September 2019 - 02
Are you Ready For .NET Core 3.0 Yet?
Welcome to the first edition of The .NET Core Podcast newsletter for September.
For new subscribers, the format of the newsletter is usually:
- This editorial/intro portion
- A note on ways that you can support the show
- A quick summary of the latest episode
- Information on the next episode
- A random episode from the vault
- A brief on any upcoming events that I’m attending
- Ways to subscribe to the show
- Some links to things that I’ve recently discovered in the community
- Ways to connect with me
We're well into the second year of the podcast now, and it's been an amazing launch so far. The show has had Jet Brains sponsoring it, and there has already been an amazing set of episodes so far. We've had:
- James Hickey talking about Coravel
- James Monetmagno talking about preview bits, MSIX, and the Windows Store
on the show, and we have some stellar guests coming up, too.
and I'm trying to get a few surprise guests lined up; but I'm keeping the names under wraps for now
But before all of that, let's take a quick look at how the podcast stats stood when I was writing the previous newsletter:
And now for the stats as of today:
the downward trend on the right-hand side is due to September not being over yet
That's a gain of 4,256 downloads in 10 days, which is amazing. I can't thank the community enough for the sheer number of downloads and the continues growth that the show is seeing.
We're only a few weeks away from .NET Conf which is due to start on September 23rd. If you haven't heard of .NET Conf before, it's what is known as a virtual conference: whilst it's a real conference, it happens entirely online, this means that you don't need to get tickets or travel anywhere as it's all streamed live.
One of the most exciting things thats happening at .NET Conf this year is that .NET Core 3.0 is being released to the world.
As with the previous edition, you'll notice that this edition of the newsletter is sponsored by Rider from JetBrains. I just wanted to mention that I only look for sponsors who create tools that I actually use. As such, I want to point out that I've loved using Rider since it was in the initial EAP
which I wrote about, back in May of 2017
and have been using it in the majority of my coding streams
which you can watch over on YouTube here
so I can definitely recommend it to anyone who is serious about doing .NET development and would like to try out an IDE other than Visual Studio
plus you wont have to pay for a separate license for Resharper
Supporting The Show
Support for The .NET Core Podcast is provided, in part, by our Patreon supporters. To find out more about them, or to become a supporter of the show head over to our Supporters. Did you know that Patreon supporters get early access to full versions of each episode?
We also have a ko-fi page. This is for listeners who may not want to support us on a monthly basis, but more of an ad-hoc one.
And if that wasn't enough ways to support the show, I've also created a "Buy Me a Coffee" page, which you can check out by clicking the following button:
But the best way that you can support the show would be to leave a rating or review in your podcatching service. Those can be on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podchaser, Stitcher - wherever, really. That will help more folks find the show, which will mean that there'll be more episodes.
Mailing List Sponsor
This edition of the mailing list is supported in part by Rider from JetBrains
Have you heard about Rider, a cross-platform .NET IDE developed by JetBrains and based on IntelliJ Platform and ReSharper? If not, it's time to give it a try! Develop .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Xamarin, or Unity applications on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Check out Rider today and try it free for 30 days!
I personally love using Rider and have written about why you should at least try it, over on my .NET Core blog here
Would you like to sponsor the show? Then check out our Sponsor page for details on what we have to offer your brand and products.
Latest Episode
Episode 33 - .NET Core 3.0, MSIX and The Windows Store with James Montemagno
This episode was published to Patreon supporters a few days ahead of the "regular" RSS feed on September 4th, 2019.
In this episode of The .NET Core podcast I interviewed James about his work dog fooding most of the technologies we've all used, from Xamarin to .NET Core. We also talked about releasing apps using preview bits, MSIX, and the Windows Store.
The episode was later released to the “regular” RSS feed on September 6th, 2019 at 12:30 GMT. The show notes, including a transcription, are available at: Episode 33 - with James Montemagno.
The Next Episode
Episode 34 - F# and Giraffe with Stuart Lang
This episode will be published to Patreon supporters a few days ahead of the "regular" RSS feed on September 18th, 2019 at 12:30 GMT.
In this episode of The .NET Core podcast we I interviewed Stuart about F#, Giraffe and how the functional programming model can be incredibly useful for web developers.
