Reading Notes #675

Here’s a compact roundup of links and highlights I found interesting this week. You’ll find updates on Git, Chrome DevTools tips, C# 14 and .NET 10 coverage, Blazor upgrade notes, a practical Copilot + Visual Studio guide, plus a few useful tools and AI announcements. Enjoy, and tell me which item you want me to explore next.

AI

• Building for an Open Future - our new partnership with Google Cloud (Jeff Boudier, Simon Pagezy) - Cool 😎 news! Let's see what we can do...
• Check-In Doc MCP Server: A Handy Way to Search Only the Docs You Trust (Frank Boucher) - Cool little project. It's already done you just have to add it. It let Copilot (or agent) search in your favorite documentation website for you!

Programming

• Highlights from Git 2.52 (Taylor Blau) - I'm probably repeating myself, but I'm so surprised how little I know this fantastic tool. This post shares the last update, it's all very impressive.

• Six Things I Bet You Didn't Know You Could Do With Chrome's Devtools, Part 1 (Rachel Kaufman) - As most of my projects are web this post was very interesting. I'm looking forward for part two

• Introducing C# 14 - .NET Blog (Bill Wagner) - You would think that at version 14, there's not much to add or change? Well you couldn't be more wrong be prepared for a long and detailed post.

• Blazor and .NET 10: Breaking Changes, Fixes, and New Features (Simon Foster) - There's always a little risk when you're upgrading to a new version. Of course, .NET 10 could bring some... In this post, the author shares a problem had and the link where he found the breaking changes good read

• A step-by-step guide to modernizing .NET applications with GitHub Copilot agent mode - .NET Blog (Mika Dumont) - A great integration of Visual Studio and Copilot to help you upgrade or modernize your application. This post is a nice tutorial.

• Release v3.2.0 · basecamp/omarchy (basecamp team) - Nice! A lot of fixes and some nice new features: Ghostty new default (I was already using it), new key bindings (looking forward to try the workspace-related ones), and a new project named: try... Ooh! I love it!

Miscellaneous

• ZoomIt v9.21 | Microsoft Community Hub (Alex Mihaiuc) - If you are on Windows, please do you do yourself a favour and try Zoom it. Since I switched to Mac and Linux, it's the thing that I miss the most.

Reading Notes #672

Welcome to this week's reading notes! We're exploring topics that might seem refreshingly old-school at first, developer experience improvements, cross-platform packaging, logging strategies, and even podcast succession planning. You know, the kind of practical stuff that actually keeps our projects running. Though I should mention there's a conversation about local AI models tucked in there too, because apparently it's still 2025. Sometimes the best way forward is making sure our foundations are solid.

Programming

• How to Improve Developer Experience in Microservices Applications with .NET Aspire (Opaluwa Emidowojo) - Of course, there's a name for what the net aspire resolved. I never thought about it that way, but it makes total sense. By the way, Aspire is fantastic.

• Automating Away Cross-Platform Packaging Complexity for .NET Developers ( Uno Platform Team) - UNO platform can be packaged, for free, for all platforms. That's very convenient and easy to use it looks like.

• Define a default startup project in your slnx file - A simple fix for a painful problem when using slnx solution is now fixed.

Databases

• Add request logging to a database in an ASP.NET Core Web API (David Grace) - This is a nice tutorial showing step-by-step how to add and configure it

Podcasts

• 482: 1 Day Apps (Merge Conflict) - My first thought was 1 Day? yeah right! lol Cool episode sharing their journey with those building those types of apps.

• Local AI Models with Joe Finney (.NET Rocks!) - Nice episode chatting about local AI. Why would you do that, what are your options yadi yada.

• Rob Lowe Names Names: The Power of ‘Screw It’ (A Bit of Optimism) - Fun episode. Feels like a variation on how to not give it a sh!t theme, but it's always good to get reminded.

