.NET Rocks!

Use What Works! Carl and Richard talk to Dylan Beattie about the Use What Works movement, encouraging developers to use well-maintained open-source projects available today rather than rolling their own. Dylan explains how folks go down a path of believing a library is simple until they learn enough to realize that every bit of software is more complicated than they realize. And the less code you own, the happier and more productive you are. Adding AI to the mix only makes it clearer: you need some stability in development. If you're changing every layer of code, you'll spend even more time and frustration chasing problems. Make getting results easier - use what works!

Recorded live at the Tavern Hall in Bellevue during the Party with Palermo for the MVP Summit, it's episode 2000! Carl and Richard take questions from the audience and play clips from past guests and listeners about their experiences with .NET, and the role that .NET Rocks has played in their careers. After two thousand shows, there are lots of stories, and plenty to celebrate. Thanks for listening!

The Y2K bug turned out to be a non-event on January 1, 2000. How did that happen? Carl and Richard bring together a number of stories from folks who were there, fixing the software and updating systems, so effectively that, ultimately, nothing much happened when the clocks rolled over. It was common practice with early software to only store two digits worth of year - back then, storage space was at a premium. For years, there had been warnings about fixing these problems, but by 1999, it was essential. These are the stories of how some folks did those fixes so effectively that when Jan 1 2000, came around, nothing bad happened.

How are LLMs changing software development? Carl and Richard talk to Rob Conery about his experiences as a consultant bringing the new AI tools and techniques into companies. Rob talks about focusing on the most painful problems first to show the team quick results and make their lives better. The conversation digs into how these tools seriously change the way developers work and what it takes to embrace those changes. Lots of good thinking from a very experienced developer on how to do more than ever before!

How do you make your agents more knowledgeable about your company data? Carl and Richard talk to Ed Charbeneau about Progress Agentic RAG-as-a-Service, using NucliaDB as a vector data store to organize your company information into a form an agent can work with efficiently. Ed talks about the various approaches available today for providing timely company data to agents and the power of a dedicated data store and service model so that you spend less time on plumbing and more time building a great agentic app. The products are open source and have great .NET SDKs - check them out!

ASP.NET Core continues to evolve in 2026! Carl and Richard talk to Daniel Roth about all the goodness in the ASP.NET Core space, including MVC, Razor, and Blazor! Daniel talks about the publicly visible ASP.NET Core Roadmap on GitHub - where you can support ideas, add your own, and debate implementations! The conversation dives into the focus on Blazor - MVC and Razor aren't going away anytime soon, or perhaps ever. Still, the energy is definitely on Blazor, and its potential to provide a great development experience that scales effectively and provides the features your applications need. And Daniel reminds us that the teams all work closely together, including the broader .NET and language teams, so new features are in the right place and available to everyone!

What does secure coding look like today? Carl and Richard talk to Chris Ayers about the MITRE ATT&CK matrix, a comprehensive breakdown of the tactics, techniques, and procedures black hats use to exploit your systems. Chris talks about the role of developers in creating more secure software, starting with logging - surfacing important data about the use of applications that can help indicate when a black hat is taking advantage of it. The conversation also digs into supply chain attacks, various techniques for resisting exploits being introduced through libraries, and the ever-expanding array of threats affecting software today!

Let the squad help you build your application! Carl and Richard talk to Brady Gaster about Squad, a tool for creating an AI development team using GitHub Copilot. Brady discusses creating specialist agents across various aspects of building an application to keep context as small as possible, along with token consumption. Often, agents communicate with other agents to work through project problems, generating persistent information about the project, including skills as needed. Squad continues to evolve and get more powerful - try it with your application!

Avalonia continues to evolve! Carl and Richard talk to Avalonia CEO Mike James & Matt Lacey about the latest version of Avalonia, the open source UI framework for building cross-platform applications with .NET. Mike's conversation with the Google Flutter team has led to replacing the Skia rendering engine in Avalonia with the newer Impeller Rendering Engine that Flutter itself depends on. This opens the door to excellent smartphone implementations with Avalonia, alongside its usual desktop and embedded roles. With enterprise editions and the new Avalonia Accelerate, there's more to come from the team!

