AI DevOps Podcast

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Derek Comartin is a senior software developer and Microsoft MVP with 20 years of experience building software across industries including consumer goods, distribution, transportation, manufacturing, and accounting. He is the creator of CodeOpinion, a YouTube channel and blog where he explores software architecture and design topics such as domain-driven design, event sourcing, and decoupling systems; his most recent post, "Decoupling in Software Architecture Moves Complexity," published August 6, 2026, examines how backend processes are affected as systems become more distributed. Derek shares his insights daily on X as @codeopinion and maintains an active GitHub profile with over 100 repositories, including his popular DDD-CQRS-ES-Example project. This will be his third appearance on the podcast, previously joining to discuss migrating to .NET Core and the mindset of a software architect. You can find more about Derek and his work at codeopinion.com. Code Opinion Website - https://codeopinion.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcomartin/ Github - https://github.com/dcomartin X Account - https://x.com/codeopinion Previous episodes with Derek Comartin: Episode 104 Episode 188 Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Henrik Kniberg is the co-founder and Chief Scientist of Abundly AI in Stockholm, where he leads development of a platform for building autonomous AI agents. Many of us know him from his agile work: he wrote "Scrum and XP from the Trenches," "Kanban and Scrum: Making the Most of Both," and "Lean from the Trenches," coached at Spotify and LEGO, and created the "Spotify Engineering Culture" videos and the well-known skateboard MVP drawing. More recently, his book and video "Generative AI in a Nutshell" have reached millions of people, with the book translated into 31 languages. Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hkniberg/ X Account - https://x.com/henrikkniberg Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/henrikkniberg Github - https://github.com/hkniberg Abundly - https://www.abundly.ai/team/henrik-kniberg Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Greg Leonardo is a Certified Azure Solution Architect, and Microsoft Certified Trainer, and the founder of Webonology, a firm focused on cloud migration and modernization, cloud security, solution architecture, and cloud training. He's received many MVP awards from Microsoft over the years. He is the author of "Hands-On Cloud Solutions with Azure: Architecting, developing, and deploying the Azure way," and he writes regularly about Azure, AI, and cloud security on his Cloud Daily Wire blog, including posts on governing, securing, and scaling autonomous AI agents on Azure. Greg is also a Gulf War veteran and a leader of the TampaDev community in the Tampa Bay area. He is one of our most frequent guests, and I'm glad to have him back on the show. Website - https://gregleonardo.com/ Webonology - https://webonology.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregleonardo/ Twitter Account - https://twitter.com/gleonardo Github CloudSpecOps - https://github.com/CloudSpecOps Previous episodes with Greg Leonardo: Episode 10 Episode 19 Episode 27 Episode 65 Episode 91 Episode 205 Episode 250 Episode 282 Episode 326 Episode 369 Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Daniel Vacanti is co-founder of ProKanban.org and a 20-year veteran of the Lean and Agile software industry who helped develop the Kanban Method in 2007 and managed its first project implementation. He also co-founded ActionableAgile in 2013, building predictive analytics tools that help teams forecast delivery and manage risk using flow metrics such as cycle time, throughput, and work in progress. Daniel has authored several books on the subject, including Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability: Tenth Anniversary Edition and the recently released Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II He also teaches lean principles for software management at UC Berkeley and is a certified trainer across ProKanban.org's full course catalog. This is Daniel's third appearance on the show LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielvacanti/ X Account - https://x.com/danvacanti Lean Pub - https://leanpub.com/u/daniel_vacanti Actionable Agile Metrics Volume II - https://leanpub.com/actionableagilemetricsii Drunk Agile - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC758reHaPAeEixmCjWIbsOA ProKanban Community Day - https://prokanban.org/kanban-community-event Previous episodes with Daniel Vacanti: Episode 103 - https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/daniel-vacanti-on-actionableagile-episode-103 Episode 199 - https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/daniel-vacanti-measuring-agile-software-teams-episode-199 Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Sam Nasr is a Senior Software Engineer and Trainer at NIS Technologies in Cleveland, Ohio, specializing in the Microsoft AI stack, Azure, and .NET development. A software developer since 1995, Sam is an 8-time Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer who leads the Cleveland C# User Group, the .NET Study Group, and the Azure Cleveland User Group. He shares his expertise as a contributing author for Visual Studio Magazine and through his LinkedIn Learning courses, and he blogs regularly at samnasr.blogspot.com, This will be his third appearance on the podcast, having previously joined me to discuss SQL Server for developers. Sam's Blog - https://samnasr.blogspot.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samsnasr/ Github - https://github.com/samnasr X Account - https://x.com/samnasr Upcoming Event - https://www.meetup.com/caparea-net/events/316713608 Linktree - linktree.com/samnasr Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 122 - https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/sam-nasr-on-sql-server-for-developers-episode-122 Episode 185 - https://aidevopspodcast.clearmeasure.com/sam-nasr-on-azure-ai-ml-episode-185

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Today I'm joined by Mark Michaelis, founder, CEO and Chief Technical Architect of IntelliTect in Spokane, Washington, and a Microsoft Regional Director and C# MVP for more than twenty-five years. Mark is the lead author of the Essential C# book series and the free companion site essentialcsharp.com, and he's continued that work as a member of Microsoft's design review teams for C#, Azure, and Azure DevOps, and as an adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University. He's been on the conference circuit recently with talks like "Mastering the Agentic Coding Workflow" and "AI Axioms: Principles for Thriving in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," bringing his deep C# background to bear on how developers work with AI day to day. You can find him on GitHub as markmichaelis and connect with him on LinkedIn. This is Mark's first time on the show, and I'm excited to get his perspective on where AI-assisted development is headed. Intellitect Website - https://intellitect.com/team/mark-michaelis/ Essential CSharp - https://essentialcsharp.com/ Github - https://github.com/markmichaelis EssentialCSharp Github - https://github.com/IntelliTect/EssentialCSharp LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmichaelis/ Email - mark@IntelliTect.com Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Today I'm joined by Justin Martin, a product-focused engineering leader based in Austin, Texas, with more than twenty years of experience driving technical innovation at startups and high-growth tech companies, from Groupon-era Rails to fraud prevention for banks. He is now commanding fleets of AI agents from a single post. He is currently the Head of Engineering at 6Lock. Github - https://github.com/LupusDei X Account - https://twitter.com/LupusDei18 Website - https://justinmmartin.me/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mythinking/ Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Today I'm joined by Robert C. Martin, known to most of the industry as Uncle Bob - a programmer since 1970, co-author of the Agile Manifesto, and the first chairman of the Agile Alliance. He's the founder of Uncle Bob Consulting LLC and has written many of the field's defining books, including Clean Code, Clean Architecture, Clean Agile, and his newest release, Functional Design. Lately he's been deep into a project called swarm-forge, an open-source tool he built for coordinating teams of AI coding agents through disciplined, tmux-based workflows, and he's been documenting his experiments running it on real projects on X. This is actually Robert's fourth time on the show - we've previously talked about Agile and Extreme Programming, about clean code, and about being a software leader - I'm looking forward to hearing how his thinking on AI and software programming has evolved. Clean Coder Website - https://cleancoder.com Uncle Bob Github - https://github.com/unclebob Swarm Forge Github - https://github.com/unclebob/swarm-forge X Account - https://x.com/unclebobmartin Clean Coder LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleancoder Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 105 Episode 283 Episode 357 Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Joseph Guadagno is an experienced executive level software leader and architect over 30 years of software development experience and a Microsoft MVP since 2007, having also served as President of the .NET Foundation from 2023 to 2024. he blogs regularly about .NET, Azure, and AI-assisted development workflows. This will be Joseph's second appearance on the podcast - he previously joined me in 2021 to talk about the latest in Azure DevOps. You can find more about Joseph and his work at josephguadagno.net. Website - https://www.josephguadagno.net/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephguadagno/ Github - https://github.com/jguadagno X Link - https://x.com/jguadagno Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 159 - https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/joe-guadagno-on-the-latest-in-azure-devops-episode-159 Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Anna Hoffman is a Principal Group Product Manager for Azure Data on Microsoft's SQL Engineering team, where she works across SQL Server, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric. She is also the host of Data Exposed, Microsoft's video series covering the data platform. Anna holds an engineering degree from Georgia Tech along with a master's degree in data science, and started her career as a data and applied scientist before moving into product management. She continues to blog regularly for the Azure SQL Devs' Corner. You can find her on GitHub and on X at @AnalyticAnna. Anna's Devblogs - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/azure-sql/author/antho/ Anna's Github - https://github.com/amthomas46 X Account - https://x.com/analyticanna LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amthomas46/ What's New Across Microsoft Microsoft SQL Server Blog Author Page Azure SQL Devs' Corner Author Page Data Exposed (YouTube playlist, 500 episodes) Azure SQL YouTube channel "The Era of the Agentic Database Developer" (Build 2026 recap) "What's new across Microsoft SQL in 2026 so far" (mid-year recap) MSSQL extension roadmap - https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-mssql/wiki/roadmap GitHub Copilot Agent Mode in SSMS - https://learn.microsoft.com/ssms/github-copilot/agent-mode Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 160 - https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/azure-sql-database-with-anna-hoffman-episode-160

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Mark Seemann is a self-employed programmer and software architect based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the author of Code That Fits in Your Head and Dependency Injection Principles, Practices, and Patterns. He is widely known throughout the .NET community for his ploeh blog, which he has maintained for years, writing about software architecture, test-driven development, and functional programming. He shares his work and insights on GitHub and X as @ploeh, and can also be found on LinkedIn. Mark previously joined the show for Episode 189, "Code That Fits In Your Head." Ploeh - https://blog.ploeh.dk/ Guthub Ploeh - https://github.com/ploeh X Ploeh - https://x.com/ploeh LinkedIn Ploeh - https://dk.linkedin.com/in/ploeh The AI Code Quality Maintainability Gap - https://www.gitclear.com/the_ai_code_quality_maintainability_gap Sam Harris Podcast - https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/487-is-ai-already-conscious Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 189 - http://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/mark-seemann-code-that-fits-in-your-head-episode-189 Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Today's guest is a true heavyweight in the .NET open-source world — someone whose work has quietly, but profoundly, shaped the way countless developers build software. Jimmy Bogard is the creator and maintainer of two very popular OSS libraries in the .NET ecosystem: AutoMapper and MediatR. If you've ever tried to simplify object mapping or decouple application logic, chances are you've used his tools. Based in Austin, Texas, Jimmy is an independent software consultant and a 15+ year recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award — every year since 2009. AutoMapper alone has been around for 17 years and racked up hundreds of millions of downloads. It started as a personal tool to streamline development for client projects and grew into a global standard for object mapping. Github eShop - https://github.com/jbogard/eShop Jimmy's Github - https://github.com/jbogard AutoMapper Github - https://github.com/AutoMapper/AutoMapper/releases AutoMapper Nuget - https://www.nuget.org/packages/automapper/ MediatR Nuget - https://www.nuget.org/packages/MediatR MediatR Github - https://github.com/jbogard/MediatR/releases Jimmy's Website - https://www.jimmybogard.com/ Jimmy's Website / AutoMapper - https://www.jimmybogard.com/automapper-and-mediatr-licensing-update/ Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 356 Episode 264 Episode 98 Episode 11

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ John Bristowe brings over 20 years of experience in technology to his role as Developer Advocate at Octopus Deploy. His career includes time at Progress and Microsoft, where he developed his skills in management and technology. Known for a straightforward and engaging style, John often speaks at industry conferences, sharing practical tips and insights. John is a HashiCorp Ambassador and part of the Progress Champions program. He enjoys creating content such as articles, webinars, and podcasts, aiming to help others in the tech community. In his free time, John likes to stay informed about the latest tech developments and shares his learning with an online audience. His approach is always about sharing knowledge and learning together.

LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbristowe/ Sessionize Link - https://sessionize.com/john-bristowe/ Octopus Roadmap - roadmap.octopus.com Octopus Blog - https://octopus.com/blog/code-review-is-theater-now I Love Lucy Reference - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnHiAWlrYQc Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/john-bristowe-the-latest-from-octopus-deploy-episode-368 Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Blake Caraway is the General Manager of Texas Multi-Chem, Ltd., a Texas Hill Country company where he has spent over a decade transforming daily operations through technology. With a degree in Computer Information Systems from Southwest Texas State University, Blake began his career as a Programmer Analyst at Dell Technologies, then moved into software architecture at Callaway Golf. He later joined Headspring Systems in Austin, which was later acquired by Accenture, as a Principal Consultant, where he led agile software projects, shaped client-facing architecture, and helped grow the consulting practice. Blake brought that software experience back to his hometown of Kerrville, Texas, where he now leads Texas Multi-Chem — a preeminent sports field contractor of Texas. Blake is using technology to improve internal operations one business process as a time.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakecaraway/ Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Michael Nygard advises consulting firms, private equity teams, CTOs, CEOs, and boards when they require senior technology judgment for limited-term, high-impact situations — including architecture assessment, platform rescue, cloud and data cost intervention, AI engineering enablement, technical diligence, divestiture and carve-out architecture, and operating-model redesign. Over a 35-year career, he has worked at the seam where people, processes, organizations, and the systems they build intersect. Most organizations treat those as separate problems. The hardest failures, and the most consequential wins, live precisely where they interact. That through-line is what Release It! is fundamentally about. The vocabulary it introduced — circuit breakers, bulkheads, stability patterns — is now standard in how the industry discusses reliability, and the book is widely cited as foundational to DevOps and cloud-native practice. At Nubank, he led the Data Business Unit with over $300 million in annual spend, then served as Chief Architect with reach across 2,500 engineers while the customer base grew from 75 million to 125 million across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Results included cutting data-platform spend roughly 50% year-over-year, improving on-time data availability past 99%, building governance aligned with LGPD, GDPR, and CCPA, moving team engagement from the bottom decile to the 60th percentile, and rolling out AI coding tools to more than 90% of engineers without customer-visible quality regression. At Sabre, as part of the CTO office, he helped lead development-practice modernization, GCP migration strategy, mainframe offload architecture, technical diligence, and divestiture architecture across thousands of applications and hundreds of products. He is most effective when the stakes are real, the system is sociotechnical, and the solution must hold across architecture, execution, economics, and organizational behavior. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mtnygard/ Personal Blog & Website: https://www.michaelnygard.com GitHub: https://github.com/mtnygard Twitter/X: https://x.com/mtnygard Release It! (Pragmatic Programmers): https://pragprog.com/titles/mnee2/release-it-second-edition/ 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know (O'Reilly): https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/97-things-every/9780596800611/ Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6089.Michael_T_Nygard LinkedIn Articles: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/mtnygard Presentations Archive: https://github.com/mtnygard/presentations/wiki Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Brady Gaster is a Principal PM Architect at GitHub, where he works on Apps, Agents, MIDI, and most notably, Squad — an open-source framework for orchestrating AI agent teams with GitHub Copilot. A longtime contributor to the .NET ecosystem, Brady previously served as Principal Program Manager on the .NET and Visual Studio team, leading work on SignalR, Orleans, microservices, and HTTP APIs. He is the co-creator of Squad, which allows developers to define a team of specialized AI agents that collaborate on real engineering work. When he's not building developer tools, Brady enjoys making music in his basement with synthesizers and guitars, and spending time with his two sons. Website / Blog: https://bradygaster.com/ GitHub: https://github.com/bradygaster LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradygaster/ Twitter/X: @bradygaster Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 102 — Brady Gaster on SignalR and More Episode 221 — Brady Gaster: Orleans Episode 295 — Brady Gaster: .NET Cloud Native Episode 331 — Brady Gaster: Upgrading .NET apps Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Matthew Renze is an AI researcher, consultant, and author, and the founder of Renze Consulting, where he has trained over 500,000 software developers and IT professionals worldwide. He has delivered over 200 keynotes, presentations, and workshops on every continent — including Antarctica — for clients ranging from tech startups to Fortune 500 companies. A nine-time Microsoft MVP in AI, Matthew is also the president of the Renze AI Research Institute, where he studies how self-reflecting large language model agents improve problem-solving performance, trustworthiness, and value alignment. Most recently he was accepted into the Doctor of Engineering program at Johns Hopkins University, and he featured as an interview subject in the 2026 documentary "AI Everywhere." Website: https://matthewrenze.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewrenze/ Twitter/X: @matthewrenze GitHub: https://github.com/matthewrenze (via profile links) Our OpenClaw agent ("Bob") - Bob's website: https://bobrenze.com/ - Bob's blog: https://blog.bobrenze.com/ - Bob's book: https://a.co/d/014kieQI - Agent ranking site: https://agentfolio.io/ Stage 1 - Communicating in steps with an AI assistant - ChatGPT - https://chatgpt.com/ - Claude Chat - https://claude.ai/ Stage 2 - Collaborating on tasks with an AI agent - GitHub Copilot - https://github.com/features/copilot - Claude Code - https://claude.com/product/claude-code - OpenAI Codex - https://openai.com/codex/ Stage 3 - Supervising processes with an agentic workflow - LangChain / LangGraph - https://www.langchain.com/langgraph - Microsoft Agent Workflows - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/agent-framework/workflows/ Stage 4 - Managing a project with an autonomous agent - OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai/ - Hermes: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/ Stage 5 - Leading a mission with an autonomous agency - PaperClip AI: https://paperclip.ing/ Fireworks AI: https://fireworks.ai/ ---------------------------------- Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 44 — Matthew Renze on Data Science for Developers https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/matthew-renze-on-data-science-for-developers-episode-44 Episode 220 — Matthew Renze: Developing Your AI Strategy https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/matthew-renze-developing-your-ai-strategy-episode-220 Episode 249 — Matthew Renze: AI Ethics https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/ai-ethics-with-matthew-renze-episode-249 --------------------------------------- Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Tamir Dresher is a Principal Engineer at Microsoft Threat Protection, where he focuses on scaling AI agent systems and distributed architectures, bringing over 15 years of experience building large-scale distributed systems. He is the co-creator of Squad, an open-source multi-agent runtime for GitHub Copilot that orchestrates AI teams directly inside your repository. Tamir is the author of "Rx.NET in Action" (Manning) and "Hands-On Full-Stack Web Development with ASP.NET Core" (Packt), and has been a lecturer in Software Engineering at the Ruppin Academic Center since 2013. A prominent figure in the Israeli and international developer communities, he is a Microsoft MVP alumnus who speaks frequently at global conferences and writes actively on his blog at tamirdresher.com.