• Podcast Succession Planning: What Happens To Your Show When You're Dead? (Feed Your Brand) - This is a great episode! Yes things move fast from time to time, right ;)

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 #659

This week's reading notes cover a variety of insightful topics, from enhancing your development environment with dev containers on Windows to prioritizing open-source bugs effectively. You'll also find helpful posts on integrating MFA into your login process, exploring RavenDB's vector search capabilities, and understanding the differences between Ask Mode and Agent Mode in Visual Studio.

Happy reading!

A wild turkey in my driveway!?

Suggestion of the week

• Supercharge Your Dev Containers on Windows (Mike Evans-Larah) - A great simple tip that can improve your experience while developing.

Databases

• Using Vector Search for Posts Recommendations (Oren Eini) - Cool demo using Raven DB

Programming

• Why You Should Incorporate MFA into Your Login Process (Suzanne Scacca) - You think the answer is simple, think again. Nice post that explains the difference between 2FA and MFA and why you should or should not implement one of those

• Aspire Dashboard (Joseph Guadagno) - Great deep dive about the Aspire dashboard, learn all the features packed inside it

Open Source

• How I Prioritize OSS Bugs (jeremydmiller) - A very instructive post on a real-life issue. It's harder than people think to prioritize. And it may help you write better bug reports...

AI

• Ask Mode vs Agent Mode - Choosing the Right Copilot Experience for .NET ( Wendy Breiding) - Still not sure what mode to pick in VSCode? Here is a quick post to clarify the options.

• MCP server integration in Visual Studio (Mark Downie) - Great update! That security stuff is very important and a good example using get up to store your tokens love it

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 #639

Welcome to Reading Notes #639, a curated selection of intriguing articles across programming, AI, cloud computing, and more. Dive into new productivity features in Visual Studio, the latest front-end development trends, .NET AI evaluations, and essential learning techniques. 

Grab your coffee and enjoy the read!

Cloud

• Some observations while writing my first Azure Function (Tim Deschryver) - I really like those types of posts where we follow the journey of the author going through learning or completing tasks.

Programming

• Great new productivity features in Visual Studio - Visual Studio Blog (Mads Kristensen) - Wow, there are so many cool features! I personally love the new line wrap and horizontal scroll bar—little details that make a big difference.

• Is this the next step in the evolution of front end dev? (Salma Alam-Naylor) - I never used those frameworks, but I'm curious now and will have to try.

• What are Custom Integrations in .NET Aspire? (Kalle Marjokorpi) - This second post in a series shows how to configure the identity server name Curity. It's implemented in a .NET Aspire solution and looks very well structured.

AI

• Unlock new possibilities for AI Evaluations for .NET - .NET Blog (Wendy Breiding (SHE/HER)) - That looks like a cool plugin for Azure DevOps Pipeline

• Announcing new models, customization tools, and enterprise agent upgrades in Azure AI Foundry | Microsoft Azure Blog (Asha Sharma) - So many models and plenty of new features, that's a great update!

Miscellaneous

• 5 Learning techniques you should know (Marco Siccardi) - Learning how to learn is a concept that in underrated. This post shares 5 accessible tips with big impact.

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 #637

In this edition of my Reading Notes, I've curated some fascinating content that spans across programming, creativity, and enlightening podcasts. Whether you're eager to enhance your coding skills, explore unique ideas, or stay updated with the latest in the tech world, there's something here for everyone. 

Dive in and enjoy these insightful reads and discussions!

Programming

• New Features for Enhanced Razor Productivity! (Leslie Richardson) - I love the new component feature that's one that I will use over and over for sure.

• Abstract vs Interface: Deep dive (Serhii Korol) - You probably know the difference between those two just like me, but do you know how the code is interpreted that's very interesting.

• Riverdam - Feature Gates Finally Made Easy (David Guida) - A cool tool to ease development. This new project definitely looked interesting.

• 11 Must Read Software Design and Architecture Books for Developers (Soma) - I like books. It's a great way to go deeper about a topic at your own pace and when you want. This post has great recommendations, and I really enjoy the authenticity in the comments.

