are created, azd will use them. If you run azd up again, the execution time will be much faster—azd deployment is incremental and only does "what changed."

The Final Result

The solution is now fully deployed:

• The database is there with the data
• The API works as expected
• You can use your application!

Bonus: Deploying with CI/CD

Want to deploy with CI/CD? First, generate the GitHub Action (or Azure DevOps) workflow with:

azd pipeline config

Then, add a step to activate the alpha feature before the provisioning step in the azure-dev.yml file generated by the previous command.

- name: Extends provisioning providers with azd operations
  run: azd config set alpha.azd.operations on     

With these changes, and assuming the infra files are included in the repo, the deployment will work on the first try.

Conclusion

It's exciting to see how tools like azd are shaping the future of development and deployment. Not only do they make the developer's life easier today by automating complex tasks, but they also ensure you're ready for production with all the necessary Infrastructure as Code (IaC) files in place. The journey from code to cloud has never been smoother!

If you have any questions or feedback, I'm always happy to help—just reach out on your favorite social media platform.

In Video

Here the video version of this blog post.

References

• 2D6 Dungeon App GitHub Repository
• Azure Developer CLI (azd)
• Data API Builder (dab)

Reading Notes #648

Welcome to this week's reading notes! Dive into the latest on Microsoft's new AI chat template, explore Docker's MCP CLI, learn about integrating AI into .NET applications, and discover how to automate .NET MAUI library publishing with GitHub Actions. 

Whether you're interested in AI advancements, programming techniques, or DevOps practices, there's something valuable waiting for you below.

MsDevMtl Meetup - Uno

Suggestion of the week

• Exploring the new AI chat template (Andrew Lock) - This new .NET template looks pretty useful and has a lot of components already baked in. This post explains those and shows how to customize it for our usage.

Programming

• Crates and Dependencies: NuGet, Meet Cargo - Chris Woody Woodruff (Chris Woodruff) - Interesting comparison there, a bit more love toward Rust, I think, but that doesn't make this series less valuable.

• How to Host Blazor WASM on Docker (Rikam Palkar) - Nice post with all the code you need to reproduce.

DevOps

• Packaging and Publishing a .NET MAUI Library with GitHub Actions - .NET Blog (Sweeky , David) - I'm always amazed by what we can do with automation. Second post of a series on .NET MAUI.

AI

• Getting Hands-On with the Docker MCP CLI (Sarthak Varshney) - How to get, use, and connect the brand new MCP tool from Docker.

• AI Repo of the Week: GitHub Copilot Adventures (Dan Wahlin) - When open-source meets AI, and this time, games! Interesting series where AI-related repositories are featured.

• Microsoft.Extensions.AI: Integrating AI into your .NET applications (Japhlet Nwamu) - This package is amazing. It allows you to connect to many models hosted in many different places. This post is the perfect place to get started.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Reading Notes #525

Usually, it's on Monday, I know, but a technical issue prevented me to publish faster this week... 

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Cost Management updates—September 2022 (Michael Flanakin) - Nice update about the mobile app and the docs.

Programming

• Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions (By Liam Mooney) - A nice tutorial that helps getting started building your first GitHub actions.

• Improve your pipeline maintainability with test categories in xUnit (Dennis Frühauff) - A nice post that describes two strategies about unit tests in our CI-CD.

• Bring Continuous Integration to Your Laptop With the Drone CI Docker Extension (Ajeet Singh Raina, Kamesh Sampath) - This CI-CD container looks very interesting. I will keep an eye on it but may wait until it shows up in the marketplace, or that I need it.

• How to Use the Alpine Docker Official Image (Tyler Charboneau) - Alpine is a must to know for all dev and DevOps people (and probably many more}. This post is perfect for getting you started.

Podcast

• 40. The future of Azure services & the benefits of being bilingual in Tech - with Frank Boucher (Betatalks the podcast) - Shameless plug for a podcast episode where I was the guest. We talk about why content in other languages than English is important and so much more.

