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Herding Code 103: Seb Lambla on OpenEverything

In this episode of Herding Code, the guys talk with “self-congratulatory, self-proclaimed, egotistical doofus” Sebastien Lambla about OpenRasta, OpenWrap and Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN.)

  • K Scott kicks off the show asking Seb about his most popular OSS project – OpenRasta provides the 30 second elevator pitch and touches on his web framework which embraces HTTP through composition-based programming and facilitates the development of both JSON/XML services and webpage using the same fluent APIs.
  • K Scott asks Seb about OpenRasta Resources, Handlers and Codecs (oh my) and Seb outlines the four (yes, 4) main components of MVC, content negotiation and browser fun.
  • Scott K and Seb talk about the OpenRasta plug-in model and dig into pipeline contributors, operation interceptors and the full-flexibility of the OpenRasta composition framework.
  • Jon speaks of service location which are new to MVC3.
  • Jon asks Seb for his opinion on WCF Web APIs and how they compare to OpenRasta. 
  • The guys talk about the distinction between the Microsoft Web and WCF frameworks and consider the creation of web services through .ASMX vs WCF.
  • Seb explains Easy, Simple and Intuitive in the context of existing frameworks and APIs.
  • Kevin asks about resource-oriented thinking in the .NET community. Seb response with talk of the slow adoption of RESTful architecture and poor education offered by vendors.
  • K Scott asks Seb when/why he started becoming passionate about REST and Seb shares his and OpenRasta’s story.
  • Through the magic of Twitter, John Sheehan asks if there are any plans to develop a OpenRasta Client. Don’t worry – RestSharp is safe for now.
  • Kevin asks a second question! Does OpenRasta do anything with hypermedia? Seb speaks of generating links and advanced links and forms (i.e. Hypermedia Controls) in OpenRasta.
  • Before the conversation shifts to OpenWrap, Jon asks about Seb’s thoughts on OData and it not really being RESTful. Seb offers his option and notes his NDC presentation which brings light to all that is wrong with OData.
  • The conversation shifts to OpenWrap, a package management system for .NET. Seb provides a quick overview of the project and what it offers.
  • The guys discuss the release of NuGet and the collaboration (or not) with the Nu and OpenWrap folks during development.
  • The guys further talk about the various package management systems and the pros and cons around having more than one solution (with slightly different focuses) in the .NET space. Jon compares the situation to that of Entity Framework and NHibernate both coming to market. Seb talks about productivity.
  • Seb talks about dogfooding and building and deploying a package manager with the package manager.
  • Seb walks the guys through the typical workflow experience when using OpenWrap.
  • Seb explains what a symbol servers (specifically SymbolSource.org) offer and how it is to be integration with OpenWrap.
  • Seb provides an overview of OWIN (Open Web Interface for .NET) which defines a standard interface between .NET web servers and web applications.
  • The show wraps with Seb pimping his upcoming talks on OpenWrap and OpenRasta at QCon London.

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

Download / Listen:

Herding Code 103: Seb Lambla on OpenEverything

[audio://herdingcode.com/wp-content/uploads/HerdingCode-0103-Seb-Lambla-on-OpenEverything.mp3]

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Herding Code 102: Tim Caswell on Node.js

In this episode of Herding Code, the guys talk with avid open source contributor Tim Caswell about Node.js for which he is a community leader.  Listen in as the guys dig into node.js and what it has to offer.