Podcasts

• Static Websites in 2025 with Stacy Cashmore (.NET Rocks!) - It was nice listening to the discussion with Stacy about how are Azure Static Websites are evolving.

Miscellaneous

• Typing tests were boring, so i built TypeTheLyrics. (Arjun Vijay Prakash) - Cool idea! It's true that music always has a big impact on everything.

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 #631

Welcome to this week's roundup! I'm excited to share some standout blog posts and podcasts that caught my attention. Enjoy exploring the latest updates, tips, and insights!

Suggestion of the week

• azd CDN changing January 2025 (Kristen Womack) - Important note, that will probably impact many of you, like I was. Luckily the fix is very simple
  
  
  

Programming

• 13 Visual Studio 2022 Tips & Tricks - There is always at one I don't know in that kind of post. Love it!

• .NET Aspire Quick Tip - Managing Container & Data Lifetime - .NET Blog (James Montemagno) - Very useful post that shows examples of more settings and explains why and how we would like more control over our containers.

AI

• AI Killed the Content Creator...Star 🤩 (Kirupa) - Interesting observation. The artificial intelligence is impacting all processes and changes the way we interact with the world. Will I kill it or change it?

Podcasts

• 438: Jon Galloway - From Submarine Office to Software Developer (Merge Conflict) - Super interesting episode about Jon. I learn more in those minutes than in all the time I've been working with him! But at the same time, a Teams call is not "the place" to share about Submarine stuff I guess ;)

• .NET Aspire with Anthony Simmon (Hanselminutes) - Interesting episode about .NET Aspire by someone who is using it in his day to day and have been extending it. Great conversation, very interesting.

Miscellaneous

• How Microsoft can turn Windows PCs into an Xbox (Tom Warren) - That's exciting! So we could get Windows on more of those portable devices (aka handheld)

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 

~frank

Reading Notes #626

Kick off your week with this curated list of must-read tech articles. From .NET modernisation patterns and new C# 13 LINQ methods to open-source contributions and thought-provoking reads, there's plenty to explore. 

Enjoy!

Programming

• Microsoft Introduces Modern Web App Pattern for .NET: Accelerating App Modernization to the Cloud (Almir Vuk) - This is a nice post that overviews pattern that Microsoft suggest to use.

• New LINQ methods in C# 13: Index, CountBy, AggregateBy (Tim Deschryver) - Simple and efficient post that shows new command coming up in C#13.

• The Legacy Coder's Guide to .NET Conf 2024 (DeeDee Walsh) - .Net Conf is coming up and how doesn't like some suggestions about wish sessions? This will be a great event for new and experienced developers.

• .NET Upgrade Assistant Now Supports Upgrading to Centralized Package Mangement (McKenna Barlow) - Cool tool that become even better I just wish you had an option to run it from let's say Linux

Open-Source

• .NET MAUI Welcomes Syncfusion Open-source Contributions (David Ortinau) - This is a really exciting news! Very happy to see a great company like Syncfusion investing in Open source like this.

Miscellaneous

• Why Don’t You Fucking Retire Already? (James Whittaker) - Food for thoughts no doubt. It's still a delight to read you sir Whittaker.

• Microsoft Tech Community: Upgrade complete (Allie Thompson) - It was time. I didn't dig too much and looking forward to experience the new features as a writer but also as a reader.

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 #624

Dive into this week's fascinating mix of tech insights, troubleshooting tales, and productivity tips. From the latest in Azure Dev tools to real-world debugging adventures and cutting-edge .NET innovations, there's something for everyone.

Happy reading!

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) – October 2024 (Grace Kulin) - Quick post to share about the most recent features like customizing our API version when deploying our containers.

Programming

• Webcam randomly pausing in OBS, Discord, and websites - LSVCam and TikTok Studio (Scott Hanselman) - Weird technical issues are so unpleasant and it's worse when I imply an external devices.Is it a driver, the cable, some software.. In this post Scott shares about how he investigated and found a workaround.