• Mark Miller: The Science of Great UI in Software - Episode 212 (Azure DevOps Podcast) -

• Why the C64 Demoscene matters with Clay Token's Bilgem Çakır (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Scott has been sharing content about the Commodore 64 these days and that make me wanna jump back as it was my first computer... But this time I would understand English without having to search for each word in a dictionary.

Miscellaneous

• Systemd support is now available in WSL! - Windows Command Line (Craig Loewen) - Nice WSL is getting better.

~Frank

Reading Notes #519

Good Monday, Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts that catch my interest during the week.

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Suggestion of the week

• .NET 6 is now in Ubuntu 22.04 (Richard Lander) - So many amazing news in this post, all .NET dev must read it.

Cloud

• Announcing Microsoft Dev Box Preview (Anthony Cangialosi) - That seems very interesting! Developers don't need powerful machines all the time.

• Deploying Logic App Standard resource through DevOps pipeline (Shree Divya) - This is an excellent example of deployment, that includes all requirements.

Programming

• Thoughts on Copilot (Dave Rupert) - Interesting opinion about copilot after a few months.

~Frank

Reading Notes #513

Good Monday, it's time to share new readingnotes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts, that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

The suggestion of the week

• Deploy Azure Static Web Apps With Bicep | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - Great tutorial that explains how to build a well-structured deployment pipeline using bicep and GitHub action. I will need this for sure, bookmarked.

Cloud

• Azure Container Hosting Demystified - 2022 Edition (Sam Cogan) - Great post that lists all Azure services that use containers, with their pros and cons.

• Building Messaging Endpoints in Azure: Container Apps (Jimmy Bogard) - This excellent tutorial shows all the steps from code to deployment.

Programming

• The Best C# .NET Web Application Tech Stack: Choosing The Front End (Michael Shpilt) - Nice post that describes all C# frontends with their pros and cons.

• ApiController Attribute in ASP.NET Core Web API (Code Maze) - This post contained many best practices and detailed explanations to get a great API and make sure the user experience is the best possible.

• Continuous Integration Vs. Continuous Delivery: Know the Differences & Draw a Line (Hiren Dhaduk) - This post is very interesting as it describes both parts of the flow, and lists the benefices and challenges.

• Incremental ASP.NET Migration Tooling Preview 2 (Mike Rousos) - The second preview already! Things are looking good...

• Understanding your middleware pipeline in .NET 6 with the Middleware Analysis package (Andrew Lock) - This post introduces a nice package to have better visibility into our code. Nice.

Miscellaneous

• New Resources to Get Started with .NET MAUI - .NET Blog (Matt Soucoup) - Are you planning to learn something new this summer? I suggest you .NET MAUI, to build an application that can go everywhere. This post shares tons of references to get you started.

• Why Microsoft Measures Employee Thriving, Not Engagement (Dawn Klinghoffer, Elizabeth McCune) - Interesting article.

~frank

Reading Notes #507

Good Monday, Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, blog posts, and podcast episodes that catch my interest during the week.

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• #11: Share Content with Docusaurus & Azure Static Web Apps ( Nitya Narasimhan) - Another great example of a static web app this time for documentation perfect match!

• Azure Static Web Apps: named preview environments with Azure DevOps | I CAN MAKE THIS WORK (John Reilly) - This is pretty cool, a unique URL for the staging/ qa environment...I like that

• Blazor WebAssembly for Headless CMS on Azure Static Web Apps (Justin Yoo ) - Woo! Amazing idea, you get the comfort of WordPress for writing and the lightweight of a static webapp.

• Create and connect to an Azure SQL DB in 6 easy steps (Davide Mauri) - Learn how to build an excellent Azure CLI script in this post. Sort and useful.

• Deploying Blazor WebAssembly applications to Azure Static Web Apps (Damir Arh) - Nice overview of the static webapp double with a tutorial to build a CI-CD using GitHub Action.