Website / Blog - https://www.tamirdresher.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamirdresher/ GitHub: https - //github.com/tamirdresher Twitter/X - @tamir_dresher Blog Post - https://www.tamirdresher.com/blog/2026/05/24/squad-watch-extensions-customer-success Github - https://github.com/bradygaster/squad Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Erik Darling makes your database faster in exchange for money. He is a DBA, developer, and architect with a track record of tackling even the most challenging of technical issues. He runs a SQL Server Consulting and Coaching practice. In addition to his consulting services, he is also passionate about blogging, training, and contributing to open-source projects that help with SQL Server troubleshooting. He's given many public speaking engagements on the topic at conferences and events around the world, like PASS Summit and SQLBits. Website - https://erikdarling.com/ Twitter - https://x.com/erikdarlingdata Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ErikDarlingData LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/darling-data/ LinkedIn 2 - https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-darling-data/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@darling.data BlueSky - https://bsky.app/profile/erikdarling.com Trainings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYBdghaIjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df-l2PxUidI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uikbtpVZS2s https://db.cs.cmu.edu/seminar2022/ Previous Guest on the Azure DevOps Podcast: Episode 315 – Erik Darling: Database Technical Debt Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Chris Woodruff, or as his friends call him, Woody, is a software architect of over 25 years. Woody loves software engineering, especially allowing applications and services to communicate across networks and through Web APIs. He has received Microsoft MVP awards in SQL, Data and C# in the past, along with multiple years of being awarded the AWS Community Builder Award. He's a current board member of the .NET Foundation Woody lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he explores the many breweries in West Michigan and travels with his family. Woody is also a long-time bourbon fan and loves hunting for whiskey bottles. Website - https://woodruff.dev/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswoodruff/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/cwoodruff Simplicity-First Website - https://simplicity-first.dev/ Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 262 - Chris "Woody" Woodruff: Network Programming https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/chris-woody-woodruff-network-programming-episode-262 ---------------------------------------- Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Jonathan Tower — known to friends and colleagues simply as "J." — is the founding partner of Trailhead Technology Partners, a custom software consulting firm with employees across the U.S., Europe, and South America. A 12-time Microsoft MVP for .NET and a Telerik Developer Expert, J. brings nearly 25 years of industry experience spanning roles from senior architect to director of development. He was recently elected to the .NET Foundation Board of Directors for the 2026–2027 term and is the driving force behind Beer City Code, Western Michigan's largest professional software conference. J. is also a LinkedIn Learning course author and an active speaker at software conferences around the world; including being a speaker at the most recent .NET Conf.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtower/ Website - https://www.jtower.com/ Trailhead Technology Website - https://trailheadtechnology.com/ Trailhead Technology Events - https://trailheadtechnology.com/events Trailhead Technology Blogs - https://trailheadtechnology.com/blog Beer City Code- https://beercitycode.com/ Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Episode 371 - Software Leadership with Jonathan "J." Tower https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/software-leadership-with-jonathan-j-tower-episode-371 Episode 263 - J. Tower: Modernization Strangler Fig Pattern https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/j-tower-modernization-strangler-fig-pattern-episode-263 ---------------------------------------- Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Ryan Riley is a Senior Lead Software Engineer at Quorum Software in Houston, TX, with deep expertise in functional programming, software architecture, and web API design across the .NET ecosystem. He is a Microsoft Visual F# MVP and longtime open-source contributor, best known for his work on projects such as Frank, WebApiContrib, and the Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) specification. Ryan leads the Community for F# virtual user group and is an active blogger, having recently published a thought-provoking piece in March 2026 examining AI-assisted spec-driven development and its relationship to Agile and historical software practices. He brings a thoughtful, systems-level perspective to software engineering leadership, mentoring, and team-building that spans front-end UX through back-end distributed applications.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanriley/ GitHub: https://github.com/panesofglass Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/panesofglass Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast: Ryan Riley: Leading a Software Engineering Team - Episode 316 (September 23, 2024) The Power of 10 Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_10:_Rules_for_Developing_Safety-Critical_CodeDevelopment Process using AI Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Today I've have Gaurav Seth with us — he's a product executive at Microsoft working on fundamentally redefining how software gets built and scaled. He's been bringing agentic AI into every stage of the develop‑deploy‑operate cycle, both for Microsoft's internal engineering teams and for developers building on the platform. He's hands-on building AI agents into GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio, working on evaluation systems that improve model quality, and shaping core platforms that power Azure, Microsoft 365, Windows, Xbox, and LinkedIn.

Right now, he's focused on some of the hardest problems in the industry — what it looks like to move from manual to AI-driven development, how to measure and improve agent performance at scale, how to make massive codebases understandable to LLMs, and what the future of developer workflows looks like in an agent-first world. Before this, he helped lead some major shifts — from Edge's move to Chromium, to scaling TypeScript into one of the most widely used languages in the world, to evolving Visual Studio's business model and growing .NET in a crowded market. He operates end-to-end — from product strategy and engineering to go-to-market, partnerships, and enterprise adoption — and has a unique ability to connect deep technical innovation with real-world impact.

Mentioned in this Episode

LinkedIn X / Twitter .NET Blog (author page) Foundry Local: Onyx w/ Ollama VSCode Agent Pane

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Stephen Cleary is a software developer, author, and independent consultant with deep expertise in asynchronous and concurrent programming in .NET. He is the author of "Concurrency in C# Cookbook" (O'Reilly, 2nd edition), the definitive practical reference on async, parallel, reactive, and multithreaded programming in C#. Stephen is one of the top-ranked users on Stack Overflow, widely recognized for his authoritative answers on async/await, and he has published extensively on the subject through MSDN Magazine, conference talks, and his long-running blog. His most recent blog post, "Debug Dumps in Visual Studio," was published in December 2025 and continues his tradition of sharing hard-won, practical knowledge with the .NET community.

Website: https://stephencleary.com Blog: https://blog.stephencleary.com Book: https://stephencleary.com/book/ GitHub: https://github.com/StephenCleary Twitter/X: https://x.com/astevecleary Github - Comparers Nuget - Nito Comparers Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Tim Corey is an nine-time Microsoft MVP, a software developer with more than 30 years of experience, and one of the most recognized online educators in the .NET ecosystem. DevForge at IAmTimCorey.com -- has helped millions of developers learn to think and code like professionals. He is the author of Getting Started with C#: A Practical Guide, the creator of the popular C# Mastercourse, and the host of the DevQuestions podcast, now in its seventh season. Tim learned software development the hard way so his students don't have to -- and he is a returning guest, having joined us previously on Episode 241.

Previous appearance(s) on the Azure DevOps Podcast:

Episode 241: Tim Corey: Learning Programming (Apr 17, 2023)

Website: https://www.iamtimcorey.com/ Blog: https://blog.iamtimcorey.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamtimcorey/ Twitter / X: https://x.com/IAmTimCorey GitHub: https://github.com/TimCorey YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IAmTimCorey Podcast: https://iamtimcorey.buzzsprout.com/ Recent projects / posts: - Course: Upgrading to .NET 10 From Start to Finish https://www.iamtimcorey.com/courses/upgrading-to-dotnet-10/ - Course: C# Mastercourse https://www.iamtimcorey.com/courses/csharp-mastercourse/ - Game Development Mastercourse (preorder) https://gamedevelopmentmastercourse.com/ - Blog: "Does Vibe Coding Have A Place In Software Development?" (May 2025) - Blog: "What Microsoft Choosing Go over C# Can Teach Us" (Apr 2025) - Blog: "Can AI Do a Developer's Job?" (Mar 2025) - DevQuestions Podcast Ep. 299: "Why is the job market slowing down?" (Mar 5, 2026) Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Chet Husk is a Product Manager on the .NET Tools team at Microsoft, where he leads the .NET SDK, MSBuild, Template Engine, and Install Scripts teams -- shaping how millions of .NET developers build, publish, and containerize their applications. Before joining Microsoft in 2021, Chet was deeply embedded in the F# open-source community, serving on the F# Software Foundation Board and co-maintaining Ionide, the popular F# extension for VS Code. At Microsoft, he drove the built-in container publishing support that lets developers create container images with just "dotnet publish" -- no Dockerfile required -- and recently shipped SLNX, the new XML-based solution file format for the .NET CLI. He is also exploring the intersection of AI and build tooling with an open-source MCP server that lets AI assistants analyze MSBuild binary logs.

Mentioned in this Episode

GitHub LinkedIn .NET Blog

Recent projects / posts Blog: "Introducing support for SLNX, a new, simpler solution file format in the .NET CLI" (Mar 2025, .NET Blog) mcp-binlog-tool: MCP server for AI-assisted MSBuild binary log analysis Blog: "Announcing built-in container support for the .NET SDK" (.NET Blog) .NET Conf 2023 talk: ".NET Containers advancements in .NET 8" .NET Conf 2022 Keynote presenter SLNGEN .NET Tool /dotnet/skills GitHub repo structed nuget package - devlooped EBNF Grammar (Extended Backus–Naur Form) https://msbuildlog.com/ https://github.com/devlooped/StructId \Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Pierce Boggan is the PM Lead for Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot at Microsoft, where he guides the product direction of the world's most popular code editor as it evolves into an AI-native development platform. He joined Microsoft through the Xamarin acquisition more than a decade ago and has worked across mobile tools, Visual Studio, and the Teams Toolkit before taking the helm of the VS Code team in late 2024. Pierce co-hosts the VS Code Insiders Podcast, presented in the GitHub Universe 2025 keynote, and recently helped his team make the historic shift from monthly to weekly releases -- powered by AI. He is also the creator of Primer, an open-source CLI that prepares codebases for AI-assisted development.

--------------------------------------------

Mentioned in This Episode

Website Twitter / X GitHub Podcast Primer

Recent projects / posts:

Agent HQ in VS Code announced (Dec 2025) -- unified view for managing local, background, and cloud AI agents GitHub Universe 2025 keynote presenter (Nov 2025) VS Code Insiders Podcast: "VS Code -- 2025 Wrapped" (Dec 2025) Primer CLI -- prepares repos for AI-assisted development (423 stars) nano-banana-mcp -- MCP server enabling image creation in GitHub Copilot VS Code team moved from monthly to weekly releases (Mar 2026 interview) ---------------------------------------- Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Michael Perry is a Director at Improving Enterprises and a self-described "Software Mathematician" who has spent his career applying mathematical principles to software development, drawing on the foundational work of thinkers like Bertrand Meyer, James Rumbaugh, and Donald Knuth. He is the author of "The Art of Immutable Architecture" and the creator and maintainer of Jinaga, an open-source immutable runtime framework for building collaborative and distributed applications in .NET and JavaScript. A former seven-year Microsoft MVP, Michael has produced multiple Pluralsight courses covering CQRS, XAML Patterns, Cryptography, and Provable Code,and is a frequent speaker at developer conferences across the country. At Improving, he helps enterprise clients harness the power of immutable architecture and software mathematics to build scalable, robust systems.

Mentioned in this Episode

LinkedIn Twitter / X (@michaellperry) GitHub Personal Site

FactoryEngineering.dev roocode - plugin for VSCode - has subagents Windsurf (AI Tool)

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Aaron Stannard is the Founder and CEO of Petabridge and the co-founder and lead maintainer of Akka.NET — the most widely used actor model framework for .NET, with over 21 million NuGet downloads and adoption by Fortune 500 companies like Boeing, Bank of America, and S&P Global. A two-time startup founder, Aaron previously founded MarkedUp Analytics and worked at Microsoft as a Startup Developer Evangelist before dedicating himself full-time to building the Akka.NET ecosystem. He's a Vanderbilt University graduate, a former Microsoft MVP, and has spoken at major conferences worldwide including NDC, Techorama, QCon, and .NET Conf. Beyond Akka.NET, Aaron is known for creating NBench (a .NET performance benchmarking framework), the Sdkbin marketplace for .NET developers, and for his prolific blog and YouTube content on distributed systems, .NET internals, and software engineering philosophy.