• 3 more productivity tips for .NET developers (mtmattei) - Interesting tips to be and stay productive by different people.

• How we build GitHub Copilot into Visual Studio (Anson Horton) - It is so interesting to read how things happens and the different interactions. If you use vs code or Visual Studio, you should read this article.

• Introducing the New .NET MAUI Kanban Board (Saravanan Madheswaran) - I'm always impressed when I see components build be third parties. The quality, the customization, the look... It's a lot of work make one in your app with half the features; wow.

Podcast

• Microsoft Playwright Testing with Debbie O'Brien (.NET Rocks!) - Great tool to help making tests on our websites. It's open source and now support .NET.

• Inspektor Gadget (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - THe first time I heard about Inspektor Gadget was in an episode of Open at Microsoft. I don't use much Kubernetes, but that will be part of my toolbox when I do. Great security, troubleshooting, and observability utility.

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 #619

It's reading notes time! 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. 

You also read something you liked? Share it!

Suggestion of the week

• Easily dock and float tool windows (Mads Kristensen) - Oh my! One of the best post I read since a long time. It cannot me more accurate, funny, nor useful.

Programming

• DevOps for Beginners: A Complete Roadmap to Get Started (Harshhaa Vardhan Reddy) - This post is a really good overview of DevOps. If your are interested to he topic but don't know where to start,that one is for you.

• How to Build Frontend Apps 10x Faster (Anmol Baranwal) - An interesting tools that you install that act as middle man and helps while developing and testing.

• Switch Branches in Git Without Losing Your Work (Asad Bukhari) - Quick little tip to save time with Git.

• Incorporate GitHub Copilot into your daily flow (Rhea,Sinem,Mika) - Copilot go more accessible!This post summarizes how Copilot will be easier to use with suggested code. That's a good example of product feedback well used, everybody wins!

• 5 Must-Have NuGet Packages for .NET Developers: Elevate Your Code! (Ken Fedorov) - Nice post that shares indeed useful packages.

• GitHub Models and .NET: Building Generative AI apps for engineers (April Yoho) - Very easy to use and accessible, those AI models are perfect for developers. GitHub successfully removed many blockers that aloud a fast onboarding experience.

• Semantic Kernel - Multi agent systems (Bart Wullems) - Nice quick post with a lot of to code to helps understand the concept.

~Frank

Reading Notes #593

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!

Cloud

• Azure Functions Extensibility - Runtime Scaling (Tomasz Pęczek) - A well written post that goes in the details.Perfect to really understand how things works.

Programming

• 5 Powerful HTML Attributes That Don't Require JavaScript (Ashish Patel) - Wow! I didn't even known that most of those attributes existed..

• Docker Init for ASP.NET Core Compared to VS or VS Code Extensions (Julie Lerman) - awesome comparison! I've been thinking about doing it for a little while. Another great post from Julie.

• Blazor and .NET 8: How I Built a Fast and Flexible Website (Jeffrey T. Fritz) - optimisation is often a step that people forgets, but it's one that is extremely rewarding.This series seams very interesting, we will s| more of those in the notes...

• Warp, the modern terminal, is now available for Linux (Aloke Desai, David Stern) - I didn't heard of that terminal before. It looks interesting! Looking forward to try it.

• Using Visual Studio Code for .NET MAUI Development (Vijay Anand) - it's incredible the progress that was done in such little time I'm looking forward to try it.

• The FAST and the Fluent: A Blazor story - .NET Blog (Vincent Baaij) - Nice post that teach us a bit of history. I'm fan of Fluent UI and Blazor...and more recently of the Fluent UI Blazor library. I think it's a must for all Blazor developers.

• GraphQL vs. REST—Which is Better for API Design? (Hassan Djirdeh) - Pretty cool comparison of different type/design of APIs.

