Microsoft Build 2017 conference Liveblogged notes

Let me know if you want further thoughts on anything below.  What a busy conference!  It is more crowded than I thought, and I definitely not bored.

TLDR: Go to Build 2017 on MSDN Channel 9 to search for the videos that interest you the most.  The best education for me was the New in .NET “three runtimes” session by Hanselman and Hunter, but the most impressive was certainly Saqib Shaikh’s blind coding demo in the first five minutes of the “what’s new in Visual Studio” session.

Full notes:

• Keynote 1 – Satya Nadella, Scott Guthrie

  • IoT/Cloud and “Intelligent Edge”: now able to sync logic in Azure cloud to devices apart from the cloud
  • Hanselman: Azure CLI, .NET Standard, PostgreSQL and MySql on Azure; SnapPoints (see breakout sessions)
  • AI / learning APIs: language, text, audio, more
• New in .NET: Scott Hanselman & Scott Hunter
  • .NET Core is highly wanted; C# is #3 language, growing, talked about
  • Architecture Guidance now available; see http://dot.net/architecture: samples, guides, etc.
  • .NET Standard - formerly PCLs; a contract - allows sharing code, binaries,
    • No change to the way code works
    • For libraries, not for UI apps
    • UI might be Framework 4.7, Core, UWP, Xamarin, Unity, etc.
  • .NET Core 2.0 has one package reference for ASP.NET All
  • VS 2017 Update 3: more refactoring features, live unit testing, C#7.1,
    • File globbing: drop files into folder; appears in solution explorer
    • Can edit .csproj without unloading
    • Live unit testing of .NET Core and Framework too.
    • Debugging: tells you WHY exceptions are thrown
    • Ctrl+T, "F" for file, "M" for member, etc. – reduces need for Resharper
    • Suggesting variable names, add a property with Ctrl+. – reduces need for Resharper
    • VS2017 Code style conventions and enforcement – reduces need for Resharper
    • Preview of FxCop live suggestions; live fix for you
  • Can build .NET Core on Mac using new Visual Studio for Mac
  • Azure
    • now has dependency map with warnings, key stats, errors; example errors are given with full detail
    • automatically takes snapshots (dumps) of state with errors from items running on Azure
    • Can set additional snappoints (not breakpoints) to get these dumps: doesn’t stop anything or slow things down; can do it in prodution; can look at with “snapshot debugger” – need to start collection and get snapshot as soon as it happens, but app doesn’t pause
    • Azure Functions: serverless functionality; based on .NET libraries; can debug locally or remote debug
      • can run functions based on triggers
• Containers with Kubernetes and Docker: Brendan Burns & Gabe Monroy
• Most outages are self-inflicted: our systems are complicated.  We have understanding of our local space, but not about how our changes affect something else. 
• Usually we have Application, Server Cluster, Kernel/OS, and Hardware to worry a bout
  • “DevOps” is mostly about the Application layer, but it also should be about the rest of  layers
  • Container Cluster Managers, Containers, IaaS/vitrualization decouple us from other layers
• New system for Kubernetes orchestration: “Draft” making containers easier for developers; reduce conceptual overhead; demo:
  • "draft create” – scaffolds a docker app
  • “draft up” – sends app to ACS Docker Container cluster, automatically
  • Do not have to install Docker or Kubernetes on client, just need a remote ACS Docker Container cluster running (E.g. as set up from web hosting team)
• New tool Helm – a package manager for your Kubernetes cluster
  • Helm needs to be installed as an app on Kubernetes cluster, then you can go nuts with packages without hassle
  • “helm search <term>” to look for packages
  • “helm install <packagename>” – installed, but also helps you configure it
• Still need application management for multiple devs, source control, CI tools: example from GitLab
  • set up a file .gitlab-ci.yml
  • uses a pipeline as set up in GitLab
    • spin up container, run build, deploy, spin down container
    • so close to Kubernetes that we can customize the actions in the pipeline
  • That’s great, but what if we aren’t using Gitlab?
• These systems are becoming modular, more accessible to all. 