Mentioned in this Episode

Episode 172 Software 2.0 Case Study LinkedIn Twitter / X - (@Aaronontheweb) GitHub Personal Blog YouTube (Personal) openclaw simon Crop - verify library SlopWatch - detect reward hacking behavior Opus 4.6 & Sonnet 4.6 Copilot OpenCode Claude Code Codex 5.3 model for debugging Qwen2.5 27B llama.cpp local. tmux - Terminal multiplexer suo apt install -y tmux Ralph LLM loop Akka.NET StirTrek, May 1 in Ohio NDC Copenhagen in June Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Mads is a Principal Architect at Microsoft, where he has been for over 20 years. He's been the Lead Designer of the C# language for a long time. Prior to this, Mads was a professor and contributed to a language starting with J. He was previously on episode 325 of the podcast where he spoke about the latest on C# at the time.

Mentioned in this Episode

Github Link - C# Episode 325 Learn C#

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ James World is a technology leader with decades of hands‑on engineering experience, enabling enterprises to thrive through modern cloud and AI‑driven solutions. He has spent well over ten years architecting cloud‑native platforms on Microsoft Azure, guiding multiple development teams through complex digital transformations while remaining deeply involved in the code and critical technical decision‑making.

His background spans financial services and other enterprise environments where reliability, performance, and scalability are non‑negotiable. He is a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert and a polyglot developer, with extensive commercial experience primarily in .NET and C#, applied across distributed systems, event‑driven architectures, and modern AI integration patterns. He is currently focused on driving responsible and effective adoption of Generative AI within the enterprise—from engineering productivity and product enhancement to business‑assistive tooling.

He has been involved with AI initiatives and won several AI hackathons, helping organizations move from experimentation to meaningful strategic value. He enjoys solving complex problems, mentoring engineers, and sharing practical insights on architecture, modern software development, and AI‑augmented delivery practices. He believes technologists never stop learning—and that commitment is what keeps the industry exciting.

Mentioned in This Episode

Context7 GitHub SpecKit OpenSpec Striker for mutation testing Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Daniel Ward is a Microsoft .NET MVP and software consultant at Lean TECHniques in San Antonio, TX. He works with teams to deliver high‑quality software through modern engineering practices, including effective CI/CD, automated testing, AI adoption, and product management. His background spans multiple industries such as finance, retail, and agriculture, and he has served as a software developer, technical coach, agile coach, and tech lead. Daniel is also a conference speaker, a contributor to the .NET community, and the creator behind Dan In a Can, where he writes about .NET, testing, DevOps, and developer tooling. Outside of his professional work, he enjoys piano, guitar, swing dancing, and game development.

Mentioned in This Episode

Website LinkedIn X Account Github Lean Techniques

"Kiro" AI Coding Tool

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Richard Lander is a Principal Program Manager on the .NET team at Microsoft. He's been with Microsoft since 2000, and working on .NET since 2003! Currently, he's working on runtime features, docker container experience, blogging and customer engagement. He's also part of the design team that defines new .NET runtime capabilities and features.

Mentioned in This Episode

Episode 289 Episode 148 Episode 50 DotNet Skills

Suzanne Cook's Assembler Blog SourceLink dnx dotnet-inspect Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/ Savino Carlone, or Savi for short, is a 25‑year backend developer from Turin, Italy with experience across enterprise and high‑performance systems in sports broadcasting, banking, and ERP platforms. Savi has been nominated in the past to be on the board of directors for the .NET Foundation. He co‑leads the Torino .NET Users Group, which has over 1,200 members. He collaborates with Codemotion, and co‑hosts the Devs Book Club, in Italian. He currently leads development on the web‑based ERP system Fattutto in Northwest Italy. Mentioned in this Episode

LinkedIn X Account Board Elections Page Book - Real-World Web Development with .NET 10 - Mark J. Price

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Paul Duvall is an award‑winning author, longtime DevOps leader, and former AWS executive with more than two decades of experience in software engineering. He co‑founded Stelligent, establishing a business dedicated to enabling enterprise customers adopt DevOps and Security practices on AWS. He is the author of the book at defined CI for the world: Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk. The book received the 2008 Jolt Award and continues to be the official textbook for continuous integration. Today, he focuses on helping engineering teams adopt AI‑native and DevSecOps practices, drawing on multiple decades of delivering and managing software solutions.

Mentioned in this Episode

LinkedIn Website X Account Continuous Integration Github AI Development Patterns Redacted Adventures Making CI CD Invisible a Vision for Zero Touch Delivery -

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Damian Brady is a Staff Developer Advocate at GitHub. He's a developer, speaker, and author specializing in AI, DevOps, MLOps, developer process, and software architecture. Formerly a Cloud Advocate at Microsoft for four years, and before that, a dev at Octopus Deploy and a Microsoft MVP, he has a 25-year background in software development and consulting in a broad range of industries. In Australia, he co-organized the Brisbane .Net User Group and launched the annual DDD Brisbane conference.

Mentioned In This Episode

Episode 306 Episode 258 Episode 206 Episode 008 Github CoPilot Workspace X Account Website Githubnext Copilot for Docs Copilot for Pull Requests CoPilot Voice "What is GitHub Models? Here's how to use AI models easily" "15 Minutes to Merge: The top feature announcements from GitHub Universe!" SpecKit

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

David Starr is the President and Founder of Cumulus26, which helps companies succeed in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace and other facets of Azure. He's had a multi-decade career at Microsoft, Godaddy and others in senior technical leadership roles. He's spoken at industry conferences and delivered technical training courses and many other things.

Mentioned In This Episode

Episode 311 Episode 149 LinkedIn Making HIPAA and HITRUST compliance easier Plural Sight Plural Sight Course Mastering the Marketplace Episode 99 Cumulus26 AmpUp - for Microsoft Markeplace

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

With over 20 years of software development experience, Kevin Griffin is a passionate and versatile leader, trainer, and consultant in the .NET ecosystem. He has worked with various industries, from the United States Military to health care to ticket brokering, delivering high-quality solutions and empowering his clients and teams to succeed.

In his day job, he is the CTO at Shows On Sale where he oversees the technical strategy and direction of the company. Kevin also has served as the President of the .NET Foundation for the last term. And Microsoft has conferred the Microsoft MVP to him at least 16 times. He speaks at tons of conferences and is a board member of the Stir Trek Conference series as well.

Mentioned In This Episode

LinkedIn DNF Summit 2025 Video Website Dev Fest - Hampton Roads, Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia. Stir Trek May 1st. Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Maddy Montaquila is a Senior Product Manager on the Aspire team and has previous been on the MAUI team and has been working with .NET mobile apps since 2018 working on Xamarin tooling. When she first joined Microsoft and worked with the Xamarin team as an intern, she realized the impact that she could have in creating amazing developer tools and frameworks, which inspired her to pursue a role as Program Manager. You can connect with her on Twitter and GitHub @maddymontaquila!

Mentioned in this episode:

Github - Maui Maddy's Linkedin .NET Maui Github Maui Samples Github - Development Guide Episode 244 Episode 120

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Graham is the Chief Technical Officer at Redgate Software, where he leads the teams behind industry‑leading Database DevOps tools. Before Redgate, Graham's experiences includes multiple decades in complex projects and leadership oversight at many companies including Elsevier, IBM, Sun, BEA, and Oracle.

He's also a two‑time round‑the‑world yachtsman, bringing hard‑earned leadership experience from some of the most demanding environments on earth. -

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Carola Lilienthal is an architect and coach at Workplace Solutions. She is the author of Sustainable Software Architecture and shares her knowledge at international conferences.

Henning Schwentner is a software architect, coach, and consultant at WPS – Workplace Solutions where he helps teams modernize legacy systems. He is a thought leader in DDD and software architecture, and he has also authored Domain Storytelling.

Carola's LinkedIn

Henning's LinkedIn

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Today I'm going to reflect back on 2025, highlight some things and project forward into 2026. I think there are some very important developments and changes that we all shipping custom software need to be on top of.

Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Scott Hanselman is a teacher at heart. He speaks all over to whoever will listen. He's have written code that you, dear listener, has used. Scott has been blogging, coding, and podcasting a LONG time. He codes, writes, speaks, empowers, promotes, braids, learns and listens - usually not in that order. And he's a Vice President at Microsoft in his day job focusing on Developer Community. You can find him on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Mastodon! His Hanselminutes podcast has surpassed 900 episodes, and his Azure Friday show, over 750 episodes. Connect with him at hanselman.com

Mentioned in This Episode

Episode 280

Scott Hanselman's TEDx Portland Talk

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Glenn is a Principal Product Manager for the App Platform team within the Developer Division at Microsoft, focusing on .NET. Before joining Microsoft Glenn was a developer in Australia where he worked on software for various government departments.

Mentioned in this Episode

X Account

Episode 293

Episode 58

Github

Microsoft Devblog

Building Cloud Native apps with .NET 8

Simplifying Cloud-Native Development with .NET 8

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Jared Parsons is a Developer Manager for the .NET Tools team at Microsoft. He's also done extensive work on the C# Compiler Team. Everybody tuning in probably uses his code on a day-to-day basis! Jared started out at Microsoft over 20 years ago as a Developer; moved on to become a Senior Developer; then Principal Developer on Midori OS; and most recently, the Principal Developer on C# Compiler Team, and now a Developer Manager. He's spoken at many conferences, like Microsoft Build and others.

Mentioned in this Episode

Episode 287

Episode 53

Github - Rosyln

Github - Analyzers

Github - Csharplang

Jared's LinkedIn

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Chris has 25 years experience as a seasoned SaaS and AI product leader known for practical, people-first strategies to harness value from Generative AI for operational excellence.

Chris developed the AI Vantage framework—a strategic approach that emphasizes process-driven transformation to unlock immediate and long-term value from GenAI technologies. He works for Viewport as the Head of Technology and is a respected voice in the AI and product management space, frequently sharing insights through training, blogs, and speaking engagements.

Chris holds certifications in SAFe Product Ownership and Pragmatic Marketing, and is an alumnus of Texas A&M University. Mentioned in this Episode Chris' Website Chris' X Account Chris' LinkedIn Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Alvin is a senior content developer at Microsoft, author, and longtime leader in the .NET developer community. With over 27 years of experience in software development, Alvin has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for more than a decade, honored for his contributions to Windows development, Visual Studio, and the broader Microsoft ecosystem. He is currently writing docs for multiple Microsoft technologies.

In 2021, Alvin wrote a book for Packt Publishing, Learn WinUI 3.0. This is the first book Alvin authored and has been the technical reviewer for eight other .NET-related titles from Packt. Alvin is a founding board member of the TechBash Foundation and organizer of the annual TechBash developer conference in Pocono Manor, PA.

Alvin resides in Pennsylvania with his wife and three daughters.

Mentioned in this Episode:

LinkedIn

Website

Alvin's Book

Episode 214

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Dan Clarke is a seasoned software consultant, Microsoft MVP, and founder of Everstack Ltd. Dan is widely known for his contributions to the .NET ecosystem and hosts the Unhandled Exception Podcast. With a background in DevOps, Azure, and developer tooling, Dan brings a thoughtful, systems-level perspective to software craftsmanship. His work spans technical education, community leadership, and content creation—from blog posts and newsletters to YouTube tutorials and conference talks.

Dan resides in the UK and when he isn't programming, he enjoys daily weightlifting, playing the guitar, and a past life of skydiving and motorcycling.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Dan Clarke Website

Dan's Podcast

Dan's Newsletter

Dan's Youtube

Dan's Blog

Dan's Linkedin

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Andrew Lock is a staff software engineer at Datadog and educator whose contributions to the .NET ecosystem have shaped how developers approach modern web applications. Located in the UK, Andrew is a Microsoft MVP, Author of ASP.NET Core in Action, and has an active blog all about his experience working with .NET and ASP.NET Core.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:56] Andrew talks about appreciating the joy of coding and the minutiae of figuring out the correct way to do things.

[3:28] Andrew discusses the various testing frameworks available for .NET, including MS Test, NUnit, XUnit, and TUnit. He explains the history and evolution of these frameworks, noting that XUnit has become the de facto default version.

[7:41] Andrew explains his interest in TUnit, a newer testing library that addresses some of the limitations of XUnit.

[9:29] TUnit is designed to be fast, supporting parallel execution and native AOT for better performance.

[12:16] Is there a way to radically speed up the execution of big test suites?

[15:39] Andrew explains the importance of each type of test in providing confidence that the software works as intended.

[21:26] Andrew notes that full system tests can provide strong confidence by exercising critical pathways in the application.

[29:44] Andrew mentions that tools like Octopus Deploy can be used to automate smoke tests as part of the deployment process.

[30:26] Advice to new developers regarding automated testing, and the importance of writing code that is easy to test, and thinking about testing when writing code.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Andrew Lock

"Andrew Lock: Containers in .NET8 - Ep 281"

"Andrew Lock: Web Applications in .NET6 - Ep 198"

"Updates to Docker images in .NET8"

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Ben Day is a seasoned software consultant and fractional CTO. With over two decades of experience, he brings a blend of hands-on coding expertise, strategic clarity, and people-focused coaching to help companies — from startups to Fortune 500s — deliver high-quality software faster and with less friction.

As the founder of Benjamin Day Consulting, Inc., Ben offers training, coaching, and architectural guidance rooted in Agile, Scrum, Azure DevOps, and GitHub best practices. He's a Microsoft MVP, a certified Professional Scrum Trainer for over 15 years, and a sought-after speaker who favors storytelling over slide decks.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:30] The overlap between music and coding, with Ben explaining the empathy required in both fields.

[4:22] Jeffrey mentions the Sunday Sounds app, which allows users to create custom instruments using AI prompts.

[6:45] The process of creating Slide Speaker and how Slide Speaker takes screenshots of each moment in a PowerPoint presentation and generates MP4 files.

[13:01] Technical details of SlideSpeaker.

[16:18] Event-based scaling.

[17:10] How SlideSpeaker can be used for internal training presentations and compliance-approved content.

[26:06] The opportunity for even more voice models and the ability to create your own custom voice, accent, and tone.

[28:11] Ben talks about creating videos that help absolute beginners grasp C#.

[32:45] What's next for Ben and Slidespeaker?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Benjamin Day Consulting

Benjamin Day LinkedIn

Benjamin Day YouTube

SlidespeakerAI

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Josh Arzt is a Senior Solutions Architect with 25+ years of experience modernizing systems, solving complex problems, and delivering scalable cloud solutions. He is an expert in software engineering, DevSecOps, serverless architectures, and cloud migrations. He is a certified professional with a strong publication record in IT and applied mathematics.

His professional career began in the early 2000s, when he discovered .NET and all it had to offer in its early days. Using that framework, paired with his maturation in software architecture, helped shape how he approaches challenges — with curiosity, precision, and a focus on making technology practical and reliable. Along the way, he's led teams, modernized systems, written his own software in performance metrics, and helped organizations adapt to change, but what he values most is working with people: mentoring engineers, collaborating across disciplines, and finding ways to connect technical work to real human impact. He brings both experience and perspective — the ability to see the big picture while never losing sight of the craft that drew him to this field in the first place.