Miscellaneous

• Windows AI Studio : Getting Started ( Shreyan Fernandes) - Nice tools the works locally. I'm installing it, will you?

~Frank

Reading Notes #591

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!

Suggestion of the week

• Make demo typing easy with DemoType in ZoomIt v8.0 (John Stephens) - This is such a game changer! Of course live demo are the best but losing precious secondes because of a typo is a real nightmare.

Cloud

• Planning for Resiliency with Azure OpenAI (Matthew Anderson) - Like everything else in the cloud we need to think about resiliency. This nice post get us started and explains 2 different architectures for our system.

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - February 2024 Release (Grace Kulin) - Cool feature now supported in this new release with helm support for kubernetes and many other features.

Programming

• The Difference Between RESTful APIs and Web APIs Using ASP.NET Core (Januarius Njoku) - A very complete post about APIs their definition and differences.

• Scaling Docker Compose Up (Milas Bowman) - Interesting post that do a deep dive into docker compose file.

• Our Vision for .NET 9 - .NET Blog (.NET Team) - Inspiring plan for the future release of .Net.

• My Top 10 NEW Visual Studio Features of 2023 for .NET Developers - .NET Blog (James Montemagno) - I don't code everyday and when I do it's on all kind of device and OS so I end up more often using VS Code. But, when I can use Visual Studio it's always a treat. In this post, James shares his favorite new features part of that great IDE. Those are only the recent ones, there are so much more!

• Scaling Docker Compose Up (Milas Bowman) - Interesting post that do a deep dive into docker compose file.

• 8 ways to set the URLs for an ASP.NET Core app (Andrew Lock) - What!? So many different ways to assign the url.

~ Frank

Reading Notes #590

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!

Cloud

• Observability on Azure Container Apps (Abdullah Abu-Hassan) - Great post to get started. We can download all the code required to try it ourself.

• WTH is Azure Copilot? (Sam Cogan) - I believe this copilot will be extremely useful for so many people... including me.

Programming

• Solved! Visual Studio .http File Not Sending Authorization Header (Steve Smith) - The devil is in the details as they say. Great post that shares the investigation of an issues. A time saver.

• Should I put my Blazor components in the server project, or the client project? (Jon Hilton) - Short and clear explanation of the blazor structure, very helpful post.

• How to Make Your Web Sites Accessible (Beau Carnes) - Accessibility is a must and now there a course available on camp to help us making our website accessible.

• What's new for the Microsoft Fluent UI Blazor components 4.4 (Vincent Baaij) - Nice new components. Its going fast!

• Dev Tunnels: A Game Changer for Mobile Developers - .NET Blog (James Montemagno) - Dev Tunnel is definitely a incredible tool.I used it for debugging connector in Power Platform and there is no doubts it will help with mobile app...No more guesses debug with the real thing.

Miscellaneous

• Introducing Sudo for Windows! (Jordi Adoumie) - Wow! This is a really good new feature. How many time a forgot to start my terminal as admin and needed to starry over again...Looking forward to try it.

~Frank

Reading Notes #581

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!

Suggestion of the week

• ASP.NET Core Basics: Essential NuGet Packages (Part 1) (Assis Zang) - Great idea this post! Those five packages are definitely very useful, and I like that they are not just mentioned but also explained and implemented in the demo solution.

Programming

• Announcing .NET 8 - .NET Blog (Gaurav Seth) - Tons of update with as many videos. Enough to satiate everyone.

• Entity Framework Core 8 (EF8) is available today - .NET Blog (Arthur Vickers) - Of course the Entity framework update to follow .NET of course.

• Get ready for .NET Conf, Microsoft Ignite, and GitHub Universe (Matt Graven) - So many events and news packed in a single month. This post helps to do an overview so help us make an ideas.

• Connect to localhost from inside a dev container (Jim Bennett) - Interesting... I thought Dapr was the easiest but the solution presented in this post could be a easier workaround, at lease while coding/ testing it.

