Craig Loewen has had a love for technology ever since he was a child and has grown passionate about building things that empower people. From constructing his own quadcopter for photography to delivering developer tools that aid developers in driving technological innovation, he has done it all.

As a product manager at Microsoft, he is responsible for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a developer tool used by over 3 million developers and IT professionals. He defines the product vision and prioritizes the feature roadmap based on customer data, technical feedback, and market studies. On the personal side, he volunteers as a mentor at First Robotics, teaching high school students how to build robots and fostering a passion for STEM.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:52] Craig’s career journey, starting as an intern working on Windows console and WSL features.

[5:18] Common use cases for WSL — allowing developers to use Linux tools while staying on Windows.

[7:43] How to get started with WSL.

[8:59] Does Craig have any favorite Linux programs?

[10:05] New Dev Home feature for managing WSL distros with a graphical interface.

[11:36] How WSL works using virtualization technology.

[13:35] Memory management in WSL — typical usage and automatic optimization.

[15:22 WSL is designed primarily for development scenarios, not production environments.

[20:33] Integration of local AI and small language models with WSL using VS Code AI Toolkit.

[23:37] Using small language models for various tasks, including issue labeling and search functionality.

[27:35] Intro to Sudo for Windows, bringing Linux-like elevated permissions to Windows commands.

[28:39] What exactly is Sudo?

[32:39] New enterprise features for WSL, including security controls and integration with Microsoft Defender.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Craig Loewen

What is the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Windows Subsystem for Linux, Your Enterprise Ready Multitool

Zero to Hero — Develop your first app with Local LLMs on Windows

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Damian Brady is a Staff Developer Advocate at GitHub. He’s a developer, speaker, and author specializing in DevOps, MLOps, developer process, and software architecture. Formerly a Cloud Advocate at Microsoft for four years, and before that, a dev at Octopus Deploy and a Microsoft MVP, he has a 25-year background in software development and consulting in a broad range of industries. In Australia, he co-organized the Brisbane .Net User Group and launched the annual DDD Brisbane conference.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:45] When Damian realized he was interested in the things surrounding software development.

[6:40] GitHub Copilot and AI tools to improve developer workflows.

[8:50] What can people love GitHub Copilot for today?

[16:06] How GitHub Copilot can assist developers without replacing them.

[21:11] AI-powered code generation and bug detection.

[25:15] Improving AI’s ability to complete tasks by providing context and grounding it in truth.

[29:23] How the process of adding a new field works.

[34:03] Using Copilot to improve code development workflows.

[42:03] The “ship to learn” idea.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ep 258 with Damian Brady

Github Copilot Workspace

Damian on Twitter

Damian Brady

GitHub Next

CoPilot for Docs

GitHub Next

CoPilot for CLI

Copilot Voice

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Kayla Cinnamon is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft working on the developer experience in Windows. This includes Dev Home and PowerToys. Kayla formerly worked on Windows Terminal and Cascadia Code, which is the font you all use inside Visual Studio. She holds a Master’s degree in Information Technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a concentration in Human-Computer Interaction. She recently was a speaker at the recent Microsoft Build conference.

Topics of Discussion:

[6:02] Kayla talks about DevHome.

[7:18] Examples of having agency over your machine.

[9:05] Setting up an environment in DevHome and a WinGet configuration file.

[10:10] Desired state configuration.

[10:47] How do we generate these files?

[12:26] Using Dev Home to simplify cloning and configuring repositories.

[14:22] DSC can toggle Windows settings as well.

[16:26] What is Dev Drive?

[20:36] How run environments help bring your Cloud and remote environments into a centralized place.

[23:09] The most popular power toys.

[26:07] Windows subsystem for Linux.

[31:00] What’s the next power toy?

[35:18] Ways for people to learn more.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ep 54 with Kayla Cinnamon and Rich Turner

Kayla Cinnamon

GitHub Kayla Cinnamon

Kayla on X

Kayla on LinkedIn

Developer Experience improvements in Windows

Windows Terminal

Github Microsoft Cascadia

Microsoft PowerToys

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Mitch is a Principal Software Engineer on the .NET Cloud team working on .NET Aspire and ASP.NET Core. Previously Mitch has worked on Azure services, the Azure SDK, and Azure DevOps.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:46] Mitch’s career journey in the Microsoft ecosystem.

[5:46] What makes it .NET Aspire vs. .NET8?

[6:16] .NET Aspire focuses on seamless integration between app components.

[8:18] Making sure the core of Aspire is cloud-agnostic.

[10:48] Developer control plane.

[11:40] How Aspire simplifies cross processes.

[14:36] Using Aspire to manage dependencies in microservices applications.

[18:18] Automating deployments with Azure DevOps and easy mode for .NET Aspire.

[30:27] Securing container deployments.

[34:39] Using Azure DevOps for cloud deployment and configuration management.

[37:33] What are the best resources for people to dig in?

[40:03] Azure subscriptions inside Microsoft.

[43:43] They are only just getting started with Aspire, and with .NET 9 coming out in November.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

GitHub Mitch Denny

.NET Aspire (aspire)

github.com/dotnet/aspire/tree/main/playground

github.com/dotnet/aspire

github.com/dotnet/eShop

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As the president of Tegaaa Solutions, a DevOps consulting firm, Étienne helps clients achieve optimal performance and efficiency in their software development processes. With over 30 years of IT experience and 20 years of Microsoft specialization, he has the skills and knowledge to provide tailored solutions for any DevOps challenge.

