Reading Notes #699

This week's reading notes bring you the latest insights into AI, .NET, open-source development, and even a few social hacks! From exploring background tasks in Blazor to the fascinating debate on Markdown vs. HTML for AI output, this roundup has something for everyone.

Let me know if you find anything particularly interesting; I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Programming

• Running background tasks in Blazor with Web Workers: Exploring the .NET 11 preview - Part 1 (Andrew Lock) - This web worker role looks promising. This post explains the what, why, and how.

• NuGet Package Pruning: Cleaner Dependencies and Actionable Vulnerability Reports - .NET Blog (Nikolche Kolev) - This post explains one feature that is now turned on by default in .NET that will improve our dependency graph.

AI

• Anthropic Engineer Debates Use of Markdown vs. HTML in AI Agent Output (Paul Thurrott) - Interesting debate. Initially, I was hell no! But the more I think about it, the less certain I am. But we can always ask to generate HTML, so I guess it's okay to keep it lighter and more minimalist by default.

• Using Azure Local Foundry CLI with PowerShell (Olivier Miossec) - A nice short tutorial to get local AI.

Open Source

• GitHub for Beginners: Getting started with OSS contributions (Kedasha Kerr) - Short tutorial that provides tips to find a project and start your first contribution

Podcasts

• 513: Agents Over Chat: The Future of Developer Workflows (Merge Conflict) - James and Frank discuss token optimization, model choices, and the workflow; do you make one master big plan or do you do multiple passes...

• How to Stop Being Socially Awkward (According to Science) with Behavioral Scientist Vanessa Van Edwards (A Bit of Optimism) - I really appreciated this episode, and I wish many others would find it. It's packed with little gems that will make you feel better.

Miscellaneous

• If You Didn't Capture It, Did It Really Happen? (Golnaz Alibeigi) - Will people attend an in-person event if it's available online? That's what this post answers.

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. 

 ~frank

Reading Notes #555

It is time to share new reading notes. It 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 think you may have interesting content, share it!

 

The suggestion of the week

• How to Contribute to Open Source without Knowing How to Code: A guide with project suggestions (Bekah) - Yas! This is so true! Many of the contributions in my projects aren't code and each time that really helped. Correcting a single typo is useful!

Programming

• Docker Desktop 4.19: Compose v2, the Moby project, and more ( Sylvialynn Favello) - Compose v2 is here time to move up!

• Blazor Basics: What is Blazor? (Claudio Bernasconi ) - You would like to build a Single Page Application (spa) but are unfamiliar with Blazor? This post is an excellent place to get started before doing your first "hello world" app.

• Docker Init: Initialize Dockerfiles and Compose files with a single CLI command (Marc Sherwood, Nuno Coracao) - That's a very useful new command! And there is a demo video to see it in action.

Databases

• Database 101: How social media “likes” are stored in a database (Daniel Reis) - Great share! What ever using ScyllaDB or something else thinking about how your data will be queried is always good.

Podcasts

• 5 strategies for managing your manager (Modern Mentor) -
• Failing Intelligence () - An interesting discussion about AI and it's potential impact to our society.
• 192. Increase Productivity in the Workplace (Effortless Work Series) (The Greg McKeown Podcast) - Who's not thinking about productivity or being pushed to be more productive? I think all of us. In the episode, Greg revisits the core ideas of doing it but effortlessly.

Miscellaneous

• Getting started with Microsoft Learn (Johan Myburgh) - Lear has grown to such a complete and diversified source of information. It's definitely a must to learn new stuff!

• How do we get a tech team to make a big technical change? (Chelsea Troy) - A deep reflection on how to approach the changes and a very well-explained context on why it would or wouldn't work.Nice post.

• The 15-Minute Meeting: Change Your Workday, Change Your Life (Donn Felker) - I like the idea of shorter meetings, it's true that some could be shorter.

~frank