Josh is also a 2025-2026 board election candidate for .NET Foundation.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:40] Josh talks about the .NET Foundation and its importance.

[7:08] A self-described dorky child, Josh recounts his early days in IT, starting with building computers as a child.

[9:33] Josh describes his transition from IT support to software development, driven by his interest in problem-solving.

[15:55] Josh discusses the evolution of .NET, from its early days to the current state.

[30:40] The importance of choosing the right tool for the job, regardless of the programming language.

[32:42] The challenges of managing tech debt and the importance of sustainability in software development.

[37:28] Josh shares his positive experiences with the .NET community and the support they provide.

[38:08] How thoughtful and consistent feedback shapes the evolution of the .NET ecosystem.

[40:02] Continuous learning and adaptation in the field of software development.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Joshua Arzt LinkedIn

Technical Babble — XCalibur Systems

Xcalibur37 GitHub

User Xcalibur Stack Overflow

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Lee Brownhill is a Principal Cloud DBA at Cloud Rede with deep expertise in SQL Server performance tuning and automation. With years of experience across Azure and AWS, Lee helps clients optimize their cloud data platforms.

His journey began in IT support, quickly evolving into a passion for SQL Server that led him through roles as a Production and Developer DBA. Now, he's a trusted consultant, known for making systems run faster and smarter.

Lee is a Redgate Community Ambassador, a regular at SQLBits and Data Relay, and once spent a transformative week learning from T-SQL legend Itzik Ben-Gan. Whether on-prem or in the cloud, Lee's mission is simple: make SQL Server shine.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:33] Lee shares his career journey, starting in general IT support and transitioning to a role involving Microsoft Dynamics NAV, which introduced him to SQL Server.

[5:48] Jeffrey discusses the challenges faced by young programmers who work with databases but lack deep experience.

[7:05] Lee highlights common anti-patterns in SQL Server.

[8:04] The concept of "row by agonizing row."

[8:46] Lee shares his thought process when addressing performance problems in SQL Server.

[9:12] Categorizing issues based on their severity and urgency using a tried-and-true checklist.

[10:36] Taking a step back to look at the issue holistically before diving into specific details.

[16:04] An optimal database structure and segmentation in 2025, and the importance of normalization to avoid redundant data and ensure data integrity.

[20:00] The different ways to host SQL Server in Azure and the benefits of each.

[23:02] Metrics for determining if an Azure SQL instance is over- or under-provisioned.

[25:02] The value of Azure's costing tools in helping to optimize resource usage and reduce costs.

[26:07] The work of site reliability engineers who use KQL to analyze logs and identify issues.

[30:09] Lee's blog is a repository of technical topics, including SQL Server, performance tuning, and unit testing.

[32:10] SQL Server 2025 features and the importance of learning and understanding new technologies.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Lee Brownhill's Blog

Lee Brownhill LinkedIn

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Aaron Palermo is a Senior Solutions Architect, DevOps engineer, and all-around cybersecurity expert. He works for a global cybersecurity services company, Appgate. Aaron was last on the show in episode 196, sharing about Zero Trust Networking.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:20] Aaron shares his excitement for learning new things and solving innovative challenges, which keep him engaged in the field.

[3:30] Aaron explains his current role at Appgate, a zero-trust network access company.

[4:25] The importance of direct-routed solutions for federal customers who want to own and manage their infrastructure.

[6:27] Aaron recounts how he applied insights from previous ADP guests Scott Hunter, Burke Holland, and Greg Leonardo.

[7:56] He explains the process of querying the Appgate API with natural language and the insights gained from the AI agent's code generation.

[8:24] Testing an Integration in the Lab.

[11:05] Jeffrey and Aaron discuss the benefits of using open-source tools and the flexibility of Proxmox for network testing.

[14:47] VS Code and Copilot Integration, and what's next.

[19:39] Aaron introduces n8n.io as a low or no-code automation platform that integrates with AI agents and APIs for workflow orchestration.

[21:15] Integrating simple automation examples, such as weather-based watering systems and data-driven decisions without sensors.

[28:09] OpenWRT's flexibility and customization.

[30:01] What are some of the scenarios where a software-defined network might be the right tool?

[33:26] Know what you want, and write from a purpose.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Ep 196 with Aaron Palermo

n8n

AppGate

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Jonathan Tower is known to friends and colleagues simply as "J." J. is a Microsoft MVP, Telerik Developer Expert, and the founder of Trailhead Technology Partners, a global custom software consultancy. With nearly 25 years of experience in the industry, J. has held roles ranging from senior architect to director of development, and now leads a team building high-quality, large-scale applications across a wide range of technologies.

J.'s technical expertise spans C#, .NET, ASP.NET MVC, and modern JavaScript frameworks, along with mobile app development. But what truly sets him apart is his passion for building community. He's the driving force behind Beer City Code, Michigan's largest software conference, and serves on the board of SoftwareGR, a nonprofit dedicated to growing the software industry in West Michigan.

He's also a frequent speaker at conferences and meetups around the world, a LinkedIn Learning course author, and a mentor to many through his work with robotics teams and local tech groups.

Outside of tech, J. is an adventurer at heart. He and his family recently completed a year-long road trip across the U.S., visiting 58 of the 63 national parks. He's also a fan of photography, hiking, reading, and catching every Best Picture nominee before the Oscars.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:30] Fun fact! J. has been to 58 of the 63 national parks, with his current favorite being Glacier National Park.

[4:46] J. explains his early interest in creating things and his discovery of software development in middle school.

[7:33] J.'s journey into leadership and consulting.

[11:04] J. talks about his Blue Blazes podcast and the inspiration behind the name.

[14:27] The "shiny object syndrome" and the misuse of microservices architecture.

[15:06] Understanding the true needs of a project before implementing complex solutions.

[21:20] AI should be viewed as a collaborative tool, not a replacement for team members.

[22:51] The insight that J. got at a Ford Factory about how AI can help us shape and create jobs instead of just replacing them.

[27:50] J. mentions he recently released courses on Dome Train about migrating legacy applications.

[29:05] Choosing the framework that is the most similar model.

[31:29] The type of traits that J. would look for in a lead engineer or a team leader.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Jonathan "J." Tower LinkedIn

JTower Website

Trailhead Technology

Jonathan "J." Tower MVP

Blue Blazes Podcast

.NET Foundation

Dome Train — Jonathan Tower

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Peter Ritchie is a veteran software architect and consultant with over 35 years of experience in the tech industry. Peter is renowned for his deep expertise in .NET development, distributed systems, and agile methodologies. He's an accomplished author of several technical books, a former Microsoft MVP, and a sought-after international speaker. Peter is also actively involved in the .NET community and was a candidate for the .NET Foundation Board of Directors, reflecting his commitment to open-source and developer advocacy. Through his consulting work, he helps teams elevate their architecture, code quality, and development practices — especially in areas like ASP.NET, Clean Architecture, and CI/CD pipelines.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:45] Overview of .NET Foundation.

[5:33] Support for User Groups and .NET 10.

[5:48] The upcoming release of .NET 10 and Visual Studio 2026.

[6:39] Stability and backward compatibility.

[9:10] Challenges and approaches to business logic.

[11:24] Repository structure and team organization.

[15:27] Testing and continuous integration.

[17:12] The role of experienced developers in mentoring and reviewing the work of junior developers.

[20:02] Jeffrey mentions a recent blog post of Peter's and how we can define clear user stories, including roles, actions, criteria, and benefits, to ensure developers understand the requirements.

[24:15] The importance of context in AI-driven development and how it applies to working with people.

[25:06] How the AI revolution can lead to better understanding and communication within development teams.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Peter Ritchie LinkedIn

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Greg Leonardo is a Principal Cloud Architect, Certified Azure Solution Architect Expert, and Microsoft Azure MVP with over two decades of experience driving high-impact cloud transformations for global enterprises. Greg's work sits at the crossroads of architecture, innovation, and mentorship, where he crafts scalable, cost-efficient, and future-ready solutions that align technology with business strategy. He's a recognized authority in Azure-native architecture, FinOps optimization, and AI integration, known for delivering measurable results—from reducing cloud spend to accelerating DevOps agility through Terraform and infrastructure as code. His leadership extends beyond technical execution, as he actively cultivates cloud talent and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. A former Gulf War veteran, Greg brings discipline, resilience, and strategic foresight to every initiative — whether building global cloud ecosystems or leading high-performance engineering teams. He's also a passionate advocate for the cloud community, sharing insights daily through technical writing and open mentorship.

Topics of Discussion:

[5:46] Greg discusses his approach to AI, emphasizing responsible AI and the importance of understanding its limitations.

[8:12] AI's journey through the Hype Cycle.

[11:09] Greg introduces the concept of AI as "virtual employees."

[16:44] Greg talks about how he uses both Microsoft 365 Copilot and ChatGPT Enterprise to compare their capabilities.

[18:36] How Greg tests and compares AI tools.

[20:21] Comparing AI to previous search and research methods.

[23:31] Improving AI results through better prompts.

[26:17] The agent framework, sharing, and limitations of AI agents.

[36:47] AI's ability to generate architectural diagrams.

[41:49] Exploring autonomous coding agents.

[41:45] Why we aren't quite ready for the "fire and forget" side.

[43:08] Struggling with the memory behind chat.

[44:02] Closing thoughts — what can we expect in the future, and what are more practical applications of AI?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Gregory Leonardo LinkedIn

Greg Leonardo Website

Ep 326 with Greg Leonardo: The Latest in Azure

Ep 282 with Greg Leonardo: Optimizing Cloud Budgets

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

John Bristowe brings over 20 years of experience in technology to his role as Community Director at Octopus Deploy. His career includes time at Progress and Microsoft, where he developed his skills in management and technology. Known for a straightforward and engaging style, John often speaks at industry conferences, sharing practical tips and insights. John is a HashiCorp Ambassador and part of the Progress Champions program.

He enjoys creating content such as articles, webinars, and podcasts, aiming to help others in the tech community. In his free time, John likes to stay informed about the latest tech developments and shares his learning with an online audience. His approach is always about sharing knowledge and learning together.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:47] John shares his career journey, starting at Microsoft in 2005, and his involvement in developer evangelism.

[4:03] The evolution of Octopus Deploy, from an open-source project to a commercial tool.

[5:47] The importance of setting up deployment pipelines and the challenges of deploying on weekends due to brittle pipelines.

[6:36] Check out the Octopus Deploy roadmap for updates on new features and innovations.

[9:04] The potential of AI in the deployment space and the importance of maintaining a balance between AI and human involvement.

[10:46] More about Codefresh.

[11:23] The integration of AI capabilities in Octopus Deploy, including the AI assistant.

[15:17] Designer Experience vs. Text-Based Workflows.

[24:43] Common use cases for runbooks, including server maintenance, database management, and cost management in Kubernetes.

[26:22] The importance of automated health checks and runbooks for ensuring reliable and cost-effective deployments.

[29:58] Platform Hub and Enterprise Scalability.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Octopus Deploy

Codefresh

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Mads is a Principal Product Manager on the Visual Studio team at Microsoft, where he champions developer productivity, performance, and extensibility. With a deep passion for streamlining the development experience, Mads has created dozens of widely used Visual Studio extensions — including Web Essentials, File Nesting, and Markdown Editor v2 — and maintains the Extensibility Essentials toolkit to empower other developers to build better tools. Mads brings over a decade of experience in web development on the Microsoft platform. He is also the founder of SchemaStore.org and a home automation enthusiast. Known for his engaging presentations and hands-on insights, Mads is a frequent speaker at developer conferences worldwide. He lives in the Pacific Northwest and his mission is simple: to make Visual Studio the most delightful development environment on the planet.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:38] More about Mads' career journey at Microsoft.

[5:14] The new and improved Visual Studio.

[7:44] Backwards compatibility is a key feature — .NET solutions will still work across different Visual Studio versions.

[8:55] How Microsoft's strategy differentiates between Visual Studio and VS Code.

[10:42] Visual Studio is the premier development environment for .NET and C# on Windows, offering the most comprehensive and optimized experience. While VS Code can handle .NET development, it's not as feature-rich or performant as the full Visual Studio.

[12:58] Visual Studio has moved to a monthly release cadence to be more competitive with VS Code's frequent updates.

[13:48] Deep AI integration in Visual Studio allows for context-aware assistance, including a new profiler agent that can help optimize code performance.

[23:53] Compilation performance is improved in Visual Studio 2026.

[26:35] The new profiler agent can be invoked through Copilot chat, running benchmarks and suggesting performance improvements scientifically.

[30:30] Developers can create custom MCP servers to integrate private systems and databases with AI tools using a project template.

[35:39] The AI coding agent in Visual Studio can work autonomously or with developer supervision, creating pull requests or working alongside the developer.

[39:11] Visual Studio's Copilot can be used as a companion to bounce ideas off, helping with architectural decisions and new feature explorations.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Mads Kristensen on LinkedIn

@mkristensen on X

Mads Kristensen

JSON Schema Store

Visual Studio

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Brad Frazer is a Boise-based attorney and partner at Hawley Troxell, Idaho's largest law firm, where he leads the Intellectual Property & Internet practice group with a specific focus in IP Strategy, AI, Data Security, and IT. A graduate of BYU, UC Hastings, and the University of Utah, Brad has decades of experience in cybersecurity, internet law, and IP, including roles as Deputy General Counsel at major tech firms. He's also a published novelist and a recognized expert in emerging technologies like blockchain, NFTs, and Web3.

Richard Hundhausen helps software organizations and teams deliver better products by understanding and leveraging Azure DevOps and Scrum. He is a Professional Scrum Trainer and author of Professional Scrum with Azure DevOps (MS Press). As a software developer and consultant with over 30 years of experience, he understands that software is built and delivered by people and not by processes or tools.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:24] Richard and Brad share their enthusiasm for AI, and they discuss the legal implications of using AI-generated code.

[4:00] Brad explains that ownership of AI-generated code is academic until legal issues arise, such as lawsuits or investment rounds.

[5:29] Richard explains the process of using AI tools to create code, emphasizing the iterative nature of the process.

[8:02] The nuances of copyright law, including the need for human authorship to establish ownership.

[10:57] How one gets a registered copyright.

[14:19] The different things that AI-driven development can mean.

[19:44] Risk avoidance practices as a coder.

[23:46] Brad advises software developers to be aware of the legal environment and the potential risks of using AI tools.

[24:59] What is an AI output, and what is just the computer being helpful?

[32:35] Brad shares a real-world example of a $20 million deal where the seller did not own the code, highlighting the potential risks.

[38:38] Brad mentions the Anthropic case, where the company was sued for training its LLM on copyrighted material.

[41:22] Richard and Brad discuss the importance of raising awareness and providing resources to help developers understand the legal implications of using AI tools.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Brad Frazer LinkedIn

Richard Hundhausen LinkedIn

Thaler vs. Perlmutter

Bartz v. Anthropic

Who Owns the Code?