He is passionate about sharing his expertise and best practices with the IT community as a Microsoft MVP for TFS and Azure DevOps since 2006, and a regular speaker at local technical conferences and user groups since 2005. He also offers mentoring and training for organizations using Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server and designs enterprise and application architectures for projects of all sizes. His mission is to empower developers and organizations to leverage the power of DevOps and Azure to deliver high-quality software faster and better.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:30] Étienne’s career progression from mechanical engineering to software development.

[6:14] Yes, Étienne was TFS before it was cool.

[7:14] Étienne’s interesting specialization in aerodynamics.

[11:18] Not making things too complicated.

[12:49] Étienne’s interest in the building process.

[14:07] Building the blueprint.

[17:08] GitHub vs. Azure DevOps for enterprise use.

[19:49] Microsoft's struggle with GitHub's repo-centric approach in the enterprise.

[24:17] The key differences in how work is tracked.

[28:10 What is Entra ID?

[34:08] Agility is becoming a religion, where it needs to be more of a spirit.

[38:04] Kanban system for managing work in progress.

[46:24] Implementing Azure DevOps for beginners, with tips and resources.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Etienne LinkedIn

Get Started with Azure DevOps

Tegaaa Solutions

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Martin is a passionate agile leader with a track record of inspiring, encouraging, and igniting momentum. Featured speaker, author, and industry thought leader, Martin has a strong track record of helping organizations build a vision and execute evolutionary and revolutionary change. His deep technical knowledge, business insight, and experience drive impactful change for organizations.

Technologist turned agilist, Martin successfully helps organizations decentralize, democratize, and evolve their way of work to build extraordinary processes and drive organizational change through culture, technology, and teamwork. He’s been recognized by Microsoft as a Microsoft MVP, and he is the maintainer of the open-source Azure DevOps Migration Tools.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:59] Martin’s career journey.

[4:51] What Martin has learned as an MVP for 15 years.

[5:59] If you’re not good at something, do it more.

[6:52] Azure DevOps Migration tools.

[10:11] Martin adopted platform engineering to streamline processes and reduce costs.

[14:31] What you should know before using Martin’s tools.

[21:55] It’s not either/or between Microsoft migration tools and Azure DevOps migration tools.

[27:00] What made TFS unique.

[20:03] TFGit.

[30:02] The process used in your source and target, and what challenges might people expect?

[31:44] Limitations of migrating data from old TFS to new Azure DevOps using Microsoft tools.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

GitHub

Migration Tools for Azure DevOps

Martin — Scrum

Naked Agility

Agile Actually Podcast

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Scott has spent over 25 years in the IT field, working in disciplines such as systems architecture, software development, team growth, and entrepreneurship. He was a Microsoft MVP for 12 years in ASP.NET and IIS. He’s co-authored two books (IIS 7 and IIS 8 Professional), is a Pluralsight author, and has spoken at various conferences, code camps, and user groups. He’s now shifted into the AI space, building AI solutions and supporting others in their AI journey. He’s also co-founding a new startup, so he’s spending much of his time as an Entrepreneur.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:15] Scott’s career path and what steered him into AI.

[5:18] AI development and Scott’s journey learning about generative AI.

[7:15] AI use cases, including chatbots, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text.

[13:14] Flowise AI.

[15:48] RAG, AKA retrieval augmented generation.

[17:32] Code interpreter.

[18:10] How do we know that AI is terrible at math, and what are the other things it’s not good at?

[26:13] Using small language models for natural language processing.

[37:13] Kitchen Co-Pilot app.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Flowise

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

Attention is All You Need

kitchen copilot

zapier

Make

Perplexity

Claude

Groq

The Groq LPU Inference Engine

@scottforsyth

Scott on LinkedIn

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Jim has been building solutions for clients in the cloud on Microsoft Azure since 2012 and building solutions in general for 20 years or more. Now, he heads up information technology for biBerk Insurance, overseeing both software development and IT operations. Most of Jim’s experience is in consulting or enterprise with a few forays into product development.

Following the path of least resistance, Jim ended up working primarily with Microsoft tools. The tool you know is the usually best tool to use, so the Microsoft path offers less and less resistance for Jim as time goes on.

On the side, Jim is working on jimsrules.com to share experience and shaky opinions about teamwork and leadership in software development.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:33] There is a shortage of software leaders out there.

[4:22] Jim’s career progression.

[5:26] Pulling back from leadership roles.

[6:54] Recognizing the need to be hands-on and fill vacuums in leadership roles.

[8:35] Embracing T- or V-shaped development.

[11:34] If it isn’t tested, it is broken.

[16:47] Know who your customer is and what your product is.

[18:10] The Innovator’s Dilemma and the importance of asking why things are the way they are.

[21:21] No matter how much experience you have, there is something you can learn from someone with less experience.

[23:29] What we can learn from teen YouTubers.

[24:25] The 10 specific rules; Rule 77 — Minimum Viable Products (MVP) are the start, not the end of a program.

[26:26] Rule #7 about microservices.

[27:52] Applying Conway’s Law.

[33:18] Rule 37 — Automated tests are my pillow.

Rule 59 — A leader’s job is to support the team. Most org charts are upside-down.

Rule 68 — No one is a zero. They either add to the team or take away from it. The question is whether those who are taking away are growing towards a positive contribution.

Rule 74 — Keeping standards high ultimately creates a better work environment.

Rule 75 — When you prepare to teach something, you usually learn more than your potential students.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Jim Leonardo LinkedIn

Jim’s Rules

Jim’s Rules: The List

The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business, by Clayton M. Christensen

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