.NET Rocks!

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.