Rockford Lhotka on Software Architecture - Episode 33 | Azure & DevOps Podcast

Today's guest is Rockford Lhotka. Rocky is an open source architect, professional author, speaker, Microsoft Regional Director, MVP, and avid outdoorsman! He's written numerous books on Visual Basic, C#, and CSLA .NET; and regularly speaks at major technical events.

Rocky has been a mover and shaker in this industry for a long time. He got started in the late 80s, jumped onto the Microsoft bandwagon, and has never looked back since. Most notably, Rocky is the the CTO of Magenic — the leading modern application development firm that addresses the toughest, most complex software development challenges and delivers results. He is also the creator of CSLA .NET, one of the most widely used development frameworks for Microsoft .NET.

This week, Jeffrey and Rocky are discussing software architecture. They discuss what Rocky is seeing transformation-wise on both the client side and server side, compare and visit the spectrum of Containers vs. virtual machines vs. PaaS vs. Azure Functions, and take a look at microservice architecture. Rocky also gives his tips and recommendations for companies who identify as .NET shops, and whether you should go with Containers or PaaS.

Topics of Discussion:

[:48] About today's episode and guest.

[1:10] Jeffrey welcomes Rocky to the podcast.

[1:57] Rocky introduces himself and gives a rundown of how he's gotten to this point in time.

[3:15] About Rocky's popular open source library called CSLA now on .NET Core.

[6:53] Where Rocky sees the client side transformation heading on the web.

[16:34] Rocky's recommendations (for companies who identify as .NET shops) to do today.

[21:20] What Rocky is paying attention to on the server side transformation.

[24:07] A word from The Azure DevOps Podcast's sponsor: Clear Measure.

[24:33] How Rocky views the spectrum of Containers vs. virtual machines vs. PaaS and Azure Functions?

[26:10] Which is more forward-looking? Containers or PaaS? And if someone doesn't understand either one and is just looking to modernize, which does Rocky recommend?

[28:50] Does Rocky believe that 10 years down the line, a Linux format Container is going to become the defacto standard .NET Core package format?

[30:30] Why Rocky (and many other developers) are looking to Linux from a Container perspective.

[34:30] What does Rocky think a microservice is? And some of the problems with the current mixed definitions.

[42:12] How many pipelines are really needed to maintain and operate this overall microservice architecture?

[44:08] Resources Rocky recommends listeners follow-up on to learn more.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

Rockford Lhotka (LinkedIn)

Magenic

MVP Summit

CSLA .NET