On release day, you'll be able to check out the show notes at: Episode 34 - F# and Giraffe with Stuart Lang. However this link will not work until 12:30 GMT on release day, which is September 20th, 2019.
Classic Episode From The Vault
Episode 8 - ASP.NET Core
This was one of the first episodes that I planned out
pro tip for any budding podcasters: plan out as many episodes as you can ahead of time
It was based on a question that I had been asked at a meetup in Leeds
I believe it was Leeds Sharp
about exactly what ASP.NET Core is compared to ASP.NET "classic".
It started as a straight answer to that question, but evolved into a quick and dirty history of server side code and page generation. So if you're at all interested in the history of server side stuff, you should definitely check this episode out.
and an embedded player are available here
Places You Can Meet/See Me
If you’re at all interested in having me speak at your event, then please get in touch. The best way is to follow me on Twitter and send me a DM (they’re always open).
I'll be giving a talk at Lancashire Tech Talks on September 26th, 2019. The talk that I'll be giving is called "Docker: Lies to Children" which acts as a quick and dirty introduction to containerisation via docker. It's based on a talk that I've given in the past, and leans towards .NET Core but no experience of that is required.
One thing to note is that the upcoming event - "Digital Transformation with DevOps, Docker and the Public Cloud" - seems to be marked private, but is open to anyone who has joined the specific meetup which is arranging the event.
I'll be attending both NDC London 2020 in January 2020, and EGX in October 2019. I'll be attending EGX as part of my other podcast: The Waffling Taylors - which is all about video games.
So if you’re going to be at either of these events and spot me, do come over and say hello. I’m planning on having some swag
for both this show and the Waffling Taylors
to give away to folks who do say hello to me, so you wont walk away empty handed.
Subscribing To The Show
You can subscribe to the show in a number of ways, here are links to a number of podcasting services which have the show listed:
Some Recent Discoveries in The Community
I'll argue that this will be one of the most important virtual conferences that you could possibly attend this year. Not only will .NET Core 3.0 be released during this event, but there are a lot of incredibly interesting looking talks taking place during the conference.
The best part? Since it's virtual, it has no physical location. Essentially, the entire event will be streamed (from all over the globe) to wherever you are in the world.
It's that time of year again: pumpkin spice is back on the menu at coffee shops, Halloween is around the corner, the days are starting to get shorter
in the Northern Hemisphere, that is
and it's almost time for Hacktoberfest 2019.
For those who have never taken part in it, Hacktoberfest is a great excuse to get into contributing towards open source software. Essentially, if you sign up for Hacktoberfest and submit 5 PRs
pull requests - for folks who don't know
to open source repos, then Digital Ocean will send you a t-shirt and some stickers. The PRs can be submitted to the same repo, or split across up to 5 repos.
The other amazing thing about this years is that dev.to are involved this year, too.
Speaking of Hacktoberfest, I think that I've found the repo that I'm going to be trying to contribute to.
In case you didn't know, I really like playing video games
I've started a podcast called Waffling Taylors which is all about video games
and am always looking to learn more about video game hardware. So this repo looks perfect for me.
A lot of developers who are using .NET Core are new to Windows - having only used MacOS or Linux distributions in the past. Putting aside the differences and similarities between the many different OSs
because that's a hairy topic, in it's own right
As such, articles like this one (from Janne Enberg) give a great introduction to the many different productivity tips for developing on Windows.
Even if you're a seasoned Windows based developer, I'd still recommend taking a look at this article, I'm sure that you'll pick something new up.
Micro-services are hear to stay
in fact, a number of my recent clients have wanted me to build micro-service based systems for them
and there is a lot of advice out there on how to build them. This article focuses on a single point:
You focus on DRY too much, when developing micro-services. In fact, using WET (Write Everything Twice) can actually be more beneficial than focussing on tearing parts of the system to pieces.
Which is something that I can definitely get behind, as I'd found myself going back to the design phase when I found more and more repeated code in those previous projects, only to stop myself and think:
WET is better than DRY, in this instance.
Let's Connect
Here are some awesome Communities Where you can find me:
yet another podcast-based Slack that you can join, but this time run by me. plus, Patrons get their own area separate from everyone else where they can suggest topics. I’m also doing an AMA with them via this, too