Your first app interface should be a CLI! Carl and Richard talk to Kathleen Dollard about her experiences creating the .NET CLI - and how CLIs are only getting more important in the era of AI. Kathleen talks about working within the POSIX CLI standard for consistency's sake and to recognize that there will be many more CLIs in your life, so they should be as similar as possible. While CLIs may have started as configuration-as-code and DevOps practices, LLMs work well with them as long as consistency is maintained. There are several projects out there today to help you build a great CLI - check the links!

Artificial Intelligence is changing how software development happens - how is your team coping? Carl and Richard talk to Andrew Murphy about his work leading teams struggling with AI tools. Andrew talks about Nolan Lawson's blog post We Mourn Our Craft and his blogged response about dealing with grief. Some developers are embracing these new tools - perhaps they're new to development, or very experienced. But some folks aren't having a good time with AI and are wondering what has happened to their careers. How can you help?

It's always been challenging to make reliable software - is AI making it worse or better? Carl and Richard talk to Damien Brady about his experiences building software with AI tools and trying to bring that software up to an acceptable standard. Damien talks about leveraging LLMs' tendency toward detailed analysis to catch problems in code. It takes practice and experience to get good at using these tools, but they become more powerful over time!

How does Artificial Intelligence impact our approach to building secure software? Carl and Richard talk to Ben Dechrai about his experiences working with AI tooling and building AI apps, and how that impacts security. Ben talks about the concerns organizations have about using AI tools - what these tools might do with the code they are exposed to, as well as the code the tools generate. The conversation steers to local AI as a solution, although so far, the equipment and tools are very limited. Ben also talks about how AI tools are being used to both attack and secure software and the challenges of this arms race - hopefully the good guys win!

Why would you write code to generate code? Carl and Richard talk with Jason Bock about his experiences using modern .NET source generators to optimize certain aspects of applications. Jason talks about treading carefully - while .NET source generation has been part of .NET since 5.0 and Roslyn, it is a special case approach to problem solving. But with specialized implementations for regex and P/Invoke, there is some huge potential in these coding techniques that you can take advantage of!

What's coming for Aspire in 2026? Carl and Richard talk to Maddy Montaquila about her work as the product manager for Aspire, the tool that helps you build cloud-native, distributed applications in any language and on any platform. Maddy talks about moving beyond .NET, recognizing that modern applications are written in a number of languages, and the team has focused on ensuring excellent support for Python and JavaScript, as well as the .NET languages. The same is true for the cloud - Azure, AWS, GCP - Aspire works great with them all. And then there's the role of AI, both in building apps with Aspire and building AI into applications. Aspirify today!

What's happening with MAUI today? Carl and Richard talk to Gerald Versluis about the latest version of MAUI - and what's coming next! Gerald talks about the release of .NET 10 and the new features that have come to MAUI, including improvements in quality, performance, and ease of use. The conversation also digs into adjacent technologies like Uno and Avalonia and how they are collaborating with the MAUI team to make development even easier!

How do you distribute Windows apps? Carl and Richard chat with Shmueli Englard about the power of distributing apps through the Microsoft Store. You package your app as an MSIX and can deploy it to the Microsoft Store, and then send updates through it as well. If you want to charge for the app, Microsoft will do the licensing and payment systems for you (for a fee, of course), but if your software is free, distribution through the Microsoft Store is also free! Want to do your own updates? You can do that too.

What's happening with Uno now that .NET 10 is released? Carl and Richard talk to Jérôme Laban and Sam Basu about the latest developments in Uno, including their collaboration with Microsoft on MAUI, WASM, and more! The conversation also digs into the role of AI in the Uno Platform, bringing MCPs into play to build applications faster and make migration from legacy systems easier. A lot is going on in development today!

Happy New Year - let's talk Energy! Richard chats with Carl about the state of energy generation in the world today - and things are progressing! Almost every kind of power generation is expanding at the moment, whether you look at solar, wind, hydroelectric, natural gas, coal, oil, or even nuclear! The cost of batteries hits a new low, and new technologies being demonstrated today show that storage is only going to get bigger. And what about the impact of AI on power generation? There's a huge change coming to electricity, an AI may have accelerated that change - but that's only part of the equation! 