• Fake It Til You Make It...To Production - .NET Blog (Martin Taillefer) - This post shows 3 pretty useful fake/mock included in .NET 8: Logger, Clock, and Metric.

• Building debugging context for Copilot Chat (Mark Downie) - Cool extension for Visual Studio.

• Announcing .NET Chiseled Containers - .NET Blog (Richard Lander) - The new image are available.Yay

Databases

• Importing Flat Files into Azure SQL DB (Josephine Bush) - Omg! That makes Azure Data Studio the easiest and low friction tool to import data from a flat file into a Ms SQL database

Miscellaneous

• OpenAI drama is over. (Kim Menikh) - Well.I was curious.I didn't follow all of it.

~Frank

Reading Notes #569

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!

Cloud

• Stream videos from Azure Blob storage with ASP.NET Core (Mark Heath) - A great end-to-end tutorial leveraging cost-efficient Azure resources.

• Using ETags and Patching Rows in Azure Table Storage (Mark Heath) - Nice post that shows us simply and quickly how to manage conflicts when using Azure Table Storage.

Programming

• Speed up Visual Studio load times with Microsoft Dev Box (Greg Denton) - Woooo! Speed... From our Visual Studio that runs locally or remote via DevBox, awesome.

• Adding a “share to mastodon” link to any web site – and here (Christian Heilmann) - I didn't think about it but it's true that there are many different URLs with Mastodon... This post shares the code for one of the solutions to solve this issue.

Miscellaneous

• Unleash Your Inner Entrepreneur with MS FounderHub: AI-Based Startups with Azure OpenAI Services (Lee Stott) - Motivating post to do something. So many have great ideas and just sit on it... With today's technology, many blockers can be removed...

~ Frank

Reading Notes #565

It's 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!

Cloud

• Adding Application Insights Logging to an ASP.NET app using the .NET SDK (David Giard) - This is a quick tutorial to get us started. Let's get control of our data.

Programming

• Required Parameters in Blazor WebAssembly (Code Maze) - This is a very well-explained post. How to use features added in .NET 6 to make our application reliable.

• What does Azure AD renamed Microsoft Entra ID mean for .NET developers? - .NET Blog (Jeremy Likness) - Learn more about the Identity. This post also includes other links to learn more about it.

• Shell integration in the Windows Terminal (Mike Griese) - Its very interesting to read the upcoming features and understand how these things will works.

• What Are HTTP Headers? | Postman Blog (The Postman Team) - This is a great post about headers. Used by everyone known by developers involve in API, they are the key of a clear communication.

• Introducing a powerful new Extension Manager - Visual Studio Blog (Maia Kelner) - Looking forward to trying this redesigned manager!

• Introducing TypeChat (Anders Hejlsberg, Steve Lucco, Daniel Rosenwasser, Pierce Boggan, Umesh Madan, Mike Hopcroft, and Gayathri Chandrasekaran) - That looks like a pretty cool package to add to our apps!

Data

• Azure Data Studio Schema Compare Extension (Josephine) - There is an extension for everything ...almost. I love that we can customize our tools the way we like.

Low Code

• How To Build Responsive Power Apps Forms From Scratch (Matthew Devaney) - Build an App quickly, that's nice. But make that App look great on any screen, now your talking! This is very detailed and complete example that helps us build our first responsive App.

Podcast

• Who are the Ops Behind the DevRel Curtain? (Ep 80) (Community Pulse) - Interesting episode about DevRel and more particularly two who are doing less visible work. Helping those who are helping... And a tiny bit about bread! Yell done, David!

• 60. How security is everywhere & the balance between legislation and innovation - with Scott Helme (Betatalks the podcast) - An episode about security of course but also tech, cars, coffee, and question like does your oven should really have internet access?

Miscellaneous

• Blazor Basics: Data Binding in Blazor (Claudio Bernasconi) - Nice post that explains the little particularity of those bindings. It could save you a lot of time.

