#200 – April 01, 2018
Tech, but weird: If you're a developer with a taste for oddball tech links, Bizarro Devs is the newsletter for you. Hit both sides of your personality with just one funny newsletter.
Exploring the internals of the .NET Runtime
I recently appeared on Herding Code and Stackify ‘Developer Things’ podcasts and in both cases, the first question asked was ‘how do you figure out the internals of the .NET runtime’? This post is an attempt to articulate that process, in the hope that it might be useful to others.
What is Blazor and why is it so exciting?
I'm just going to say it right from the start, .NET running in the browser. No plugins, no add-ons, no weird transpilation voodoo. THIS IS NOT Silverlight. Just .NET running in the browser. If you're a .NET developer who's even remotely interested in web development I should firmly have your attention. Now what if I told you it's not just an idea. But a reality and you can go and try it for yourself right now?... Say hello to Blazor.
Proposed Default Interface Methods In C# 8
There is a current proposal that’s getting traction (By some) to make it into C# 8. That’s “default interface methods”. Because at the time of writing, C# 8 is not out, nor has this new language feature even “definitely” made it into that release, this will be more about the proposal and my two cents on it rather than any specific tutorial on using them.
Use the power of Azure Functions and Cognitive Services to collect Geolocation information
Azure Functions is a powerful service in Azure that provides the ability to run small isolated work. These days we relate Azure Functions to something that we call ‘Serverless Computing’. In this article, I guide you through an example solution where I’ve been working on. The city of Amsterdam started a pilot by placing approximately 300 beacons all over the city. I’m using an app to scan these beacons and call a webhook when a beacon is discovered. This webhook is built with Azure Functions. I created a chain of multiple Functions that are triggered by a queue. Each Function is responsible for getting more information about the location of the discovered beacon. Microsoft Cognitive Services is used to find images and to analyze the content of an image. I created a simple timeline application with Bootstrap and ReactJS to display the information that was collected.
Refactor locking into sharing immutables
There is some truth in this quote. Lock-free is a quite advance subject, which includes knowing compiler optimisations and CPU specifics. However, there are some techniques that can be considered by programmers who prefer more high-level constructions. One of them is described in this article.