• We don’t make GUIs anymore, we rely on existing OS and tools to do so
• E.g. Kube Lego simiplifies LetsEncrypt to automate certificate acquisition whenever needed in a Kubernetes cluster – never need to manage certs
• Azure CLI - Kamaljit Bath:
• To manage Azure, you can use GUI, PowerShell, or new Azure CLI 2.0 (for general use) or 1.0 (for ASM services)
• Natural and idiomatic integration with bash and GNU/Linux tools
• Meant to fully support Azure services
• Can be installed on any OS with a native installer, or use the web version
• Examples:
• “az” list all commands
• “az account list” list subscriptions on my account
• “az account list –o tsv” for tab-separated values
• “az vm list” list VMS on my subscription
• “az vm list –o json > file.json” get JSON version in a file
• “az vm show –h” help with all the parameters for az vm show
• “az vm show –g <TAB>” for autocomplete on groups
• “az vm show –g MyresourceGroup –n Mynewdemovm –show-details”
• “az find –q plan” – help on commands with "plan”
• “az vm list –o json | jpterm” – show JSON on left side and query results of a JMESPath expression on right side in jpterm
• “az vm list –query ‘[]{JmesExpression}’ – same thing without the tool
• Interactive mode – “az interactive”
• Gives much intellisense-like help, more examples to choose, help text
• “vm create ::1” runs first example for vm create
• Can go into specialized scopes, e.g. “cosmosdb”
• create –name MyCosmosName"….
• Search for “Get started with Azure CLI 2.0” on microsoft.com
• Angular and Typescript – Rob Wormald (Google)
• To be clear: “AngularJS” is Angular 1; Angular 2+ drops the “JS”
• Angular apps are made of components, and put together with decorators
• Everything Google does runs on Angular
• TypeScript and Open Source CLI tools have not been used inside Google – instead were using Google Closure Javascript that no one likes – now transitioning to TypeScript because:
• has inline types
• fast to recompile
• decorators
• is Google Closure-compatible (side-by-side)
• IDE support
• Use bazel.build instead of Grunt/gulp/webpack
• WCF microservices in containers is a work in progress– Jeff Fritz
• WCF is big and heavy, lots of power
• Must use Windows containers for WCF.  Linux containers won’t work.
• Windows containers are big but easy to use.  Good to get rid of managing VMs. We’ll have better SoAs.
• We support HTTP(S) and TCP bindings, IIS-hosting and self-hosting, anonymous endpoints “very easy” in a container
• Do not support MSMQ or HTTP authentication
• Can’t pass in environment variables on the command line, can’t orchestrate very easily – looking into extending Configuration Manager
• WCF dockerfile example
• Sample code
• Visual Studio with standard ASP.NET project doesn’t understand WCF on Docker, nor debugging it
• Maybe better to use a self-hosted WCF host (“BasicHttpHost” in the sample code) – still can’t debug
• How to do it: Install Docker for Windows, pull the latest microsoft/wcf image, try lift-and-shift an existing service,
• Keynote 2: Windows – Terry Myerson, Joe Belfiore, Abolade Gbadegesin, Alex Kipman
• Windows 10
• Fall Creators Update: new app Windows Story Remix (photos, videos, Paint 3D, work with phones): automatic videos and compositions like Google Photos; automatic sync with phones, ink notes that can be anchored to things in videos; Devs will have access to 3D/mixed reality features via APIs
• Fluent Design System will start influencing apps with light, depth, motion, material
• OneDrive Files On-Demand: mix of file on hard drive, cloud, or both in Windows Explorer; more automatic synching
• Windows Timeline: keeps track of all tasks from earlier; search; automatic syncs tasks across devices
• Connect your Android/iPhone to your Windows Phone
• Cloud-powered clipboard – copy/paste across devices (e.g. integrated into SwiftKey)
• XAML Standard 1.0 coming: will unify UWP + Xamarin UI code
• UWP features: pen integration, material, fluid transitions
• Graph APIs for people, activities, devices – built in to Windows 10, available via “Project Rome SDK” for Android and iOS
• Windows Store + UWP apps
• Visual Studio Test Cloud will have full support for UWP and many devices
• Windows 10 S is a version of windows that is only for Windows Store Apps (for schools, other specialty apps)
• Apps like Spotify, iTunes, SAP Digital Boardroom, Autodesk Sketchbook or will be in Windows store
• Dev Tools
• Ubuntu, SuSE Linux, Fedora soon be apps in Windows Store
• Xamarin Live Player: .NET C# Xamarin apps deployed to iOS device with full debugging capabilities, instant sync on UI changes
• Narration on every Windows 10 PC – can tell what the visually impared will experience; Narrator developer mode to put self in the shoes of a visually-impared person
• Windows Mixed Reality: VR, AR; PCs, Consoles, and holographic computers/headsets
• Motions controllers: optical sensors, trigger, stick, touchpad – no external cameras
• headset + controllers from Acer for $400 coming 2017Q4 – can preorder at http://windows.com/mixedreality
• Private conversation: F# could be good for creating DSLs or anything where composing/manipulating functions would be complicated in C#. Using duck typing-like type inference simplifies coding.  Don’t be afraid to have most of an app in C# but a key part in F# if necessary.