  • Tim gives the node.js elevator pitch and begins to explain what node offers – like event loops, evented IO, callbacks, non-blocking requests, high concurrency, and real-time scalability.
  • K Scott shares that Tim’s wheat blog engine which sits on to of a Git repository was implemented using node.js.
  • Tim notes the greatest use case for node is still web development and touches upon how it differs from other framework like ASP.NET and Rails.
  • Scott K explains that he thinks of node as an abstraction over network programming and shares his excitement around the hundreds of interesting frameworks and modules developed with/for node.
  • Jon prompts Tim to talk about the node knockout competition and the various contest submissions.
  • Kevin asks for further explanation of evented IO and Tim provides further detail using a dentist waiting room analogy.
  • Jon asks how one troubleshoots callbacks and loops and how one manages state with node. Tim explains event based programming and why node.js came about.
  • K Scott asks if server-side js interest has recently exploded due to HTML5, web sockets and leaving connections open to the server. Tim talks about long polling and thread counts as opposed to the the node approach.
  • Jon asks Tim to speak about his extensive community contributions – namely his sharing of 47 repositories including wheat, step library for flow control and hamel.js.  Not to mention the howtonode blog.
  • Scott K and Tim talk about sharing javascript code between the server and client.
  • Jon asks about kiwi, npm and node package managers.
  • Scott K asks how the node.js and server-side javascript got so popular. Tim turns to the need for a real-time web solution, social media and community involvement and Ryan Dahl’s appealing personality and unique design strategy.
  • K Scott asks about Tim’s tutorial on learning javascript through object graphs. Tim explains the importance of understanding that javscript doesn’t operate like Java and the guys talk about jQuery’s impact in learning (or not learning) javascript.
  • K Scott talks about a time before kids when IBM released an OS in javascript.  Or was it Sun’s Lively Kernel?  Either way, it was before kids. You know what they do to one’s memory.
  • Kevin speaks of the early, hyper-experimental days of node and asks if the community is starting to settle down and standardize on a set of libraries.
  • K Scott asks for Tim’s thoughts on ECMAScript.
  • Via Twitter, Jackson Harper asks about no.de, a submission by Joyent into the node knockout competition, and it’s current status.
  • Jon calls out Couch and Mongo and the NoSQL movement and Tim to share the node data story. 
  • Scott K and K Scott talk about running Node on Windows.
  • Scott K dreams of IronJS and porting node modules to the DLR.
  • Jon asks how you get started with node  and Tim recommends the friendly IRC room, the friendly mailing list and suggests a newb move to San Francisco and attend the frequent meet ups.
  • K Scott asks about Tim’s everyday development environment and tools.
  • Kevin asks about the Node.js sweet spot. Is it for basic web development or is it geared towards more complex, real-time scalability problems?  Tim discusses the perks and challenges of Node.js in any development undertaking.
  • Scott K throws out the “E” word and asks about node’s penetration of the enterprise.
  • The show wraps with general conversation about node, Harmony and Javascript and Tim kind of misses his opportunity to pimp.

Show Links:

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

Download / Listen:

Herding Code 102: Tim Caswell on Node.js

[audio://herdingcode.com/wp-content/uploads/HerdingCode-0102-Tim-Caswell-on-Node-js.mp3]

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Herding Code 101: Kelly Sommers on Mobile Development and User Interface design

In this episode of Herding Code, the guys talk to Kelly Sommers.

  • Jon asks Kelly about her first big post, What fuels my passion for technology & writing code
  • Kelly talks about her experience getting started on Twitter
  • Jon asks Kelly about her post on how desktop UI’s feel boring compared to mobile UI’s
  • Jon and Kelly discuss notification systems like Growl
  • Scott K talks about how non-Windows operating systems have included things like multiple desktops, status widgets, etc. for a while
  • The discussion moves to how Windows is focused on the mouse, and how we’d like to see desktop UI’s that are geared towards touch and keyboard
  • Jon mentions Desktops as a multiple desktop interface for Windows
  • Jon drops his Alt+Space keyboard secret, and Kelly counters that it’s old news
  • The discussion moves on to synchronizing applications and systems
  • Jon brings up Mesh, and Kelly talks about why it didn’t catch on as much as it could have. Jon talks about how there’s a chicken and egg problem with cool Microsoft API’s which aren’t used in Microsoft products, and Scott Koon talks about how he though Mesh applications seemed cool but he just couldn’t get a hold of the SDK.
  • Next, the discussion moves to mobile development. Jon asks Kelly for her opinion of how Windows Phone development compares with other mobile development platforms.
  • Jon and Kelly discuss the Metro UI and UI discoverability in general
  • Kelly talks about performance tips for Windows Phone
  • Jon asks if there is any cross-platform development between mobile platforms
  • K. Scott asks about the upgrade scenario
  • Darrel Miller asks via Twitter about the online brainstorming meetings Kelly had previously proposed
  • Jackson Harper asks via Twitter what’s the most interesting thing Kelly has learned in the past month, and the conversation switches to node.js, threading, fibers, etc.
  • The gang discusses the Await keyword, recently announced at PDC
  • Scott K. asks for bets on how long until Await shows up in the Mono nightly builds
  • Random speculation of whether the Async CTP actually works on .NET 4
  • Kevin compares the Await syntactic sugar approach to hiding asynchronicity with the node.js approach which embraces node.js.

Show Links:

Download / Listen:

Herding Code 101: Kelly Sommers

[audio://herdingcode.com/wp-content/uploads/HerdingCode-0101-Kelly-Sommers.mp3]

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Herding Code 100: One Hundredth Show Celebration with Queen Beatrix

One hundred shows! Her Majesty Queen Beatrix shows up and talks with the gang about the previous 99 shows. Jon summarizes the server logs and beatboxes, K Scott talks about his jetset life via a flaky internet connection, Kevin reveals that this isn’t the podcast he thought he was signing up for, and Scott K explains why The Fat Boys follow him on Twitter.

Download / Listen:

Herding Code 100: One Hundredth Show Celebration with Queen Beatrix

[audio://herdingcode.com/wp-content/uploads/HerdingCode-0100-One-Hundredth-Show.mp3]

[music loop during autotune bit courtesy of Incompetech]