~Frank

Reading Notes #561

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 use GitHub Copilot: Prompts, tips, and use cases (Rizel Scarlett, Michelle Mannering) - A very helpful post that helps thinking how to communicate efficiently with Copilot, by breaking down our instructions and being more specific.

Programming

• Step-by-Step Guide: Testing HTTP Endpoints in Visual Studio 2022 Using Endpoints Explorer (Andy) - So many new API related features these days in VS. This post shows you some of them.
• Learn how to mock your HttpClient in C# now with 2 simple methods (Henrique) - Nice post that explains how to Mock these HTtp calls... Because unit tests are important and APIs are everywhere it's a must!
• Docker Desktop and Windows – what’s the best option for you? (Vinicius Apolinario) - I didn't know there was such a difference between those two! I mean I get it but I'm still surprised by the differences. This is a very instructive post.
• Azure App Configuration and .NET API: a smart and secure way to manage configurations (Davide Bellone) - This is a nice tutorial that shares best security practices.
• Introducing the New T4 Command-Line Tool for .NET - .NET Blog (Mike Corsaro) - Feels like ages since I used T4... Happy to see that this powerful tool is still around and even more, updating.

Low Code

• Exploring the Power of AI Builder: Empowering Students and Educators (Lee Stott) - Why should you be interested in AI Builder and where to find it. This is what that post is about.
• Integrating Microsoft Sentinel and Power Platform to better monitor and protect your low-code solutions (Simran Kaur) - Currently only available in preview this solution will definitely help enterprises to manage their Power Platform more securely.

Miscellaneous

• Introducing the Microsoft Store channel on Discord - #ifdef Windows (Sergio Pedri) - Nice news. There is now a place to talk about the store.
• 9 Steps to Master the Keyboard and Become an Ultra Efficient Software Developer (Michael Shpilt) - Short post that gives a few ideas on how to use more efficiently your keyboard and enjoy it.

~Frank

Reading Notes #554

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!

Cloud

• Migrate ASP.NET Web App to Azure App Service (Justin Yoo) - This great post shows and explains the very few changes suggested to migrate our .NET website into Azure.

Programming

• Minimal API growing with .NET 7 (Christian Nagel) - Ooh! That looks really nice! I will need to play around a little with it to fully appreciate all and I have just the right project for it.

• Visual Studio–Generate C# client for OpenAPI (Bart Wullems) - Interesting post that explains what is happening behind the scene of the OpenAPI client generator.

• Web API development in Visual Studio 2022 - Visual Studio Blog (Sayed Ibrahim) - Wow! You have the choice of that super detailed post with all the new features to help us be fantastic at creating APIs or also included in the post the video with a similar overview.

Podcast

• Episode 172: Maintainer Month 2023 with Sarah Boyce & David Blass (Sustain) - Special double episode for the Maintainer Month.
• Donovan Brown is Retiring - Episode 242 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Whatever Donovan is talking about you can feel his passion. Extremely interesting episode. Enjoy your new challenge sir!
• 356: Sunsetting software, libraries, & APIs (Merge Conflict) - You build stuff? Great, but what do you do after, when do you know when it is time to retire an API or a service? James & Frank might not have all the responses, but they definitely feel the problem.
• 56. Building Drabble.social using Azure PaaS - Bram de Buyser (Betatalks the podcast) - Great episode! What a challenge. It takes only a few seconds to create an account ;)
• Can You Really Convert Podcast Fans Into Active Subscribers? (Feed Your Brand) - So many great tips in this episode. By looking at the type of email I receive... many should listen to it.
• Creating Walkable Cities with Nathan Allebach (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - What do you think when you read walkable? Was it what was discussed in this episode? Strange how something great ideas are derailed without any bad intentions.

LowCode

• Master Power Apps Do Until Loops for Efficient Workflow Management (and Unleash Your Inner Nerd) 🤓 (Shane Young) - Funny and educational tutorial about a very powerful tool indeed.

~frank

Reading Notes #553

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!