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Tony Cardella is a seasoned software engineer based in Houston, Texas. With a robust background in enterprise development, Tony brings deep expertise in the .NET Framework (C#), Python, and cloud platforms including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. His technical repertoire spans both relational databases — such as SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL — and NoSQL solutions like Azure Cosmos DB.

Tony is a strong advocate for developer productivity tools, frequently leveraging JetBrains products including ReSharper, DataGrip, PyCharm, and Rider, as well as Visual Studio. Outside the world of code, Tony is equally passionate about strength training, whether he's lifting weights himself or coaching others in the discipline.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:34] Tony shares his career journey, starting with a consulting company that reached out to him while he was job hunting.

[3:17] NCrunch is an automated testing tool that runs unit tests continuously, focusing on impacted tests.

[5:08] Challenges and benefits of NCrunch, and why would we need to use it?

[7:44] Tony shares his approach to unit testing, focusing on covering 80% of the code with minimal effort and addressing the remaining 20% as needed.

[8:51] The importance of not over-investing in unit tests that may not provide significant value.

[11:47] Tony explains how Ncrunch provides code coverage metrics and visual indicators of covered and uncovered code.

[12:59] The tool's ability to show exactly where unit tests are failing, without needing to dive into stack traces.

[13:51] Distributed processing and integration tests.

[27:44] The challenges of running integration tests with external dependencies, such as databases.

[29:18] Exploratory testing and code quality.

[32:34] Tony emphasizes the value of unit tests in codifying tribal knowledge and ensuring code quality.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Tony Cardella

Lightning Talks!

The Code Gorilla

Survey: Fixing Bugs Stealing Time from Development

NCrunch

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Today's guest is Jon Peppers, Principal Software Engineer on the .NET MAUI team at Microsoft. Before building developer tools, Jonathan was a Xamarin MVP and the lead developer behind various cross-platform Maui apps. With a deep background in C#, from WPF-based self-checkout systems to home automation software featured on Extreme Home Makeover, Jonathan brings a wealth of experience in both app development and the frameworks that power them.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:59] Jonathan recounts his first job after college, working on C# for self-checkout software and migrating to WPF.

[4:40] How much on the continuum are we right now with Copilot agent mode?

[7:11] The process of setting up Maui development, including installing Visual Studio and the Maui workload.

[12:40] Using Copilot for multi-language debugging.

[18:42] Copilot's effectiveness in deleting unnecessary files and finding errors in string localization files.

[19:10] Copilot coding agent.

[21:20] The process of assigning issues to Copilot, which creates a branch, opens a pull request, and updates the description with its plan.

[27:36] The availability of different models in VS Code, including Claude and GPT, and the anticipation of new models being released.

[31:36] The potential for using LLMs on-device for privacy concerns, especially in healthcare.

[35:01] Jonathan encourages developers to try Copilot in their IDEs and explore its code completions and suggestions.

[35:17] Jonathan's Cat Swipe dating site!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

How the .NET Maui Team uses GitHub Copilot for Productivity

Jonathan on LinkedIn

Jonathan Peppers

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Micah Martin is a co-founder, CEO, and Studio Director for Clean Coders. He's a 2nd-generation coder, serial entrepreneur, family man, pilot, airplane builder, engineer, author, and just a normal guy trying to enjoy life to the fullest.

He is also a co-author of Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#, along with his father, Robert C. Martin, also known as Uncle Bob, and a contributor to the popular testing framework FitNesse, among other things.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:52] Micah talks about early influences from his father, Uncle Bob, including childhood "robot" games and learning to code on a Commodore 64 and the first Macintosh. [3:47] First job working alongside industry legends like Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham, and the humbling realization that college hadn't prepared him to build real software.

[5:00] Founding Clean Coders to distribute training videos and later expanding into custom software development with Clean Coders Studio. [6:54] Why apprenticeship is key to developing strong software engineers and how Pete McBreen's Software Craftsmanship influenced his approach. [8:20] Parallels between martial arts training under a sensei and learning software from a master craftsman. [11:23] How Clean Coders apprentices learn new languages like Clojure through Project Euler challenges and Koans, and why maintaining and extending code is essential training. [15:13] The origins and purpose of FitNesse, acceptance testing, and the need for a modern replacement. [18:43] The gap in tooling for non-programmers to write executable tests, and AI's potential role in bridging it.

[20:35] The role of bullet-point test scenarios in developer/customer collaboration. [21:07] The decline of Agile's technical focus and the creation of the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto at a summit in Libertyville, IL. [25:29] Carrying forward the Clean Code discipline in both training and client projects. [27:11] Plans to offer a digital apprenticeship experience through CleanCoders.com. [28:17] How Micah uses AI for algorithms, test data generation, and client projects, plus its current limitations. [36:37] Lessons from aviation autopilot systems and why humans remain essential in software development.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Agile Principals, Patterns, and Practices in C#

Clean Coders

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Burke Holland is a Principal Developer Advocate at Microsoft who leads the Developer Tools Advocacy team. He's done so much in developer tools, like growing VS Code from 6M to 40M+ users. He's a frequent speaker at conferences like Microsoft Build, Ignite, GitHub Universe, QCon, and VS Code Day, which he helped create. He's led many product launches for GitHub Copilot, Codespaces, and more. He has a very popular YouTube channel talking about developer tech.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:33] Burke describes his transition from being a good developer to an evangelist, inspired by a Visual Studio evangelist he met.

[6:27] The rapid pace of change in the software development world compared to other industries.

[9:22] AI-driven development and the various modes available in VS Code, including ask mode, edit mode, and agent mode.

[15:41] Burke describes the current moment in AI developer tooling — no one really knows yet what the end product is supposed to be. Everyone agrees AI will help developers, but exactly how is still being figured out.

[16:39] What are the right questions to ask AI?

[17:41] The importance of providing the AI with the right context to ensure accurate and efficient development.

[25:05] AI's unpredictability makes it difficult to rely on it for consistent development tasks, which is frustrating and foreign to most developers.

[32:18] Burke explains that while local AI models can handle small, scoped tasks like generating a function's contents, they still fall far short of the performance needed for more complex jobs compared to models like GPT-4 or Claude.

[37:18] Co-Pilot's competition.

[38:23] Inspiration to people that as long as you are the software architect, you can do anything.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

VS Code Day 2024

Youtube.com/@BurkeHolland/videos

Burkeholland.github.io/resume/

Build.microsoft.com/en-US/speakers/0e476452-35ca-4750-ac78-393c0d8c4cb3

Linkedin.com/in/burkeholland/

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Ted Neward currently labors on behalf of Capital One as a Senior Distinguished Engineer, leveraging his speaking, writing, and coding experience to bring a technology-focused and -sharpened mindset to the mortgage industry. During his more code-focused years, he specialized in high-scale enterprise systems, working with clients ranging in size from Fortune 500 corporations to small 10-person shops. He is an authority in Java and .NET technologies, particularly in the areas of Java/.NET integration (both in-process and via integration tools like Web services), programming languages of all forms, back-end enterprise software systems, and virtual machine/execution engine plumbing.

He is the author or co-author of several books, including Professional F# 2.0, Effective Enterprise Java, C# In a Nutshell, SSCLI Essentials, Server-Based Java Programming, and a contributor to several technology journals. All told, he has written well over a hundred articles in both print and online form.

Ted has also been an "insider" of one form or another with a variety of the technology providers of the world: an IBM Champion of Cloud, a Microsoft F# MVP (having also been an Architect and C# MVP in prior years), an F# Insider, C# Insider, VB Insider, INETA speaker, DevelopMentor instructor, PluralSight course author, and a member of various Java JSRs.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:44] Ted's career journey and what keeps him motivated in the industry.

[4:16] Why Ted believes the industry is overdue for a new mainstream programming language.

[8:12] The evolution of case tools, UML, and why generating code has never been the real problem.

[15:14] The challenge of keeping architecture simple versus embracing complexity.

[22:33] The role of philosophy in software development.

[38:01] Lessons from calculators, fundamentals, and why developers must still master core skills.

[38:46] The impact of AI on productivity and job roles.

[43:25] The Importance of Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs).

[56:26] Ted and Jeffrey talk about a recent article in The Economist, "Jane Street's sneaky retention tactic".

[1:01:54] The importance of writing as a tool for developers to structure their thoughts and improve communication.

[1:04:02] A few of the upcoming places and events that you can catch Ted speaking live!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Ted Neward LinkedIn

Visual Studio Live!

KCDC

Voxxed Days, Crete

Build Stuff

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Joe Cuevas Jr. is a seasoned software engineer based in San Antonio, Texas, with a strong focus on front-end development and user experience. At Southwest Research Institute, he contributes to innovative engineering solutions that span industries. With a background that blends technical precision and creative problem-solving, Joe brings a thoughtful perspective to the evolving world of software development. His passion for clean design, scalable code, and collaborative innovation makes him a standout voice in today's tech landscape.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:46] Why Joe fell in love with programming after a single VB.NET class. [5:00] What guided Joe towards the enterprise side of .NET.

[6:25] Joe's favorite foundational .NET and ASP.NET Core books.

[9:06] Learning algorithms, concurrency, and testing to make up for no CS degree.

[10:00] Why test automation is essential and doing testing immediately after writing the code. [12:14] Thoughts on test-driven development vs. testing right after coding. [14:18] Previewing Microsoft Semantic Kernel in Action, by Daniel Costa. [15:38] How Joe became a Manning book reviewer, and what he's learned. [17:18] Prompt engineering and agent instructions: what's ready now. [18:21] Codex and the moment that blew Joe's mind. [22:26] How Joe sees software architecture evolving in the future. [24:09] Large language models vs. older code bases, and where they shine. [27:57] Dependency injections.

[32:43] Joe's advice for junior developers and why persistence beats perfection.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Joe Cuevas LinkedIn

ASP.NET Core in Action

ASP.NET Core in Action, Third Edition

Unit Testing Principles, Practice, and Patterns

Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns: Effective testing styles, patterns, and reliable automation for unit testing, mocking, and integration testing with examples in C#

Dependency Injection in .NET

Microsoft Semantic Kernel in Action

Explore — LeetCode

Joe on GitHub

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

An international speaker, Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider, MCSD, PSM II, PSD, and PST, and a passionate member of the developer community, Phil has been working with .NET since the first betas, developing software for over 40 years, and has been heavily involved in the Agile community since 2005 as well as a Professional Scrum Trainer. Phil has taken over the best-selling Pro C# books (Apress Publishing), including Pro C# 10, is the President of the Cincinnati .NET Users Group (Cinnug.org), and the Cincinnati Software Architect Group, founded and runs the CincyDeliver conference (Cincydeliver.org), and volunteers for the National Ski Patrol. During the day, Phil works as the CTO & Chief Architect for Pintas & Mullins. Phil always enjoys learning new tech and is always striving to improve his craft.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:53] Why Phil still loves writing software after 40-plus years.

[5:39] The difference between being a consultant and supporting code long-term.

[8:27] Agile roles and user experience.

[8:40] Embedding engineers in the business to avoid "telephone game" decisions.

[11:30] "Move fast" vs. move efficiently — real-world cautionary tales.

[13:40] Using Figma for business rule diagramming before writing a single line of code.

[14:52] Releasing 4 x per week and getting rapid feedback.

[16:49] NASCAR, motocross, and the connection of slow builds of how software teams avoid friction.

[18:41] Measuring team efficiency, and how Phil eliminated emergency production fixes by mandating quality.

[22:00] Feature flags, PBI coverage, and the team's shared ownership of the code.

[26:09] AI in legal tech: where it works, where it doesn't.

[34:56] The architectural shift created by LLMs, vector databases, and agents.

[39:42] AI is not the goal — it's just a tool for solving the right problems.

[44:03] How Phil uses GitHub Copilot's agent mode to streamline development. [46:03] Final thoughts: "It's not about the tech. It's about making someone's life better."

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

"Clear Measure, Inc." (Sponsor)

"Philip Japikse: Professional C# in .NET - Episode 230"

"Philip Japikse: Migrating from .NET Framework to .NET 8 - Episode 296"

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Today's guest is Mark Miller, a multi-time C# MVP whose work blends software architecture with cognitive science. As the Chief Architect of the IDE Tools division at Developer Express, Mark is the visionary behind CodeRush — a toolset designed to maximize developer productivity through intelligent design. With nearly four decades of experience creating software tools, Mark's expertise spans decoupled design, plug-in architectures, and the nuanced craft of great user interfaces. He's a top-ranked international speaker, known for unpacking complex ideas with clarity, and he shares his thought process in real time on Twitch.tv/CodeRushed.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:20] Why Mark still loves building developer tools.

[6:31] Mark talks about GitHub Copilot agent technology and other AI coding tools.

[8:00] The unique edge of CodeRush AI and its distinct advantages in user interface design.

[8:39] The future of AI in code generation, predicting increased speed and accuracy in large language models.

[9:02] The importance of managing multiple virtual developers in the future, compared to managing traditional software developers.

[15:21] Demonstration of CodeRush AI features.

[23:51] Mark creates a new class with properties and initializes it with realistic data.

[24:40] Mark highlights AI's ability to modify and integrate code changes automatically, reducing the need for manual copying and pasting.

[36:32] AI Find.

[37:09] Advantages of CodeRush AI over competitors.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

"Mark Miller: The Science of Great UI in Software - Episode 212"

CodeRushed - Twitch

Mark Miller on LinkedIn

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Robert C. Martin, more often known as Uncle Bob, has been programming since 1970 and has served as a mentor to generations of software engineers. He's one of the original authors of the Agile Manifesto and played a foundational role in forming the Agile Alliance, where he served as its first chairman. But beyond titles and organizations, Bob's lasting impact comes through his writing, his lectures, and his philosophy of software craftsmanship. He has spoken at conferences around the world — QCon, Agile 20XX, IT Days, and countless other industry gatherings — always advocating for clarity, discipline, and ethical responsibility in code. And if you've ever read Clean Code, The Clean Coder, or Clean Architecture, you know that he doesn't just teach how to build systems — he challenges us to become better professionals in the process. His most recent work, Functional Design, continues this legacy, distilling decades of experience into patterns and principles that are just as relevant today as they were when he first put finger to keyboard.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:22] Uncle Bob's advice for young programmers entering the field: Be cautious with AI tools, learn fundamental programming skills, and understand that AI won't replace programmers.

[4:42] Get to the basics first, and then you can move on: Master core programming skills and fundamentals before relying too heavily on AI or advanced tools.

[8:19] The impact of AI on experienced developers.

[15:44] Highlighting the role of programmers in managing low-level details that managers and customers don't want to think about.

[18:43] Programmers as language learners.

[27:19] The state of Agile methodologies.

[29:33] The original Agile goal of making small teams work efficiently together, which remains a crucial challenge.

[35:37] Discussing the limitations of university computer science programs and the potential of trade school or apprenticeship models.