Programming

• The Magic of Docker Desktop is Now Available on Linux (Chris McLellan) - Wonderful, I believe that offering the same experience to your users independently of the platform is a sign of maturity.

• Configuring the Diagnostics Port for dotnet monitor (Mark Downie) - This post shares news about this monitoring tool that is as cross-plaforn as .NET is.

• Docker Extensions: Discover, Build & Integrate New Tools into Docker Desktop (Amy Bass) - This is really good. Now the entire community can add functionalities to the environment.

• DockerCon 2022: Community-powered, Developer-obsessed (Scott Johnston) - I watch the keynote and it was very interesting. Looking forward to see those demos

• How to run Kubernetes clusters locally on Windows - Simple Talk (Boemo Mmopelwa) - This tutorial goes over the functionalities of Kind. One of the two tools available to help us use Kubernetes locally. It looks simple and fun!

~frank

Reading Notes #505

Good Monday, Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, blog posts, and podcast episodes that catch my interest during the week.

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Application Insights telemetry in Azure Functions (Orestis Meikopoulos) - Application Insights is so powerful and just one click away! Learn more about it in this post.

• Azure Function with PowerShell and the Power BI REST API – SQLServerCentral (Koen Verbeeck) - This is a nice step-by-step tutorial to write an azure function. All important points to do and avoid are present just like the code.

• Just Give Me an Access Token (Phil Jirsa) - Nice video tutorial and code snippet to get all the access your API needs.

• Update Your Azure Functions Table Storage Bindings (Mark Heath) - Nice post. Upgrading can be frightening sometimes, even more, when you know there are breaking changes.

Programming

• Auto publish your data using Travis (Montana Mendy) - A super quick example of ci-cd with Travis.

• Build configuration for Azure Static Web Apps (craigshoemaker, anthonychu, Reshmi-Sriram, changeworld) - Continuous deployment is so powerful it is very useful to understand the options and how you can set your things together.

• Introduction to Testing Blazor WebAssembly With bUnit (Code Maze) - Wow! An incredibly complete tutorial about bUnit. It is the best lace to get started.

• Multiple Directories for Static Files in ASP.NET Core (Shawn Wildermuth) - Nice journey of an issue that in the end wasn't one. It's time to learn.

• Why isn't my ASP.NET Core app in Docker working? (Andrew Lock) - A very interesting post that describes the learning process while building and fixing a container.

Miscellaneous

• This Is The Most Fun Way To Make Your Life Awesome - Barking Up The Wrong Tree (Eric) - Nice excerpt from a book about communication, this part is couple focus.

~frank

Reading Notes #503

It's Monday, time to share my reading notes. Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest during the week and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I consumed.

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Quickstart: Container Apps using Bicep (Jason Haley) - Nice tutorial to get started with bicep and Azure Container Apps.

• Azure SDK Release (April 2022) - Always good to know what is updated. Did you know the team also maintains slides for you?

• Configure Azure Cosmos DB Continuous Backups (Rajendra Gupta) - Backup can be so powerful! You could return in time just before an error to understand what happens... Or so many other scenarios.

• Quickstart: Deploy an existing container image to Container Apps using Bicep (Jason Haley) - Great tutorial

• Unlock cloud savings on the fly with autoscale on Azure | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure (Diana Gao) - This is the perfect post to get started with autoscaling. Witch services what can you expect and more.

Programming

• Announcing Docker SBOM: A step towards more visibility into Docker images (Justin Cormack) - Oh, that's pretty cool! Easy to try. Give it a shot!

• How To Run PowerShell Scripts (Brien Posey) - A script can be frightening at first, but this nice post will help you to understand them better. Perfect for less technical people.

• Introducing Qodana for Azure Pipelines (Anastasia Khramushina) - Qodana is can analyze your code in CICD on many platforms, and now also in the Azure DevOps.

• Uploading Files with HttpClient in .NET 6 (Calvin) - Nice tutorial to upload a file all the code is there.

~Frank

Reading Notes #499

Good Monday, 

Monday means it's reading notes times. Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest during the week and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I consumed. 