• Developer’s Guide to the Galaxy – snippets of various demos or talks
• Mixed reality is hard to develop?  Who does all the 3D?  It is possible to dev with only a PC and webcam.  Using Unity, add a camera and a image to the scene.  Add a 3D model from a .fbx (e.g. from Remix via Paint 3D), add to hierarchy, scale and position it.
• Chris Barker on MyPeople in Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update: API is simple; can use toaster popup with XML
• David from France on WebVR and BabylonJS: full 3D and VR in the browser
• Render 3D scenes
• switch between plain view and stereoscopic fisheye view e.g. for Cardboard
• Can use C# and Typescript;
• Detect gaze, select objects, even gather video texture from webcam
• JD - Progressive web apps:
• A “Service worker” runs independent of a browser frame – can speed up if the feature is available, enables offline functionality, not distruptive otherwise
• Use PWA Builder to help get started – gets a service worker ready for you to drop into your app
• Can also use hardware from Javascript web app
• UWP Community Toolkit Sample App in the Windows Store – can copy XAML code, etc, from it
• .NET Q&A Panel – Damian Edwards, Mike Harsh, Immo Landwerth, Rich Lander
• Portability Analyzer tells us what changes apps need for .NET Core.  Tips:
• Use .NET Core 2.0.  .NET Core 1.0 has much lower compatibility.
• Error messages have good suggestions (click the triangle)
• Compiler messages might be easier to start
• Be sure to use VS2017 Update 3
• .NET Core still supports P/Invoke, even on Mac & Linux – COM interop is not supported, MSMQ not yet supported but would be Windows-only if it is supported; System.Drawing and Directory Services not supported
• Must call ConfigureAwait(false) all the time on the server?  See also this Q. The default of “true” is still better.
• Need Core 2.0 or Framework 4.6 for snappoints/debug snapshots
• Why use .NET Core rather than Framework for web apps:
• Cross-platform (Linux, Mac OS, ARM)
• Self-contained .NET libraries (don’t need to install new framework on server)
• .NET Core is changing quicker and getting more new features (it is also open-source)
• Some performance advantages
• Other Framework vs. Core ideas
• .NET Framework is not going away, support will continue, but it won’t get too many new features
• Can run .NET Framework apps in containers – don’t rewrite things
• Can use a ASP.NET Core API in front of a Framework library
• Not recommended to run ASP.NET Core on .NET Framework—it is really meant for .NET Core
• TLS 1.2 support in Framework 3.5 is in a hotfix, and must be enabled via registry key.  It is fully in Framework 4.0
• Web Assembly support in .NET?  Nothing decided yet (probably not)
• How to load different versions of the same assembly?  e.g. may get TypeEquivalenceExceptions – very hard to overcome with an easy way.  Still using the later version is the easiest way.
• There is one specific use case that `async void` is for (event handlers); never use it otherwise.  Probably need a way to catch it in Code Analysis.
• Can run Kestrel on Raspberry Pi? Not with UWP on Windows IoT.  Can run a C++ Console app on Windows IoT.  Not easy.
• Managed Add-in Framework not on .NET Core.  No one cares about it.
• Deep Learning demo:
• Started with audio data for leaks in a pipe; using a Jupyter notebook to walk through: run microphone ball through pipe, get WAV file, get integer values from it, Fourier transforms to get an array of arrays, then make images, then colorize them, then build a neural net, then train the model, then run model against any image to predict probability of an image showing a leak; show results in a 2x2 confusion matrix; then figure out ways to improve the model
• Real-world: trained with 2000 images was good enough
• Transfer Learning can help you train the model
• Visual Studio 2017 and the CI pipeline: Ahmed Metwally & Mark Wilson-Thomas
• Can configure CI in Azure and VSTS right from Visual Studio; build failure would happen right in Visual Studio status var - Not useful with Jenkins
• Visual Studio now has tighter feedback: see problems as soon as they are made when coding
• When “in the zone”, don’t always want to fix all the little issues.  VS can help us understand what Code quality is at..