[36:07] What's next for Uncle Bob?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

Clean Agile: Back to Basics

Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

We, Programmers: A Chronicle of Coders from Ada to AI

"Uncle Bob Martin: Clean Code and How to Do Software Well - Episode 283"

Functional Design: Principles, Patterns, and Practices

UncleBob on GitHub

The Clean Code Blog

Agile Principles, Patterns, Practices

Clean Coders

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Today's guest is a true heavyweight in the .NET open-source world — someone whose work has quietly but profoundly shaped the way countless developers build software. Jimmy Bogard is the creator and maintainer of two of the most widely used OSS libraries in the .NET ecosystem: AutoMapper and MediatR. If you've ever tried to simplify object mapping or decouple application logic, chances are you've used his tools. Based in Austin, Texas, Jimmy is an independent software consultant and a perennial recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award every single year since 2009. That's more than a decade and a half of consistent, community-driven excellence. AutoMapper alone has been around for 17 years and has racked up hundreds of millions of downloads. It started as a personal tool to streamline development for client projects and grew into a global standard for object mapping.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:15] What keeps Jimmy passionate about coding?

[5:19] The decision to commercialize both libraries.

[6:33] What dual licensing means in practice.

[12:11] Which version of each library will include the license change?

[16:26] Current major versions of AutoMapper (v14) and MediatR (v12).

[17:28] MediatR: the problem it solves and how it structures code.

[20:45] Organizing code by use case.

[26:00] AutoMapper: what it is and why it helps.

[33:28] API design strategy and tailoring endpoints to use cases.

[37:25] OpenAPI vs asyncAPI for message-based systems.

[41:49] Blazor WebAssembly and remote handlers.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

"Jimmy Bogard: .NET 7 and Azure Modernization - Episode 264"

GitHub — Jimmy Bogard eShop

GitHub — Jimmy Bogard

GitHub — Automapper

NuGet Gallery

NuGet Gallery — MediatR

Releases — J. Bogard

Jimmy Bogard

AutoMapper and MediatR Licensing Update

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Steven Smith, also known in the developer community as Ardalis, is an entrepreneur, author, and software architect with a deep passion for building effective, maintainable software. Through his company, NimblePros, Steve helps organizations — ranging from household names like Microsoft and Quicken Loans to growing teams across industries — maximize their development potential. His clients frequently describe him as a "force multiplier," amplifying the productivity and impact of the teams he supports.

Steve has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for over two decades and continues to lead through education and mentorship. He's published numerous courses on Pluralsight and Dometrain, focusing on topics like domain-driven design, software architecture, and design patterns. He also empowers developers through his mentorship platform, DevBetter.com, helping the next generation of professionals grow their careers with intention and clarity.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:28] What keeps Steve excited about computer programming and software architecture?

[4:42] What is software architecture?

[6:18] The importance of understanding the logical components of a software system and how they interact.

[7:06] Artifacts for architecture decisions.

[8:52] How lightweight documentation and diagrams, like those in the C4 Model, can clarify system design without overburdening the team.

[10:53] The modern architecture books that have caught Steve's eye.

[12:57] The KISS principle and keeping software architecture simple.

[19:38] Clean architecture and domain-driven design principles.

[22:52] Managing out-of-process dependencies and service integrations.

[26:07] Adapter pattern and interface abstractions.

[28:33] Decorator pattern for adding functionality.

[33:14] Pipeline Architecture.

[40:35] What Steve thinks the future holds for AI-driven development, what he uses it for, and the challenges of AI currently.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

"Steve Smith: .NET 8 and Architecture" - Episode 276

NimblePros

Architect Modern Web Applications with ASP.NET Core and Azure

C4 Model

"Simon Brown on Architecture for Developers - Episode 96"

Fundamentals of Software Architecture, by Mark Richards & Neal Ford, summarized as a platform-agnostic, principle-driven guide

.NET Rocks! "Architecture vs. Code with Steve Smith"

.NET Rocks! "Vertical Slice Architecture with Jeremy Miller"

GoF Adapter pattern

.NET API interface estimate

Decorator patternBus Vs. Pipeline patterns

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Bob Ward is a Principal Architect for the Microsoft Azure Data team, which owns the development for Microsoft SQL Edge to Cloud. Bob has worked for Microsoft for 31-plus years on every version of SQL Server shipped, from OS/2 1.1 to SQL Server 2025, including Azure SQL. Bob is a well-known speaker on SQL Server, Azure SQL, AI, and Microsoft Fabric, often presenting talks on new releases, internals, and specialized topics at events such as SQLBits, Microsoft Build, Microsoft Ignite, PASS Summit, DevIntersection, and VS Live. You can also learn Azure SQL from him on the popular series https://aka.ms/azuresql4beginners. You can follow him on X at @bobwardms or linkedin.com/in/bobwardms. Bob is the author of the books Pro SQL Server on Linux, SQL Server 2019 Revealed, Azure SQL Revealed with a 2nd edition, and SQL Server 2022 Revealed available from Apress Media.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:38] Bob reflects on nearly 30 years at Microsoft, growing alongside SQL Server since 1993. [4:16] Transitioning from engineering to advocacy: why Bob now focuses on helping developers unlock the power of SQL Server. [6:12] Debunking myths about SQL Server — yes, it's cloud-ready, developer-friendly, and supports containers and Linux. [10:15] Key tools and features for developers using SQL: containers, Bicep templates, SQLCMD, and DevOps pipelines. [16:23] SQL projects and source control: how modern database DevOps practices improve reliability and testing. [19:32] Common challenges in database development: fear of breaking production, limited test data, and cultural silos.

[22:55] Bob's perspective on responsible database change management and the importance of a good rollback plan. [26:02] The evolution of developer tooling in SQL Server, and how Microsoft is making the CLI and APIs first-class citizens. [30:47] Advice for new developers: SQL isn't going anywhere, and it's easier than ever to get started. [34:00] Resources and community support: Bob highlights docs, GitHub samples, training courses, and his book.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

Bob Ward: SQL Server - Episode 321

Bob Ward LinkedIn

Bob Ward MBob Ward — Microsoft | LinkedInicrosoft

Azure SQL Revealed: The Next-Generation Cloud Database with AI and Microsoft Fabric

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Michael is an ASP.NET and C# programmer who has extensive knowledge in process improvement, AI and Large Language Models, and student information systems. He is also the founder of the following websites, BlazorData.net, AIStoryBuilders.com, and BlazorHelpWebsite.com — fantastic resources that help empower developers. Michael resides in Los Angeles, California, with his son Zachary and wife, Valerie.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:09] Michael shares his background, starting with his first applications created for his uncle's company using Access 2.0.

[3:08] Michael mentions his new project, Personal Data Warehouse, which is an open-source, free tool for managing data.

[5:20] He explains the inspiration behind the Personal Data Warehouse, focusing on the importance of data for making human decisions.

[7:48] Michael's finding: the reason we collect data is so that a human being can use that data to make decisions.

[9:42] The three phases of data: collection, transformation, and reporting, and the significance of the transformation phase, where data is processed to make it useful for decision-making.

[12:45] Data warehousing techniques and tools, and the use of Parquet files.

[13:14] Michael talks about the use of SQL Server Reporting Services for generating reports, which can be accessed through the application. He encourages developers to explore the Personal Data Warehouse and its open-source code on GitHub.

[22:33] Scenarios and use cases for Personal Data Warehouse.

[32:09] AI and Language Models in Data Management.

[36:17] The need to be responsible with AI and not use it to harm people.

[37:07] Michael shares his experience with various AI tools, including CoPilot, OpenAI, and Google Notebooks.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

Ep 286 with Michael Washington

Webmaster@ADefWebserver.com

AI Snake Oil

AIStoryBuilders

Blazor — Blogs

Blazor Help Website

BlazorData-Net / PersonalDataWarehouse

GitHub Copilot

Google NotebooksLM

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

As the Vice President of Strategy at Xebia Microsoft Services, Rocky leads the vision and direction of the company's software development solutions and services. He brings extensive expertise in framework design and implementation, distributed systems architecture, and cloud and container technologies, helping clients achieve their business goals and deliver value to their customers.

He is also the creator of CSLA .NET, an open-source development framework that enables developers to build scalable, maintainable, and secure object-oriented applications. As an accomplished author, he has written multiple books on the subject and frequently shares his insights at major conferences worldwide. He is honored to be a member of the Microsoft Regional Director and MVP programs and serves as co-chair of Visual Studio Live! as well as chair of the Cloud & Containers Live conferences. His passion lies in advancing the software industry and empowering developers to create better software.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:30] Rockford shares his first job experience at an independent software vendor (ISV) building software to dispatch and manage the delivery of ready-mix concrete trucks.

[8:30] The evolution of software and its connection to real-world processes.

[9:53] The impact of technology advancements, such as miniaturization and material science, on modern software applications.

[12:40] The influence of AI on software architecture and decision making.

[19:15] Rockford about the importance of open-source libraries and personal projects in software development.

[21:35] How does one become aware of what's available these days?

[23:14] Rockford suggests using RSS readers, curated feeds, and platforms like Feedly and Mastodon to stay informed about industry developments.

[27:06] The upside to blogging and microblogging.

[28:25] Importance of sharing knowledge and expertise.

[29:19] Expertise through teaching and sharing.

[32:19] Impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) on Coding.

[38:22] Infrastructure challenges with AI.

[40:21] Legacy software modernization.

[40:52] Career advice for leaders and recognizing it as its own career path.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

Azure & DevOps Podcast: Rocky Lhotka: CSLA - Episode 210

CSLA.NET

Rockford on LinkedIn

Rockford Lhotka

Rockford's Blog

Feedly

Morning Dew — Alvin Ashcroft

Drive by Daniel Pink

Visual Studio Live!

Tunisia DevDays

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Scott is the Vice President of Product for Azure Developer Experience. He builds all the .NET tools for Azure.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:49] Scott's Microsoft journey and .NET evolution.

[3:39] AI's transformative impact on software development.

[6:08] Using ChatGPT and Deep Research.

[8:41] Software Engineering Agent (Padawan).

[11:20] Model Context Protocol (MCP).

[11:51] GitHub workflow for agent-driven development.

[15:53] Handling repetitive or non-fun development tasks.

[19:41] How AI will bring back the tech for us.

[21:15] Azure Spring Apps and modernization tools.

[23:39] The Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Agent, which helps monitor and manage cloud applications, reducing pager hits and automating common tasks.

[29:02] Reducing developer toil so there's more time to do what they want to do.

[31:22] The future organizational philosophy shift that may happen, while Scott reminds us that for the time being, you are still the operator and still in control.

[33:37] The development of prompt libraries in tools like Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio to help developers create detailed prompts.

[38:18] Scott emphasizes the importance of continuous feedback from developers to improve AI tools and make them more effective.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

Scott Hunter: Microsoft's Azure & .NET Strategy- Episode 211

Scott Hunter: .NET8 - Episode 272

scott.hunter@microsoft.com

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Scott has spent over 25 years in the IT field, working in disciplines such as systems architecture, software development, team growth, and entrepreneurship. He was a Microsoft MVP for 12 years in ASP.NET and IIS. He's co-authored two books (IIS 7 and IIS 8 Professional), is a Pluralsight author, and has spoken at various conferences, code camps, and user groups. He's now shifted into the AI space, building AI solutions and supporting others in their AI journey. Scott co-founded a new startup, Kitchen Copilot, using all the new GenAI tech to help people cook more at home and eat healthier.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:34] Scott's career journey and how Kitchen Copilot originated.

[7:27] More about Kitchen Copilot's features.

[9:35] How Kitchen helps with meal planning and recipe discovery for all levels of at-home chefs.

[13:17] The technical process of importing recipes.

[15:58] Using Microsoft Document intelligence to read handwriting and take screenshots of cookbook recipes.

[17:13] Deployed pieces of the application.

[20:43] E-mail import and queuing system.

[23:32] Choice of LLM models including Groq.

[29:37] Automated testing approach for LLM-based applications.

[31:36] Hosting details.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

Flowise

Attention is all you need

Kitchen Copilot

Make

Perplexity

Claude

Groq

About Groq

Scott on LinkedIn

Kitchen Copilot AI Generator

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

David Lykken, a 51-year veteran of the mortgage industry, is the Founder, President & Chief Transformational Officer of Transformational Mortgage Solutions (TMS). With decades of expertise, Lykken and his team of industry veterans are revolutionizing the way mortgage professionals conduct business through consulting, executive coaching, and strategic communications.

Recognized as a leading voice in the mortgage sector, he has been a frequent guest on FOX Business News, as well as making appearances on CNBC & CBS Evening News, where he shares invaluable insights on market trends and industry developments.

Mr. Lykken is also the host of the widely acclaimed weekly Lykken on Lending podcast, heard every Monday at 1 PM ET. Additionally, he leads the Lykken On Leadership podcast, where he provides leadership strategies tailored to the mortgage and housing industries.

Beyond his work in podcasting, Mr. Lykken extends his reach into television, hosting two TV shows: Your Home Business and Your Home Coast to Coast, both airing on Your Home TV. His multifaceted career reflects a deep commitment to educating and empowering professionals in an ever-evolving industry.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:50] David's early career challenges with dyslexia.

[5:55] Learning about virtual assistants.

[7:38] Current AI Tools and Usage, including large language models, Blockchain, and private GPT.

[9:57] Twin protocol and AI avatars.

[13:02] AI in Recruiting and Communication, introducing ELO GPT tool for automated outbound calling and personalized recruitment strategies.

[19:27] AI Mistakes and Challenges, discussing the importance of training AI tools and avoiding generic, potentially inaccurate content.

[24:10] Evolution of business assistance, comparing current AI tools to previous technological shifts like typewriters and word processors.

[26:52] The continued importance of human relationships in business, emphasizing that AI cannot fully replace human empathy and connection.

[31:10] The future of AI, predicting increased productivity and scalability for businesses through AI technologies.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

David Lykken LinkedIn

Transformational Mortgage Solutions

Lykken on Lending

YHBTV with David Lykken

Your Home Coast to Coast TV

The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future, by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar

Twin Protocol (AI) tool

ELO GPT

ElevenLabs

Perplexity

Vibe Coding

Opus Clip

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Jeff is the co-creator of Scrum and a leading expert on how the Scrum framework has evolved to meet the needs of today's business. The framework he developed in 1993 and formalized in 1995 with Ken Schwaber has since been adopted by the vast majority of software development companies around the world. However, Jeff realized that the benefits of Scrum are not limited to software and product development. He has adapted this successful strategy for several other industries, including finance, healthcare, higher education, and telecom.

As the CEO of Scrum Inc. Jeff sets the vision for success with Scrum. He continues to share best practices with organizations around the globe and has written extensively on Scrum rules and methods. With a deep understanding of business process — gleaned from years as CTO/CEO of eleven different software companies — Jeff is able to describe the high-level organizational benefits of Scrum and what it takes to create hyperproductive teams.

Topics of Discussion:

[:35] Introduction of Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum.

[3:47] Jeff Sutherland's background: His experience at West Point and lessons in making work visible.

[5:19] Fighter pilot experiences that influenced the operational side of Scrum.

[6:02] Transition to the Air Force Academy and work in AI at Stanford.

[7:38] Learning complex adaptive systems and the origin of Agile from complex systems theory.

