The Monsters Weekly - Episode 56 - Summer of Config Prize Update

In this bonus episode we update everybody on the new expanded prize packages for the Summer of Config contest. We already have some amazing entries using things like Twitter or GPS to configure applications. Still plenty of time to get your entry in. I haven't seen anybody configuring their application based on a lava lamp or on the position of Jupiter in the night sky. With the expanded prizes you'd be crazy not to enter.

 

Check out the contest announcement video  or read the blog post or watch the video that started it all

The Monsters Weekly - Episode 55 - Jeffrey Palermo on Moving the Business to ASP.NET Core

Shiny new things are shiny and new! ...but that kind of argument isn't going to win you management over when you explain to them that you need to take your team offline for the next 6 months while you rewrite the app on ASP.NET Core.

But! There will be a right time for your team, and likely a right approach, too. Join special guest Jeffrey Palermo with Monsters Simon and James as they mash on the finer points of making the move to .NET Core. In this episode, they talk about the pitfalls you might run into, some safe approaches you can take and tips that will help you along the way as you focus on features instead of technology. 

Do you have questions about when or if it's right for your team? Ask us in the comments below!

You can catch up with Jeffrey on the Twitters.

The Monsters Weekly - Episode 54 - Static Compilation in ASP.NET Core

The dotnet tool will, by default, produce a .dll file even if you've asked it to emit an entry point and you're building a command line tool. What should you do if what you want is really a .exe file? What has changed in .NET Core compilation overall?

Watch today's episode to find out!

Some helpful resources:

Hey! Got some questions? Ask us in the comments section below!

 

The Monsters Weekly - Episode 53 - Web API with Guest Eric Fleming

Controller from both MVC and Web API have been merged into the same code base, so creating APIs are even easier and as lightweight as we'd like (or as feature-rich as we need).

Authentication and authorization work well, but we have to be aware of the pitfalls and the different contexts under which we may be exposing our APIs to the outside world. In this episode, guest Monster Eric Fleming cracks open a new API controller and starts returning some data, then we dive in to see how basic security only stands up to basic attacks. 

Watch for a future episode when we take additional measures to protect the API even further.

The Monsters Weekly - Episode 52 - Loading View Components from a Class Library

View Components are a new feature in ASP.NET Core MVC and they provide a great way to build small components that can be reused across your application. In today's episode, Dave shows us how to load view components from a class library so they can be shared across several applications.

Resources

Blog Post
GitHub Repo

 

The Monsters Weekly - Episode 51 - An Intro to Nginx for Kestrel

Kestrel is a great light weight server for serving ASP.NET Core web applications. However it doesn't support such things as SSL or gzip or http2. In order to get that functionality you need to put another web server in front of it. Nginx is a great feature rich web server which can act as a front for Kestrel. In this episode we'll explore some of the configuration options for Nginx. 

Resources

Monsters post on Nginx

Nginx site

The Monsters Weekly - Episode 50 - Configuration From Any Source in ASP.NET Core

We're not quite sure if it's time to rethink how or where we think of and save out our configuration, but with the evolution of configuration in ASP.NET Core, we know that it's at least possible to do so. In this episode, join the Monsters as James demonstrates how to store configuration information in an image in what might possibly be "the best use of computers ever."

While this is a lighthearted episode for sure, it does dive into the complete technical implementation of a custom configuration provider with the capability of refreshing itself when the file containing the configuration is updated.

Here's some other, related episodes on Configuration:

Summer of Config

Announcing the ASP.NET Monsters “Summer of Config” Contest

Awwwyeah, here it is, the next contest brought to you by the ASP.NET Monsters. We have some great prizes and we're sure hoping that you can have a lot of fun, even if you don't cash in with the win.

The Summer of Config is all about creating the wackiest, most insane configuration provider that you can dream up. We want you jammin’ on the ASP.NET Core code, bringing us your questions, experimenting with the code and seeing your creativity. BRING IT ON!

An Intro to NGINX for Kestrel

Kestrel is a server capable of serving up ASP.NET Core applications on any platform but in production you need to run it behind another server.

Loading View Components from a Class Library in ASP.NET Core MVC

In today's post we take a look at how view components can be implemented in a separate class library and shared across multiple web applications.