• Change pending indicator is in the status bar
• New “Build & Code Analysis results” in the Changes pane helps you commit with confidence (or fix issues before you do)
• Continuous Delivery extension for Visual Studio is new.  Road map:
• Today: Support for ASP.NET, CI Build failure notification, link to build results,
• Next: in-IDE pull requests, code analysis in pull request
• join on slack aka.ms/cd4vs_slack
• Visual Studio 2017 Coding at 88 MPH Tips and Tricks: Justin Clareburt and Alison Buchholz
  all at aka.ms/vsnavshortcuts, below are the ones that were new to me:
• Git Repos from other machines show up on Start Page – easy cloning
• Folder view supported in solution explorer – do not need projects
• Shift+Alt+Enter: full screen mode
• Esc: go to main text editor – Alt+F6 go to recent tool windows
• Shift+Esc: close current tool window
• Suggested mappings:
• Window.Dock: Ctrl+Insert
• Wondow.DockAsTabbed: Ctrl+Shift+insert
• Window.AutoHide: Shift+Insert
• Windows.HideAll: Shift+Alt+Ins
• Move to next/prev tab Ctrl+Alt+PgDn and +PgUp
• Ctrl+T: Go to all box with filters
• Shift+F12: find all references
• Ctrl+Alt+Home: keep previewed doc
• Alt+W, L: Close all documents
• Ctrl+Shift+F12: go to first error
• Solution Explorer: Sync with active document button (or track active document option on )
• Extensions
• Git Diff Margin:
• Solution Error Visualizer
• Fix Mixed Tabs
• Hot Commands
• Open Output Folder
• Add Folder to Solution
• Multi Edit Mode
• The future of Visual Studio – Amanda Silver, Tim Sneath
• Blind coder demo – Saqib Shaikh.  Pretty amazing how a blind person can code efficiently.
• Visual Studio is the most popular IDE for web developers; C# is the third-most popular language
• VS2017 version 15.3 will be out soon; lots of new features
• Emphasis: Catching issues early (“shift left”)
• Realtime experiences for unit tests, violations
• New installer, choose only the parts you need
• Live unit testing
• Refactorings: sorts, null checks, string interpolation, many more
• Code Analysis extension
• “Enable Docker Support” in new Project dialog
• True Linux C++ development in Visual Studio
• Visual Studio Data Scientist mode for R
• Visual Studio for Mac
• Experiment: VS can infer EditorConfigFile for style rules
• Linux subsystem – full Linux apps
• The future of C# – Dustin Campbell, Mads Torgensen
• C# 7 and 7.1
• tuples, tuples with named items
• Infer names of Tuple items in C# 7.1
• async Task Main now allowed
• new Task types – ValueTask (good for memory intensive tasks
• Deconstruction: get values underneath a tuple
• underscore for items we don’t care about
• Local functions
• Pattern matching (types or constants), even in switch, even with conditions
• Inline variable declaration `out int i`
• VS features
• New braces connected with faint lines
• depend on C# version autofix in C# 7.1
• “convert to binary” refactoring
• Better “go to references” and “find references”
• Find references of literals
• Auto complete for partially typed namespaces/types
• Suggested parameter names (intellisense)
• Autofix for git-style merge complete
• Press enter to split a long string into concatenated strings
• Refactor to initialize property (like Resharper), separate nibbles
• C# 8
• Default implementations inside interface (avoids requiring all implementations to implement new members)
• Annotated possibly null (e.g. `string? s` as a return value)
• foreach await, using await
• more flexible extension methods
• Records (automatically generated classes)
• Supercharging debugging in Visual Studio – Kaycee Anderson
• Execution Control
• Remember to add command-line args in Project Properties – Debug
• Can start debugging with F10 – first point
• Recent function returned values now show in locals; to see in watch window with “$returnValue1”
• New choice “step into specific” instead of stepping to the first one
• New icon for “run to click” just like run to cursor, but more discoverable
• Can “run to cursor” from call stack window, instead of step out, step out, step out
• `if (debugger.IsAttached) Debugger.Break();` – hardcoded breakpoint
• Data inspection
• Choose among several visualizers in data tips
• Alt+F12 for peek window
• Hold Ctrl to hide intellisense overlays
• Can right-click to add expressions to pinned watch snips
• “Make Object ID” makes a reference $1 that you can use in watch window even when other references change
• Breakpoints & Diagnostics
• Breakpoint actions: make conditional, make tracepoint
• quick and dirty profiling – see pertips at the right side of each recently-executed line
• consider keeping Diagnostics tools window – now has more useful summaries
• take snapshots to compare two points in time e.g. memory
• Coming soon: historical debugging via “Step back”
• Exceptions: New exception helper in debugging – has…
• inner exception scroller
• more information on cause of exception,
• optional exception settings (also there’s an exception settings window)
• Multithreading
• Parallel stacks window: shows visualization of all threads
• Parallel watch window: see values across all threads
• Can freeze thread in parallel watch window, run all other threads
• After a breakpoint is hit, remove breakpoint to avoid hitting the same breakpoint in other threads (step around)
• can filter breakpoint to a thread ID
• aka.ms/vsdiagsamples – the samples for the above
• aka.ms/diagnostics
• aka.ms/SuperChargeYourDebugging
• Miscellaneous notes on the side
• .NET Conf 2017 is Sep 19-21: free online conference
• .NET Fringe conference June 4-6
• Recurring theme: increasing reliance on CLIs, especially ones that look like bash