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Suggestion of the week

• How to Separate Production, Test and Development Resources in Azure (John Kilmister) - Great post. It is an extremely frequent question, and I am happy to have now documentation to support the best practices.

Cloud

• Azure Apps Autopilot (Justin Yoo) - A great DevOps post that great an automatic deployment process. Very inspiring, I think I may is some of it for my AzUrlShortener.

Programming

• Automate code metrics and class diagrams with GitHub Actions (David Pine) - Very cool post and GitHub action. Will it come next weekend's little project to give it a try? I'll let you know.

• Blazor&Dragons! How to consume gRPC-web from Blazor – part 1: the client (David Guida) - A pretty cool first part of the tutorial. Who said learning cannot be fun.

• Windows Package Manager 1.2 (Demitrius Nelon) - I just try it and it works so well. This is good news and there are already so many packages available.

Podcasts

• Adam Shoalts On The Importance Of Solo Adventures In Life (What's Essential) - As I was listening to this episode I was thinking what an interesting guest. Adam Shoalts, explains a few anecdotes of his numerous expeditions, and how the essential it most of the time in the middle of them. Then at the end, I connected the dots! Adam Shoalts author of the book Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada's Arctic, I read that book :) and it's was part of the Reading Notes #460

• Headphones Vs. Earbuds Vs. AirPods: Which Is The Best Podcasting Audio Equipement? - (Feed Your Brand) - Really interesting episode about gears... And excellent timing, because yes I need some new ones.

• Entrepreneurship as a developer - (Software Engineering Unlocked) - WHat does it means to think at scale. I am not quite sure I would enjoy doing it his way, but it's definitely working.

~frank

Reading Notes #471

Cloud

• Lost in Azure cloud identity - part 1 (Daniel Krzyczkowski) - That looks very promising. A series of posts to learn more on Azure Active Directory.

• Building and auto-deploying an ASP.NET Core application (Imar Spaanjaars) - A nice step-by-step tutorial to build your own deployment.

  

• Localize your website with Microsoft Translator (Krishna Doss) - Really interesting services.

Programming

• Converting a 13 year old .NET WPF app called BabySmash to a self-contained .NET 5 app with the .NET Upgrade Assistant (Scott Hanselman) - This is interesting, I remember Babysmash! I need to check that stream to see that tool in action.

• Create a Windows 10 development virtual machine (Thomas Maurer) - Great tutorial to create a dev environment.So useful when we need to create a specific context or use a different version to investigate client issues.

• Visual Studio 2022 (Amanda Silver) - I'm always impressed by how new features are continuously added to VS. Such a great tool.

Miscellaneous

• Why you should never quit too early ... (Donn Felker) - An inspiring post to help us persevere and time is hard. But also to try to step aside and have an open mindset.

~frank

Reading Notes #456

The suggestion of the week

• Using the latest version of the Azure CLI (Gregor Suttie) - Whaaat! This is a master ninja tricks! Well, at the minimum it is freaking cool and useful. Awesome!

Cloud

• More with Gruut: Use the Microsoft Bot Framework to analyze emotion with the Azure Face API (Dave Brock) - This is a very complete tutorial to build a cool demo. Second in a series.
• 4 common analytics scenarios to build business agility | Azure blog and updates | Microsoft Azure (Kaiser Larsen) - Very interesting post that shares real-life scenarios where businesses used Synapse to create a great solution.

Programming

• Creating a Serverless Docker Image (Jason Robert) - A nice demo/ tutorial using Node.js to help us running things where we want.
• Entity Framework Core 5 free resources (Erik Ejlskov Jensen) - This is wonderful! A curated list of great EF documentation/ tutorials.
• Getting Started with Windows Terminal (Kayla Cinnamon) - Uh! I didn't know the preview version was also that easy to get. Pretty cool.
• Jump Start your Developer Skills with Visual Studio Code Coding Packs (Jen Looper) - So simple and yet so powerful! It's an awesome idea.
• How to Create a Continuous Integration Continuous Deployment (CI-CD) Solution for a Docker Project (Frank Boucher) - Shameless plug. It's a simple solution, but I'm pretty proud of it and it does the job marvelously.