Space Geek Out Time - 2025 Edition! Richard talks to Carl about the past year in space, starting with a reader comment about 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar comet passing through our solar system that has kicked off conspiracies about aliens coming to visit - hint, it's just a comet. Then, into another record-breaking year of spaceflight with a record number of Falcon 9 flights, Starship tests, United Launch Alliance underperforming, and New Glenn finally getting to orbit! The International Space Station has passed 25 years of continuous habitation and is only five years away from being sent to a watery grave. But there are new space stations in the works! Finally, the stories of landers on the Moon, trouble at Mars, and how silly the idea of building data centers in space really is. A fantastic year for space!

How is AI going to change software development? Live from the Philly.NET user group, Carl and Richard have Jeff Fritz and Bill Wolff chat about how AI technologies are impacting software development. The conversation opens with a listener concerned about the costs and controls around AI technology. There are a variety of approaches to using these tools; Jeff and Bill talk about the work they have done and some of the challenges. There is enormous potential here, but the paths forward aren't clear yet - more is to come!

How is package management changing? Carl and Richard talk with Gary Ewan Park about his view of the package management landscape in the Windows world. Gary talks about the array of open source and free products out there today to do package management - you really have a lot of choice! There are also retail enterprise products that focus on features companies need to support larger numbers of machines, including virtual machines and cloud containers. The challenge of security and supply chain attacks is a key part of the modern landscape - and there are tools to help you get things right!

What's it like building an AI-centric application? Carl and Richard talk to Calum Simpson of SSW about their product YakShaver. Calum talks about building a tool that speeds reporting on issues and ideas, so you can spend more time focusing on key issues rather than "shaving the yak." The use of LLMs makes YakShaver far more capable, and the upcoming V2 uses Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers to expand functionality and feed information directly into bug reports, such as GitHub issues and feature requests. The conversation also turns a bit more philosophical, focusing on innovative uses of LLMs, properly constraining these tools, and maintaining a transparent chain of responsibility for your code. 

What does it take to make more environmentally sustainable software? Carl and Richard talk to Tom Herkhove about Microsoft's efforts to make carbon footprint and emissions visible for applications. Tom talks about the Azure API Management interface as a great starting point, and the ability to shift workloads to low-emission data centers as needed. The conversation also digs into wasted cycles, like automatically fired CI/CD pipelines whose results are never reviewed. It all begins with measuring - what action you take from there is up to you!

How are large language models going to change the way we use Visual Studio? Carl and Richard speak with Leslie Richardson about her work in Visual Studio, starting with the debugger and now focusing on the broader productivity features of the product. Leslie discusses how various Copilots are being integrated into Visual Studio to help users take advantage of the vast array of features available, which can sometimes be difficult to discover. The upcoming Visual Studio 2026 is available as an insider's preview if you want to get a jump on what's coming!

How are folks adapting to the new tools available for development today? Carl and Richard talk to Brady Gaster about his work on improving the tooling for software development at Microsoft - and the transformation that is currently underway! Brady talks about developers doing app modernization, dealing with the challenges of the cloud, and the many fun things you get to do as software developers over the years - and how there's only more coming!

Ready to integrate build automation into your applications? Carl and Richard talk to Mattias Karlsson about the new Cake.SDK as an additional component of the Cake (C# Make) open source project. Mattias talks about integrating the Cake scripting experience into your .NET console applications. The conversation digs into speeding up the building of infrastructure for testing and pre-production environments so that you can get features shipped quickly!

How do you build quality software with LLMs? Carl and Richard talk to Den Delimarsky about the GitHub Spec Kit, which uses specifications to help LLMs generate code for you. Den discusses the iterative process of refining specifications to produce better code, and then being able to add your own code without disrupting the process. The conversation delves into this new style of software development, utilizing specifications to break down tasks sufficiently for LLMs to be successful, and explores the limitations that exist today.

The next version of CSLA is out! Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about his business objects framework that pre-dates .NET itself! Rocky discusses the surge in development that occurred for version 9, where a company heavily dependent on CSLA contracted developers to clear some of the backlog. The result is a few new long-term contributors, resulting in an increased development candence and a substantial modernization of the code base. The conversation also turns to AI and its role in development, as well as Rocky's experiments with making an MCP server for CSLA!

