The Pluralsight .NET Podcast

 Listen to this episode! [41:23]

Have you been hearing the chatter about Visual Studio LightSwitch? It is a new technology from Microsoft targeted at quickly building line of business apps. And for a bit more sweetness, it builds tiered Silverlight apps for us! LightSwitch is currently in Beta 1, but seems destined for being it’s own version of Visual Studio.

In this discussion with Jay Schmelzer, we go a bit beyond the typical explanation of LightSwitch and discuss how it actually works under the covers. As Jay helps us understand, we can expect actual productivity gains using this technology and well designed code along the way. My impressions of LightSwitch after this discussion are fairly positive. I can definitely see myself using the technology on my next quickie forms-over-data application.

Jay Schmelzer

Jay Schmelzer is a Group Program Manager on the Visual Studio Team at Microsoft.  Jay and his team are responsible for the Visual Studio design-time tools and runtime components used to build line of business applications. That includes the Visual Studio support for building Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Windows Azure solutions, Visual Studio LightSwitch, Visual Studio's data binding and data consumption experiences, as well as the application programmability and extensibility available in Visual Studio Tools for Applications.  Prior to joining Microsoft, Jay was a partner with a leading consulting firm and specialized in the design and development of enterprise applications.  Jay has authored several articles and books on application development and is a frequent speaker at application development conferences.

Show Links

• Visual Studio LightSwitch
• Visual Studio LightSwitch Developer Center
• Team Blog
• Forums on MSDN

  Listen to this episode! [31:30]

If you think ASP.NET Web Forms automatically results in boilerplate, procedural code, this show is for you. Turns out, there are some techniques we can apply to Web Forms (like a salve) that make them creamier and delicious. Keith tells us how Pluralsight.com gets built, along with the tools, techniques, patterns, and practices that the team uses.

Okay, okay, the team really boils down to Keith, Fritz, and me, but that’s not the point! The point is, there is some coolness under the covers, and this show peals them back.

- Dave Starr

Keith Brown

Keith is a co-founder of Pluralsight where he oversees the developer security curriculum, which has an impact across all of Pluralsight's course offerings. Keith spends most of his time researching security techniques and technologies, and has spent a decade teaching and developing course material for professional software developers. Keith is a contributing editor for MSDN Magazine, where he wrote the Security Briefs column for eight years. Keith regularly contributes feature articles to the magazine, while focusing his attention most recently on his blog.