Podcasts

• Épisode 84 - Le bonheur de s’entraîner (Grand écart) - I'm not a runner, but I like (or use to) move and be outside. This francophone podcast is really motivating, and interesting.
• Eating Frogs with Brian Tracy (The Productivityist Podcast) - I just found this podcast. I liked that book when I read it a few years ago. It was nice listening to this episode talking about it. Brought back great ideas.
• Épisode 5 - La Chasse aux Sorcières (Les Pires Moments de l'Histoire) - Okay, THIS IS A MUST. Seriously is yo understand French, it's both educational and funny. Great job!
• 2020 sucked - A year-end wrap-up with Scott's Wife, Mo (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - I'm so glad Mo accepted to comes on the show once more. This dynamic is very interesting. I need to make my wife listen to this episode and to my daughter too (she studying to be a nurse).
• 628 - How to Be Confident, Not Arrogant (Modern Mentor) - The line between those two is easy to cross. I appreciated the reflection time about it, that this episode offers.
• The Infinite Game with Dr. James Carse (A Bit of Optimism) - The Infinite Game, a great book that I read last year. It was awesome to listen to Simon talk about those ideas with Dr. Carse.
• #187 – Building a $38k/Month SaaS Business as a Solo Founder with Jorda O'Connor of Closet Tools (Indie Hackers) - When you like learning, and that you are not afraid to work hard, a little idea can bring you really far.
• 0251 – Joel Quimper – Microsoft Graph (Visual Studio Talk Show) - Why Microsoft Graph? It's all in this episode (in French). Great show once more.

Miscellaneous

• Attention Matters More than Time (Josh Duffney) - So true. The balance is hard to find, but let's keep trying to be better at it.
• What’s New in Microsoft Teams | December 2020 - Wow, a very impressive list of new features. I'm looking forward to testing a few of them.

~Frank

Reading Notes #448

Cloud

• When, Why and How to Use Azure Key Vault (Paul F. Wood) - A nice tutorial that explains how to setup a keyvaul to use in our pipeline.

Programming

• Develop Secure Apps with WebSockets and Node.js (Nickolas Fisher) - An interesting post that guides us and gives us all the code to build a chatroom using WebSockets and Nodejs.
• Distro installation added to WSL --install in Windows 10 insiders preview build 20246 ( Craig Loewen) - Wsl is a very nice tool, looking forward for that installer.
• How to: Choose Which Advanced Installer Azure DevOps Task You Need? (Ciprian Burca) - A quick intro to powerful tools.
• Setting Up Cloud Deployments Using Docker, Azure and Github Actions (Ben De St Paer-Gotch) - Part two of building a nice Containerized deployment environment.

Miscellaneous

• 15+ Chrome extensions you should have in your pocket. (Jane Tracy) - A nice list of extensions. I have a few of them already. It's Always hard to find the balance between all the ones that are great and what you really need.
• Getting started with DevOps automation ( Jared Murrell) - A greatt post that describe all the pieces of DevOps. What is means and how it could be uses.

Podcasts

• Getting Guests To Share Your Podcast Show (Feed Your Brand) - Nice episode focus on how to get guests, how to work with them/ for them to grow. Very interesting.
• Episode 11 - DevOps Rockstar Abel Wang Talks Azure DevOps (AzureABILITY Podcast) - First time listening to this podcast... Great show loved it!
• YouTube Channel Art Ultimate Guide (Your Thriving Side Hustle) - I really go show. I was just thinking about that in fact, the timing was excellent! Very interesting..
• How to Get More Traffic and Exposure for Your Brand with Brittney Lynn (SPI Podcast) - Interesting topics. I agree with what Pat... She made look like it's easy, but it's a lot of work.

Reading Notes #404

Every week, I publish my reading notes. Those are the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I was looking for.