[8:30] How complex systems theory impacts Scrum and Agile teams today.

[9:25] Jeff's first experiences applying Scrum in the banking industry.

[11:25] The development of Scrum and the 2001 Agile Manifesto.

[12:57] Making work visible and organizing teams, from West Point to Toyota to the Agile Manifesto.

[13:23] Fast forward to 2024: Issues in Scrum and Agile practices, including sprint lengths and backlog grooming.

[14:34] Jeff's new book: First Principles in Scrum and its relation to Scrum technology stacks.

[16:23] Building autonomous systems: Lessons from radiation physics, AI, and complex adaptive systems.

[19:16] The influence of autonomous robots on the creation of Scrum.

[21:14] Discussion of Scrum and AI, leading to "Extreme Agile."

[22:47] Predictions for the future of Scrum and Agile: Teams becoming 30 to 100 times faster by 2030.

[23:37] Example of AI in action: Developing a system to handle expense reports using Scrum principles.

[29:37] Challenges with AI-generated code and the need for strong software architecture knowledge.

[33:24] The importance of following Scrum "by the book" to achieve hyperproductivity.

[35:30] Jeff's closing advice on adapting to extreme agile to stay competitive by 2030.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

"How the Agile Manifesto Came To Be"

Become a beta tester for Jeff Sutherland's AI software project for expense reports: support@quickaireports.com

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Adrienne Braganza Tacke is an accomplished author and software engineer with a passion for educating others about software development. Choosing a path distinct from the expected trajectory of nursing, she pursued a degree in management information systems at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Over the course of nearly eight years in the field, she has contributed her expertise across multiple industries, including healthcare and higher education. Currently, she serves as a software development engineer at DebtTrader, where she embraces the challenge of modernizing fintech workflows traditionally dependent on spreadsheets.

Beyond her professional work, Adrienne is an international speaker, instructor, and dedicated advocate for STEM education. Her first book, Coding for Kids: Python, has consistently ranked among the top-selling children's programming books on Amazon. She frequently visits schools to inspire students with insights into software engineering and the transformative power of coding. When she's not engaging with young aspiring developers, she speaks at tech conferences throughout the U.S. and Europe. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@AdrienneTacke) to stay updated on her latest endeavors.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:20] Adrienne's journey and the happy accidents and formative moments that led her to working in this field.

[5:46] What does a developer advocate do?

[7:04] Adrienne started teaching in 2017, when tech influencers were starting to become more popular.

[9:02] There is no one-size-fits-all about the code review process, and what it looks like will be different for every team.

[11:19] The price of ineffective communication.

[15:30] The power of fixing things during development and before the code review.

[19:10] Adrienne gives a few real-life examples of time wasters in code reviews.

[22:08] More about Adrienne's book, Looks Good to Me: Constructive Code Reviews, and how it can help streamline and save time.

[23:44] Like Adrienne's chapter title, if you can automate it — do it.

[26:51] There are still errors that won't be caught by static analysis.

[30:46] Some tips to remember when using AI, like making sure your titles are descriptive.

[36:17] Maybe an "auto-polite" button is coming soon? We wish.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

Looks Good to Me: Constructive Code Reviews

CodeRabbit

OFFER: First listener to use the code gets a free copy of the book: "braganza-FBEE"Instructions: 1. Go to book link (https://www.manning.com/books/looks-good-to-me) 2. Follow purchase process 3. Apply coupon (braganza-FBEE) at checkout

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

April is a senior developer advocate and DevOps practice lead for GitHub, specializing in application transformation and DevOps ways of working. Her focus is working on Microsoft Azure to take customers on a journey from legacy technology to serverless and containers, where code comes first, while enabling them to take full advantage of DevOps. April was previously a cloud consultant and solution architect for various partners in the UK and brings her years of experience in helping customers plan their journey. She also serves as a Hashicorp Ambassador, dedicating much of her time to working with infrastructure as code (IaC). She enjoys making Azure and its features more accessible. Her technical expertise includes PowerShell, Golang, and occasionally TypeScript and C#. In her free time, April enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking, skiing, and scuba diving. Additionally, she is a triathlete who competes in Ironman and Half Ironman events.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:57] April's career journey — from U.S. data center outages and 72-hour shifts to discovering cloud and automation after relocating to the U.K. [3:53] How an early Azure migration in 2013 ignited her passion for infrastructure as code and DevOps.

[5:33] GitHub's evolution into a full end-to-end enterprise platform, with a major focus on security, scalability, and developer productivity. [6:51] Code Spaces: VS Code in the cloud with 60 hours free per user — solving compute and environment parity issues across teams. [10:00] GitHub's internal use of Code Spaces: every GitHub employee (aka "Hubber") uses it to work on the github.com codebase. [12:29] Code Spaces' advantages in lab and hackathon settings, including speed, security, and reliability. [13:55] Breakdown of GitHub Copilot's flavors: chat, inline suggestions, edits, pull request reviews, and agentic AI. [17:12] Real-world uses of Copilot Edits: generating documentation, writing tests, and making cohesive multi-file changes. [20:00] GitHub's goal of enabling the "10x developer," not just in speed but in quality, consistency, and creativity.

[25:00] How AI tooling is changing how we think about architecture, code reuse, and shrinking monoliths into modular libraries. [30:00] Prompting strategies: how different cultures and languages impact the way developers interact with AI tools. [32:47] GitHub Workspaces: start from requirements, generate a plan, and get a head start on writing and converting code. [35:00] April's belief that AI-driven development is already here, and edits are one of the best ways to experience that transformation now.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

.Net Aspire and Data API builder with the Community

April on GitHub

April on LinkedIn

April on X

Universe 2024: GitHub Embraces Developer Choice with Multi-Model Copilot, New App Tool GitHub Spark, and AI-Native Developer Experience

CoPilot Workspace

GitHub Spark

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Jerry Nixon is a Principal Program Manager on the SQL Server team focused on the Data API builder. He's also a fanatic for #CSharp, #StarTrek, and Etymology. He also serves as a professor at Colorado Christian University.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:34] Why Jerry describes his life as a pearl necklace.

[5:15] Jerry recommends the book Never Eat Alone and the importance of community.

[6:01] How engineers and parenting are aligned.

[7:02] Jerry reflects on Microsoft's history of evangelism, the rise of "opinionated" frameworks, and how .NET Aspire revives a form of proven prescriptive guidance. [9:35] Prescriptive guidance.

[12:03] The inevitable evolution of .NET Aspire and how it simplifies container-based development by handling orchestration behind the scenes.

[16:56] Paying more attention and awareness to the developer community.

[18:30] How GraphQL fits into the Data API Builder experience, giving developers flexibility without needing to write complex backends.

[21:40] Jerry talks about community feedback on Data API Builder and how real-world use cases help prioritize features and fix gaps in tooling.

[31:02] Jerry's perspective on building container-based solutions.

[32:15] Data API Builder's community involvement and upcoming features.

[36:15] Docker Desktop.

[38:58] The architectural concept of Data API Builder.

[44:42] C# coding conventions at Microsoft and the friendly battles over things like naming, underscores, and formatting styles across internal teams.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

.Net Aspire and Data API builder with the Community

Jerry on LinkedIn

Jerry Nixon Github

Colorado Christian University

Data API builder for Azure Databases samples

Common C# code conventions

What is Data API Builder?

Quickstart: Use Data API builder with SQL

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Stephen Toub is a Partner Software Engineer at Microsoft. Stephen has been at Microsoft for almost 24 years and has done it all. If it has to do with .NET, he's been in it. And today, he looks after all the .NET libraries making sure .NET continues to be the fastest platform on the planet. He ran the MSDN Magazine before it morphed into the docs and blogs of today. He was a leader in the concurrency and async and parallel programming developments, and now he's turned his attention to pushing the AI envelope with .NET.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:37] Stephen morphed a few of his many interests into the role he has today.

[6:04] How moments like the push for parallel computing, the open-sourcing of .NET, cross-platform support, and performance goals shaped Steven's current focus. [7:37] Steven highlights the two major AI tracks: (1) AI-augmented tools that improve developer productivity, and (2) building AI capabilities into applications themselves.

[10:37] The future of user interfaces.

[12:43] Why "agents" are basically advanced actor-based systems empowered by large language models and tool calling, enabling reasoning and orchestration beyond simple Q&A. [23:22] Model context protocol.

[24:08] A paradigm shift in system integration.

[30:24] How Stephen and the .NET libraries team factor out common AI abstractions for the ecosystem, so that different frameworks (Semantic Kernel, Onnx Runtime, Olama, etc.) can interoperate.

[32:15] Steven gives examples of how minimal C# code, combined with locally hosted LLMs or cloud endpoints, can solve real tasks.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

Stephen on GitHub

Stephen on LinkedIn

Demystifying Retrieval Augmented Generation with .NET

Suno

csharp-sdk

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Bruno Capuano is a Principal Cloud Advocate at Microsoft where he empowers teams to build AI solutions with Azure using programming languages like C#, Python, and C++. His approach is to solve complex problems with minimal effort, delivering simple and efficient solutions in today's fast-paced AI landscape. Bruno has led innovation in teams at Avanade across Canada and Europe, transforming cutting-edge technologies into practical business solutions. He is passionate about working with teams, helping them grow, achieve high productivity, and foster collaborative, positive environments. As an international speaker, he advocates for making AI accessible to everyone, empowering teams and organizations to harness its transformative potential. Outside of tech, he is a runner, a lifelong learner, and always looking for his next challenge—whether it's mastering new skills or tackling a marathon.

Topics of Discussion:

[5:08] Bruno explains how his passion for learning and community engagement led him to a role where he could dedicate himself to education and advocacy.

[7:17] Why data scientists and new AI tools often favor Python first, and how Bruno and his team work to ensure .NET developers also have immediate access to modern AI capabilities.

[10:31] The progression of getting developers into AI.

[11:20] Starting with familiar tools like Notepad.

[13:39] The "must have's" for developers who want to start writing AI code.

[17:20] The benefit of GitHub models.

[23:47] Vector Databases & Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).

[25:17] How vector databases store information using numerical representations and enable semantic search.

[31:25] Bruno highlights how AI "skills" or "functions" can call external APIs to fetch real-time data.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

Bruno LinkedIn

Generative AI for Beginners

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Per is an experienced software architect and developer with more than 19 years of experience in designing, developing, and testing software. He is currently serving as a Distinguished software developer at Delegate, a Microsoft Partner in Denmark.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:02] More about Per's background in nearly two decades in .NET and Azure consulting.

[6:11] The concept of a boutique consultant.

[7:00] Founding ATC-Net to share common .NET libraries and avoid duplicative coding.

[10:02] Building trust with customers by open-sourcing "generic" components.

[11:50] Creating a connector to run Olama (local LLMs) with Semantic Kernel.

[20:08] Why Per "fell in love" with Semantic Kernel's abstraction layers and extension possibilities.

[21:44] The role of vector stores (like Azure Cognitive Search) in retrieval-augmented generation.

[24:33] What do we mean by "vector" in the AI space?

[26:39] What is a "text chunker"?

[31:43] Azure AI search.

[34:07] Finding the right tool for the right task.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

atc-net GitHub

Per Kops LinkedIn

Per Kops GitHub

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Tim learned software development the hard way, with lots of dead-ends, confusion, and knowledge gaps. He kept thinking, "It shouldn't be this hard!"

Now he teaches students how to think and code like professional developers. His goal is to make it easier for others to become a developer. He's been recognized as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional every year since 2017.

Topics of Discussion:

[:45] How Tim actually got into development at the young age of 12.

[6:17] How Tim got over the feeling of not being good enough.

[7:55] How Tim got into teaching.

[9:42] Tim built his YouTube channel slowly to find a consistent release schedule and passionate audience.

[12:55] How to know what language to start in.

[19:53] Why Tim is less of a fan of college and why he doesn't recommend it.

[22:26] Coding Boot Camps vs. self-paced courses.

[27:47] Tim's advice for young programmers suffering from impostor syndrome.

[33:12] Every application has two jobs: capture information and display information.

[38:01] What are a few of Tim's favorite courses now, and what are universities doing right?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Tim Corey

Tim Corey YouTube

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Bojan Magusic is a Product Manager on the Customer Acceleration Team and acts as a technology expert for Fortune 500 companies to help them realize the full value of Microsoft Defender for Cloud and improve their overall security posture. He has a strong passion for cybersecurity, advancing women in tech and professional development. He is very interested in building partnerships with other companies to learn how they support, advance, and retain their cyber talent. In addition to various technical certifications (18-plus and counting), he also has received certifications from INSEAD and Kellogg School of Management. Bojan resides in Dublin (Ireland), where he is living the dream!

Topics of Discussion:

[:37] Jeffrey puts out a call for those who would like to work with him.

[4:15] Bojan talks about his book, Azure Security, and what we can expect.

[5:09] Is security a job title? Where does it intersect with programming?

[9:22] What is specifically Azure security, and how is it different from general cybersecurity?

[11:44] Azure Security is practical while still having theoretical concepts that make it easier for folks who are not security engineers.

[13:15] What specifically should development teams be looking at?

[14:33] Defense in depth speaks about how you can minimize the overall risk to your environment by deploying multiple layers of security.

[19:36] What is security hygiene?

[25:25] What are Bojan's favorite tools for static analysis security vulnerabilities?

[27:45] Why you need to make security part of the software development lifecycle.

[26:25] Bojan talks about the Microsoft DevOps Security Extension.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Azure Security — code for 45% off azuresec45

Bojan Magusic LinkedIn

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Thomas Vitale is a software engineer and architect specializing in building cloud-native, resilient, and secure enterprise applications. He designs and develops software solutions at Systematic, Denmark, where he's been working on modernizing platforms and applications for the cloud-native world, focusing on developer experience and security.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:52] How did Thomas get into software development?

[6:00] Thomas talks about his book, Cloud Native Spring in Action.

[7:31] Thomas goes over the basics of Kubernetes.

[8:42] What about orchestration of all these containers in a production scenario? How can we distribute these containers across the machines?

[12:11] How do we know when we need more than one Kubernetes cluster?

[19:46] What are a node and a pod, and how do those two relate?

[24:05] How does the application know when Kubernetes might move one container to a pod that happens to be on a different virtual machine with a different IP address?

[27:36] Where does Docker Swarm fit in, and where does Helm fit in?

[33:12] Thomas explains why he likes Carvel as a tool.

[34:12] What is Thomas's favorite method for spinning up your own Kubernetes cluster locally?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Thomas Vitale LinkedIn

Thomas Vitale Website

Cloud Native Spring in Action

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Chris is a Microsoft MVP, author, and software engineer with over 17 years of experience with ASP.NET. Passionate about sharing his knowledge with the community, he regularly writes both for his own blog as well as others — such as Visual Studio magazine, Progress Telerik, and StackOverflow. This passion for blogging led to his first book, Blazor in Action, a practical guide to building Blazor applications. He also maintains several popular open-source projects under the GitHub organization, Blazored. When not tapping on a keyboard, Chris is a keen speaker, having delivered talks at both user groups and conferences all over the world.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:15] Jeffrey puts out a call for those who may be looking to work with him.