Aspire has been around for almost two years. How do you use it effectively? Carl and Richard talk to Chris Klug about his experience with .NET Aspire. Chris discusses thinking cloud natively, whether you are going to the cloud or not - it's not just a place, but also an architecture. The conversation digs into the role of containers and Kubernetes, deployment strategies, telemetry, security, testing, and more. You can use as much or as little Aspire as you wish!

You write tests - but are they valuable tests? Carl and Richard talk to Egil Hansen about his approach to creating tests for applications. Egil discusses the types of testing and who they impact. Testing isn't only for you! Valuable tests are also durable, being able to persist between changes where it makes sense, and help to understand when updates are going to create problems. The role of LLMs in generating code comes into play: should AI write your tests, evaluate them, or do both? Lots of great thinking from someone who's been helping developers build better tests for years!

AI in the cloud dominates, but what can you run locally? Carl and Richard speak with Joe Finney about his work in setting up local machine learning models. Joe discusses the non-LLM aspects of machine learning, including the vast array of models available at sites like Hugging Face. These models can help with image recognition, OCR, classifiers, and much more. Local LLMs are also a possibility, but the hardware requirements become more significant - a balance must be found between cost, security, and productivity!

How has AI changed coding with Visual Studio Code? Carl and Richard talk to James Montemagno about his experiences using the various LLM models available today with Visual Studio Code to build applications. James talks about the differences in approaches between Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code when it comes to AI tooling, and how those tools continue to evolve. The conversation also digs into how different people use AI tools to answer questions about errors, generate code, and manage projects. There's no one right way - you can experiment for yourself to get more done in less time!

Razor Tooling is evolving! Carl and Richard talk to David Wengier about the changes coming for Razor Pages in the next version of Visual Studio. David talks about the realization that much of the new work in Razor ties closely to Roslyn, which has resulted in a new co-hosting model that means higher performance and reliability for your web pages! The conversation delves into how capabilities in Visual Studio Code are shared with Visual Studio and vice versa, as well as the role of the Language Service Protocol in making it easier to bring more powerful tools to you.

Ready for the next version of Visual Studio? Carl and Richard talk to Mads Kristensen about the long-awaited version of Visual Studio. Needless to say, artificial intelligence sits front and center. Mads talks about the deep integration of AI across the development lifecycle, including code completion, debugging, even natural language querying. The conversation also digs into the role of Visual Studio as a project management tool, and its integration with cloud, GitHub, and more!

How has DevOps changed in 2025? Carl and Richard talk to Michael Levan about his experiences helping teams automate their development workflows, and dealing with all the details that help the entire team focus on providing customer value. Michael digs into the role of the new AI tools in facilitating better workflows around code, testing, deployment, telemetry, and more. Then the conversation turns to security - and the many challenges that exist to make applications that are secure when deployed, and help with the security challenges that happen while in operation!

How did the design of GitHub evolve? Carl and Richard speak with Diana Mounter about her experiences at GitHub, including her role as head of design. Diana discusses how she was drawn to GitHub as a designer and how her career evolved to lead design for the company. The conversation ranges over different design concepts, the Primer design language, and how to effectively combine design and development to achieve great results.

What's coming in C#14? Carl and Richard chat with Dustin Campbell about the next version of C#, discussing what it takes to continue advancing software development in the Microsoft ecosystem. Dustin discusses how features are selected from version to version, including long-developed features like extension members, which have been in development for years. The conversation also turns to Razor Pages, which Dustin helps contribute to, and the dynamic of what should be language, what should be framework, and what should be tooling. And there's much more to come!

How has application security evolved over the decades? Carl and Richard talk to Michael Howard about his experiences working in security at Microsoft. Michael discusses his current role as a member of the Red Team at Microsoft, which identifies security vulnerabilities within the organization by creating scenarios that black hats might employ, such as stealing tokens or hijacking financial transactions. The conversation examines how security continues to evolve, with improved tools, new attack surfaces, and increasingly serious attacks. It's an arms race, but one the good guys can win!

Can you improve a legacy application? What's the right way to go about it? Carl and Richard talk with Billy Hollis about his work updating legacy applications, starting with the most essential question: should you? Billy begins by defining what it means to be a legacy application and how, invariably, these applications are critical to the organization, so you have to tread lightly. Typically, the focus is on modernizing the client-side of the app, which brings us to the crux of the matter: Are the workflows of the company today well reflected in the older application? Lots of great thoughts from one of the longest-serving guests of .NET Rocks!