Cloud

• Azure Mystery Mansion - Microsoft in Business Blogs (Em Lazer-Walker) - Very interesting post. As I'm writing myself a text-based adventure game(just for fun) it's interesting to see the different approaches and tools available.

• Azure DevOps Hidden Gems #8 - Turn Azure Board Queries into Dashboard Chart Items (Graham Smith) - Useful and simple tutorial to build great dashboards in Azure Devops.

Programming

• Updating an ASP.NET Core 2.2 Web Site to .NET Core 3.1 LTS (Scott Hanselman) - Great tutorial that shows us a few things to check when migrating... Because of its time.

Podcasts

• Stream Coach - How hard should you HUSTLE with Sara Dietschy - Twitch Tips and Advice (Ashnichrist) - Two very smart women Sara and Ashnichrist discuss about that "luck"... that is is in fact hard work. An excellent episode, very motivating. Looking forward to your the next episode on both podcasts.

~

Reading Notes #401

Cloud

• Run Azure Cloud Shell in Windows Admin Center (Thomas Maurer) - Nice tutorial and demo video to enable Cloud Shell.
• Serverless HTTP With Durable Functions ( Jeremy Likness) - Great post that shows, with code examples, the new functionalities for the Durable Functions.

Programming

• ASP.NET Core 3.0 MVC Secure Authentication | Okta Developer (Lee Brandt) - Nice tutorial to add authentication to an existing .Net Core App.
• Custom Terminals and User Interface (UI) in Windows Terminal (Jeremy Likness) - Learn how to get and customize your Windows Terminal in this quick post.
• GitHub Actions for Azure is now generally available (Usha Narayanabhatta) - Fantastic news..and perfect timing... At least for me!
• GitHub Learning Path (Premier Developer) - Nice source of info to get started or... Get better.
• What is Blazor? A Tutorial on Building Web Apps with Authentication (Andrea Chiarelli) - Great article that describes in detail how to create a simple blazor app with authentification.

Miscellaneous

• Easily move WSL distributions between Windows 10 machines with import and export! (Scott Hanselman) - First I was Whaaat!? Very simple yet useful feature no need now do redo all your customization on all your computer...just export and import.

Reading Notes #371

Cloud

• How to query Azure resources using the Azure CLI (Neil Peterson) - Nice post that gives a few tips and tricks about how to query Azure resources with Az.
• Setting up Jenkins X on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) (Chee Chan) - A very simple tutorial that explains how to install and get started with JenkinsX with Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)

Programming

• Using npm's ls command for Fun and Insight (Tierney Cyren) - A useful discovery about a node.js command and how to use it in our different environments.
• Intro to web programming in Rust for NodeJS developers (Bastian Gruber) - Jump aboard this new promising series to learn Rust...

Miscellaneous

• How do You Structure Your Code When Moving Your API from Express to Serverless Functions? (John Papa) - When structured the code is always better. A nice post that explains just that with serverless.

Does the Azure DevOps projects are worth it?

Imagine you just arrived at the office. You only took a sip or two of your coffee or tea. You look at the tasks that need to be done today (well yesterday based on the request): a new project is starting, and you need to configure everything the team needs to start building that web application. The need a repository, a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, a place to deploy, monitoring tools, and of course you need to create an environment where they will be able to track their work. Should you panic? No, because you will use the new Azure DevOps Project available in Azure.

Let's Create the project

From the Azure portal (portal.azure.com) click on the plus button and search for "devops". Select DevOps Project, then click on the Create button. Then follow the five steps and Azure will create everything for you.

What is deployed

• Your application from many popular frameworks
• Automatic full CI/CD pipeline integration
• Monitoring with Application Insights
• Git Repository
• Tasks/ Bugs tracking board
• Deployment to the platform of your choice

In Video please!

Conclusion

The DevOps projects are really fantastic and are very useful. The fact that everything is all packaged together and automatically deployed is a considerable time saver. In short, are the Azure DevOps projects worth it? Oh yeah!