[4:41] What was Chris's start in the industry?

[10:07] Chris talks about falling in love with Blazor and why he is so passionate about it.

[12:10] Chris shares how he got into blogging and why he thinks it should be for everyone, not just those at the senior level.

[15:22] Talks about winning the Microsoft MVP award.

[15:48] How does Chris talk about Blazor when creating a new application? Are there defaults that he goes to?

[21:51] Chris talks about his organizational technique on the client side.

[25:05] In Chris's book, Blazor In Action, he talks about GitHub repositories that he likes.

[27:04] Structuring web APIs from a security perspective.

[28:00] How does Chris segment different projects?

[33:47] What is Chris's favorite method of putting together an authentication flow?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Chris Sainty Website

Chris Sainty LinkedIn

Chris Sainty YouTube

Chris Sainty Microsoft

Blazor In Action

Blazor In Action on Manning.Com - PBSAINTY for 50% off

Blazored on GitHub

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Toni Solarin-Sodara is a Software Engineering Lead at Microsoft. He specializes in developer tooling, working at the client platform layer, and building the runtime libraries and tools that enable shipping code to various operating systems and devices. Toni is also the creator and lead maintainer of Coverlet, a cross-platform code coverage framework for .NET, with support for line, branch, and method coverage.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:23] Jeffrey puts out a call for some opportunities to work with him! E-mail jeffrey@clear-measure.com to get more info.

[4:05] What led to Toni's career in development and programming?

[5:18] What went into the .NET runtime contribution (native AOT)?

[8:16] One thing Toni is quite proud of is being able to build native libraries by using the technology.

[9:08] AOT stands for ahead-of-time compilation.

[10:23] What is Coverlet and why does it work?

[15:13] In what areas does Coverlet work very well?

[15:27] A good chunk of what Coverlet does is allow transparency in the build system integration.

[16:41] What's the process for taking multiple runs of multiple test suites and getting them into one report?

[23:53] What is Toni's view on how the code coverage results should be used?

[24:47] How do you get code coverage results when the actual test project is running on a different server?

[30:46] What does Pose do and why is it useful?

[41:08] Toni says that .NET is actually pretty extensive, even as a programming language workbench.

[41:40] What are expression trees?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

.NET

Pose

Coverlet

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

A Microsoft Data Platform MVP, Grant Fritchey works for Red Gate Software as a Product Advocate. Grant has more than 30 years of experience in the industry as a DBA and developer. Grant is an active participant in the SQL Server Central discussion forums. He writes articles for SQL Server Central and Simple-Talk. He blogs regularly at scarydba.com. Grant is the author of several books including SQL Server Query Performance Tuning and SQL Server Execution Plans. Grant teaches classes on data management and databases around the world. He teaches in the smallest user group settings and at the largest events.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:24] How did Grant get into the industry?

[5:40 Are there any big shifts that more recent developers and all developers need to know about shifts in how databases have worked?

[13:10] What should developers know about the ecosystem when you've taken a system and broken it up into multiple applications?

[16:07] What has changed in Grant's book, Query Performance Tuning?

[20:34] Performance comes down to the code. It always comes down to the code.

[23:58] What are some of the main tools that developers should have in their toolbox?

[26:20] Why Grant recommends Extended Events and Query Store.

[32:41] Grant gives us his sales pitch.

[38:40] What does Grant think the future looks like?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Query Performance Tuning

ScaryDBA.com

SQL

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Christoph Vollmer is an internationally experienced IT Manager with strong experience in software development and team leadership. He has worked for several years as a developer with multiple languages in several organizations and industries with different methodologies. He has had hands-on experience with a broad range of technologies. Successful team lead for cross-functional agile teams with a strong focus on delivering the right thing in the right way. I've mentored and managed team members on different levels. Christoph is passionate about Agile and Scrum as software development methodology because it bridges the gap between development teams and business needs. He has a focus on security starting at development and going all the way through to the end user and our daily lives. Christoph is also strong with automated testing on every level.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:20] What got Christoph into software testing and how did he get into automated testing?

[6:53] What is the testing pyramid in software?

[10:46] What are the best automated testing tools for .NET?

[13:51] What is Mutation testing and Stryker Mutator?

[22:46] How does TDD intersect with a bug report?

[28:48] What is full-system testing and how does Playwright fit in?

[29:49] What is the page object pattern for UI testing?

[32:47] How to know when specialized testing might be needed for your application?

[34:48] Why Christoph thinks accessibility testing should be important to everyone.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Testing pyramid

Playwright

Build quality checks

Mutation testing — Stryker Mutator

FluentAssertions

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Christian Clausen works as a Technical Agile Coach teaching teams how to properly refactor their code. Previously he worked as a software engineer on the Coccinelle semantic patching project, an automated refactoring tool. He has an MSc in computer science and five years of experience teaching software quality at a university level. He is the author of the book Five Lines of Code published by Manning. He was one of the Top Three rated speakers at GOTO Aarhus 2022. People were standing in line to get a signed copy of his book Five Lines of Code.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:46] Christian talks about what got him into coding from a young age, and some of his favorite things about coding. He also discusses how the industry has changed since he first began his career.

[6:19] Christian shares the reason behind the premise that every method should get down to no more than five lines of code.

[9:07] What does "collaborate with the compiler" mean in Christian's book?

[13:38] The process behind changing code by addition, rather than modification.

[22:16] Christian talks about defending the data.

[26:49] Christian's mental model of spaceship architecture.

[30:04] What extra features does Christian's book come with?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Five Lines of Code

Christian on Twitter

Christian on Medium

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Christian Wenz works as a consultant, trainer, and author with a focus on web technologies and is the author or co-author of over 100 computer books. He regularly contributes to various IT magazines and speaks at conferences around the globe. Christian holds a "Diplom" (the German equivalent of a master's degree) in Computer Sciences, and one in Business Informatics. In his day job, he is one of the founders of the web agency Arrabiata Solutions (http://www.arrabiata.com/) with offices in Munich, Germany, and in London, UK. He also frequently works with development teams to make their applications better performing, more secure, and more reliable.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:51] Has Christian really written over 100 computer books? Christian talks about the books and the high points of technology that he has worked in.

[7:16] What is the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) Top 10 list?

[10:33] You always have to be aware that something may go wrong, and have a security mindset.

[12:05] Again and again, make sure that you understand the fundamentals of web app security, because eventually, you will make a mistake in your code.

[12:30] What is insecure design?

[13:43] Christian talks about the enumeration scheme CWE: common weakness enumeration, which basically assigns a number to each risk or attack.

[17:00] How should people be logging into their web sessions now with .NET7?

[18:31] The major mistake you can make these days is to write your own authentication mechanism.

[23:57] What is Christian's favorite mechanism today for securing HTTP web services?

[31:05] What are some of the tools Christian always reaches for, and how do we differentiate between static auditing and dynamically auditing an application?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Christian Microsoft Profile

ASP.NET Core Security

Christian's Books on Amazon

OWASP

Identity Server

Dependabot

Security Code Scan

Configuring Code Scanning for a Repository

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Lars is a Senior Developer Advocate with Pluralsight, author, trainer, Microsoft Azure MVP, community leader, aspiring YouTube host, and part-time classic car collector. He is heavily involved in the space of cloud computing services, especially Azure, and is a published author, solution architect, and writer for numerous publications. He has been a part of the software development community for the past 20 years and co-organizes the DDD Melbourne community conference, organizes developer events with Microsoft, and also runs a part-time car restoration business. He has spoken at numerous technical events around the world and is an expert in Australian Outback Internet.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:24] Lars talks about his early start in programming and the IT industry and his path to his present-day career.

[6:36] As a self-described "nerd that doesn't mind talking to people," Lars worked that characteristic into networking over his career.

[8:17] Why did Lars decide to write a book?

[9:40] Lars talks about his book, Microsoft Azure in Action.

[9:57] What part of Azure should developers be using more than less?

[13:00] What ideas have risen to the surface for general internal business application developers?

[16:36] What's the best way to store and manipulate data?

[21:58] What are some of Lars's favorite scenarios where you would reach for the queue?

[23:57] How would Lars decipher his architectural decisions on whether to use App Service?

[26:57] What is Lars's thought process when creating service workers to read from that queue versus creating a second app that is installed into the app service plan?

[30:34] Lars talks about the importance of Application Insights.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us programming@palermo.network

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Microsoft Azure in Action

Lars On YouTube

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Colin is the SVP of Product at Octopus Deploy. As a technical product leader, his career has spanned music, health, financial, and technology industries with companies like Microsoft, Johnson Controls, Brink's, Orion Health, and officialCOMMUNITY. He is passionate about growing product people through his work with the Product Aotearoa community. You can learn more about him at ColinBowern.com.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:23] How Colin got involved in Octopus Deploy.

[5:43] What is the value proposition for Octopus Deploy?

[11:30] Who is Octopus Deploy built for?

[12:52] How do we categorize all the after-deploy activities?

[14:46] How do we get happy deployments?

[18:36] What are some of the themes or categories that have emerged in Runbooks that are universally applicable?

[21:51] What has happened in the DevOps space since 2010 when the term "DevOps Engineer" was first used?

[24:01] Colin talks about infrastructure as code in the cloud.

[30:01] Colin talks about his view on the future of Windows Server and Windows Server Operating System.

[36:28] What is the easiest way for someone to get started in Octopus?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Programming with Palermo - New Video Podcast!

programming@palermo.network

Colin Bowern on Twitter

Colin Bowern Website

Colin Bowern LinkedIn

Colin Bowern Microsoft

Octopus Deploy 30 Point Inspection

Octopus Deploy Jumpstart

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

An international speaker, Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider, MCSD, PSM II, PSD, and PST, and a passionate member of the developer community, Phil has been working with .NET since the first betas, developing software for over 35 years, and heavily involved in the agile community since 2005 as well as a Professional Scrum Trainer. Phil has taken over the best-selling Pro C# books (Apress Publishing), including "Pro C# 10", is the President of the Cincinnati .NET User's Group (Cinnug.org), and the Cincinnati Software Architect Group, co-hosted the Hallway Conversations podcast (Hallwayconversations.com), founded and runs the CincyDeliver conference (Cincydeliver.org), and volunteers for the National Ski Patrol. During the day, Phil works as the CTO for Pintas & Mullins. Phil always enjoys learning new tech and is always striving to improve his craft.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:22] What were the key points that steered Philip along his career and watershed moments?

[6:42] The importance of having a contract in place for every job.

[8:14] Philip talks about honing his craft and putting himself in rooms with people he admired.

[11:01] What did the Library of Congress have to do with Philip's book?

[18:00] As the CTO of a private company, what does Philip think about the software executive role?

[19:33] Don't ask your employees to do anything they're not willing to do for you. Trust your employees and let them grow.

[24:11] The best leaders don't have to be in management.

[24:53] What is an NCO, non-commissioned officer?

[27:15] Phil shares his view on object-oriented programming in the modern C#.

[32:19] What is technical debt?

[33:50] Another really nice feature built into Entity Framework core, or EF core, is the idea of concurrency checking.

[37:57] When you refactor, you want the end product to be what you would have made it if you had been going from the beginning.

[42:12] Philip talks about running the Cincy Deliver conference.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Programming with Palermo - New Video Podcast!

programming@palermo.network

Phil on Twitter

Phil's Blog

Phil's Sessions

Philip on Microsoft

Philip on Scrum

Philip on GitHub

Philip's Books

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Stephanie Herr is a Product Manager for Database DevOps at Redgate Software. She's been an instrumental part of every Database DevOps product at Redgate for the past 13 years and has spoken at industry conferences such as DevOps World.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:58] Stephanie talks about taking ideas from her previous working experience into Redgate.

[4:29] What makes the database so different from application development?

[6:23] What patterns work the best and which ones haven't really panned out?

[9:08] The state-based approach vs. migration approach.

[13:30] How do you categorize all the different things that may need to be deployed or changed?

[14:09] What is static data?

[15:44] What is the latest in the Redgate products that everyone should know about?

[21:41] Stephanie talks about the change report and the process behind caching best practices.

[23:10] What is Sequel Fluff?

[26:28] Stephanie talks about the integration with Sequel Monitor.

[27:46] Are the Azure services completely covered?

[30:35] Where does Stephanie see Database DevOps going?

[32:33] Stephanie shares an exciting new announcement!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Programming with Palermo - New Video Podcast!

programming@palermo.network

Stephanie Herr LinkedIn

Stephanie Herr | Redgate

Redgate Flyway

Postgres support in December

Sqlfluff.com

Redgate Software

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Brian Lagunas is a Microsoft MVP, a Microsoft Patterns & Practices Champion, leader of the Boise .Net Developers User Group (NETDUG), board member of Boise Code Camp, speaker, trainer, and Pluralsight author. He can be found speaking at a variety of developer events around the world. His talks always involve some form of markup (XAML or HTML), as well as how to build well-architected applications with Prism. In his spare time, he authors courses for Pluralsight, blogs, livestreams about various technologies, and manages the Prism Library. The easiest way to find Brian is on Twitter at @BrianLagunas.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:43] What triggered Brian to go from the Army into programming?

[5:49] Brian started in Java because that's how new .NET was.

[8:22] What is Reveal, and how many code bases do you have to reach all those places?

[12:37] What is Brian's thought about using Blazer vs. JavaScript vs. Typescript?

[15:20] How do we bridge the gap between using NPM and Blazer Applications?

[17:31] How does Brian think about the different levels of unit tests of these different types of code, and then what classifications do you create in your test libraries?

[21:47] What is App Builder?

[24:39] What's the track record of App Builder? Is it already mainstream?

[30:20] What Brian's team is focused on now is getting that initial application built, generated, out the door, and ready for the developer to implement the logic.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Programming with Palermo - New Video Podcast!

programming@palermo.network

Brian Lagunas

Brian Lagunas Microsoft Profile

GitHub Brian Lagunas

Brian Lagunas LinkedIn

Brian Lagunas Twitter

Plural Sight Brian Lagunas

Brian Lagunas YouTube

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Marco Rossignoli is a Dev at Microsoft on the .NET Test Platform and Code coverage team. He's also the co-maintainer of the Coverlet Collector NuGet package, which has over 100M downloads.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:15] Jeffrey talks about the architect forums he's hosting and facilitating in 2023. You can register here.

[2:53] Marco talks about how he got into code coverage.

[6:44] Why is code coverage even useful to measure?

[12:40] How does Coverlet work and how is it different from the old ones? How do you run it?

[20:30] Is there any difference in how it works between Azure Pipelines or GitHub Actions or TeamCity?

[21:40] With multiple test suites running, how does Coverlet support pulling all the results together so that you get the one number of code coverage?

[23:40] Report generator merges all of the reports.

[25:16] What exactly is Cobertura?

[26:02] Marco shares why he is excited about Coverlet and the many opportunities it gives us in the future.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Architect Tips — Video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Programming with Palermo - New Video Podcast!

programming@palermo.network

NuGet Gallery

GitHub Coverlet Coverage

Marco Rossignoli

.Net Coverage Code

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.