How can event sourcing help your applications? Carl and Richard speak with Hannes Lowette about his work in helping developers utilize event sourcing patterns to build scalable applications. Hannes discusses moving away from the old habit of decomposing data from objects into rows, columns, and tables, as there's no reason to save that disk space anymore. Storing objects as event streams means you can always generate relational data if needed, but things run faster and scale better in the streams.

Do you have AI concerns? So does Mark Seemann! Carl and Richard chat with Mark about his views on the impact that large language models are having on the development community. Mark starts with the power of ChatGPT to be perceived as a source of truth, which we know isn't true! How does this ultimately impact the development of software? You need sufficient knowledge to assess whether the code generated by these tools is valid, accurate, and appropriate. The tools can also help with the process. We're still in the early days of using AI for information - there's a lot to learn!

How do you build progressive web apps in 2025? Carl and Richard talk to Lemon about his experiences building all sorts of PWAs for customers and entertainment. Lemon discusses going beyond the icon in PWAs and leveraging more powerful features, including service workers. The conversation also digs into some of the crazy talks done over the years, as well as gaming from browsers and more!

How can AI tech help you write better code? Carl and Richard talk to Mark Miller about the latest AI features coming in CodeRush. Mark talks about focusing on a fast and cost-effective AI assistant driven by voice, so you don't have to switch to a different window and type. The conversation delves into the rapid evolution of software development, utilizing AI technologies to accomplish more in less time.

Ready for a great explanation of Agentic AI? For the last show at Build, Carl and Richard sit down with Seth Juarez to dig into what agentic AI really is - and how you can take advantage of it! Seth discusses the potential of MCP and NLWeb to enable agents to work with each other, as well as the challenges of managing these tools effectively. The conversation turns to what's happening under the hood of agentic AI software, including the limitations of its abilities. There is a need for governance and clear thinking with these new development tools!

It's the Imagine Cup Finalists! While at Build, Carl and Richard sat down with Daniel Kim, Matt Steele, and Gheida Omar to talk about their projects in the Imagine Cup. Gheida discussed Signvrse, a mobile app that enables real-time translation of speech, text, and sign language. Matt tells the story of Hairmatch, a mobile app for women with textured hair. And Daniel describes Argus, the winner of the Imagine Cup, as a two-part wearable device for people with low vision that provides object detection, facial recognition, and spatial guidance. All amazing projects from a remarkable group of young people!

How do you eliminate the friction of development? Carl and Richard talk to Nicole Forsgren about her upcoming book on eliminating the friction from software development. Building on her earlier book, Accelerate, Nicole discusses the role of AI technologies in software development, along with more traditional DevOps elements, such as automating testing, deployment, telemetry, and more. There's never been a better time to pay attention to your tools and methods when it comes to software development - when you improve your workflow, your productivity soars!

What happens when AI comes to your web testing tool? While at Build, Carl and Richard talked to Debbie O'Brien about the latest features in Playwright, including Playwright MCP, the model control plane for Playwright capabilities. Debbie talks about using Playwright MCP to buy a table. Ask your LLM what tests should be written for your web page, and then ask it to write them.

How will coding agents change your code? While at Build, Carl and Richard chatted with Scott Hunter about the announcements around coding agents at the keynote. Scott talks about the agent mode available in Visual Studio Code - and now in Visual Studio! Agent mode allows the LLM to evaluate the code across an entire solution, not just the file you're currently looking at. You can create a workflow where GitHub issues are assigned to the agent, which then generates code and provides a pull request for evaluation. The agents are here and helping us do more!

What if you could use ElasticSearch serverless? While at Build, Carl and Richard chatted with Ken Exner about the new announcements around Elastic providing serverless storage and search! Ken talks about paying for only the data you move and store with serverless, rather than needing to operate any infrastructure for Elastic. The conversation digs into the potential of Elastic in Azure AI Foundry to provide ultra-fast access to current company data for your LLM implementations. Elastic did vector databases before LLMs made them essential for RAG - and you can take advantage of it!