Programming

• Smoother rebases with auto-squashing Git commits (Andrew Lock) - Git is a very powerful tool, it worth make do the thing the way you like them.

• Accelerate API Development in Visual Studio with .http/.rest Files! (Dirk Strauss) - Nice integration to Visual Studio.That way we can have less software up and running while coding.

• Let's Learn .NET Virtual Events - All Around the World - .NET Blog (Matt Soucoup) - Super cool events to get started with Azure using .NET and the best of it in many different timezones or languages!!

LowCode

• Low-code signals 2023 (Richard Riley) - Interesting post that shares numbers related to the growth of low-code practice.

• Power Apps PDF Function: Create, View & Download PDFs (Matthew Devaney) - A nice cool app with a lot of features!

Miscellaneous

• I'm a former Microsoft VP of HR. Here are the real reasons why layoffs are happening and how much longer they'll last. (Chris Williams ) - Interesting post that explains what this layoff season is really about.

~frank

Reading Notes #534

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

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

Cloud

• Introducing a better way to integrate Azure AD with API Management (Adrian Hall) - Cool, new features for APIM.

• The Life of Sadukie (Sarah Dutkiewicz) - This is a nice tutorial part of a series to build a website. Very well done.

Programming

• 5 new MVC features in .NET 7 (Andrew Lock) - With .NET 7 a few nice features we introduced, and this post list seven of them.

• Entity Framework Core 7 JSON Columns | Mapping | Querying | Updating | Example (Bommidi Naveen) - This post shows a simple mapping done with EF 7. The perfect bite-sized tutorial.

• Get your developer news - Visual Studio Blog (Mads Kristensen) - So many happy developers! After being missing for a few years, the dev news is back and better than ever!

Podcasts

• How to Avoid the Quiet Firing Trend with Dr. Tim Elmore (The EntreLeadership Podcast) - An interesting episode about those rebranded trends and how to avoid them.
• Do I stay or do I go? - Tech career advice with Mekka Williams (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - There is I believe a generation behavior here, but who's right? Interesting discussion.
• Les exoplanètes à portée d’œil avec le futur télescope James Webb (Fascinant!) - The star is at million of light years, but they managed to say what gaz is present in the atmosphere. Incredebile!
• Hacking APIs with Dana Epp (.NET Rocks!) - While listening to this episode I felt like I needed to put on the hood of my hoodie, take my laptop and go to a dark corner. Very interesting episode.

Miscellaneous

• DasBlog support for WebFinger (Mark Downie) - Interested to integrate your domain to a mastodon server? This post is for you

• Microsoft is adding a quick launcher to PowerToys for easy access to the best Windows utilities (Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson) - Who doesn't like new toys?

~frank

Reading Notes #531

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!

Cloud

• Azure SDK Release (November 2022) - Azure SDK Blog (Azure SDK team) - New release with tons of updates.

Programming

• .NET 7 Web API CRUD Using Entity Framework Core (Naveen Bommidi) - This is a good tutorial to build our first simple API with EF...and it uses the brand new .NET 7.0

• 7 Reasons for Startups to Choose ASP.NET Over Node.js (Michael Shpilt) - I believe the most crucial point is to use a language that your team is comfortable with. If everyone already masters Node, then continue with that. If you are starting a new team or need specific performance or requirements that Node doesn't provide then, of course, .NET must be considered.

• 7 common mistakes new contributors make in Open Source Software - DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻 (Jessica Wilkins) - Good health check of our practices when collaborating on an open-source project.

• Minimal API validation with ASP.NET 7.0 Endpoint Filters - Ben Foster (Ben Foster) - That minimalist API can really make us save some keystrokes

• Multi-repository Support Released! - Visual Studio Blog (Jessie Houghton) - That's very good news and so many developers will be happy about it.

• .NET Interactive Notebooks is now Polyglot Notebooks! - .NET Blog (Claudia Regio) - A new name, the same great tool with a bright future.

~frank