Reading Notes #699

This week's reading notes bring you the latest insights into AI, .NET, open-source development, and even a few social hacks! From exploring background tasks in Blazor to the fascinating debate on Markdown vs. HTML for AI output, this roundup has something for everyone.

Let me know if you find anything particularly interesting; I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Programming

• Running background tasks in Blazor with Web Workers: Exploring the .NET 11 preview - Part 1 (Andrew Lock) - This web worker role looks promising. This post explains the what, why, and how.

• NuGet Package Pruning: Cleaner Dependencies and Actionable Vulnerability Reports - .NET Blog (Nikolche Kolev) - This post explains one feature that is now turned on by default in .NET that will improve our dependency graph.

AI

• Anthropic Engineer Debates Use of Markdown vs. HTML in AI Agent Output (Paul Thurrott) - Interesting debate. Initially, I was hell no! But the more I think about it, the less certain I am. But we can always ask to generate HTML, so I guess it's okay to keep it lighter and more minimalist by default.

• Using Azure Local Foundry CLI with PowerShell (Olivier Miossec) - A nice short tutorial to get local AI.

Open Source

• GitHub for Beginners: Getting started with OSS contributions (Kedasha Kerr) - Short tutorial that provides tips to find a project and start your first contribution

Podcasts

• 513: Agents Over Chat: The Future of Developer Workflows (Merge Conflict) - James and Frank discuss token optimization, model choices, and the workflow; do you make one master big plan or do you do multiple passes...

• How to Stop Being Socially Awkward (According to Science) with Behavioral Scientist Vanessa Van Edwards (A Bit of Optimism) - I really appreciated this episode, and I wish many others would find it. It's packed with little gems that will make you feel better.

Miscellaneous

• If You Didn't Capture It, Did It Really Happen? (Golnaz Alibeigi) - Will people attend an in-person event if it's available online? That's what this post answers.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

 ~frank

Reading Notes #698

The world of AI is exploding, and with that explosion comes a crucial question: how do we keep these powerful agents in check? Traditional security methods might not cut it anymore, so developers are turning to innovative sandboxing techniques. Let's explore some of the most promising approaches and see which ones emerge as the frontrunners in this AI safety race.

AI

• Comparing Sandboxing Approaches for AI Agents (Siri Varma Vegiraju) - Good news, we have options! But right now, what looks the easiest and safest is the Docker sandbox

• I stopped using /grill-me for coding. Now, I use /grill-with-docs (Matt Pocock) - Looking forward to try this one as the original grill-me was a revelation for me.

Programming

• What's New in Aspire 13.3 (Maddy Montaquila) - Oh, I love that new WithBrowserLog() need to upgrade all my solutions asap!

DevOps

• Top 15 CI/CD Metrics: What to Track & Why They Matter (James Walker) - Are our workflows and pipeline healthy? Could we improve them? This post shares metrics to help us answer these questions.

Podcasts

• he Real Reason You Feel Empty (Even When Life Looks Good) with Musician Mike Posner (A Bit of Optimism) - Fun discussion about life and how the goal in life shouldn't be getting to the end but enjoying the journey.

• Use What Works with Dylan Beattie (.NET Rocks!) - This episode will provide great information for anyone who is interested in using an open source project to build their solution. You should not see OSS as only being free, and you should consider how you can help the maintainers.

• AI SREs, Chat With Your Infrastructure with Anyshift (Agentic DevOps : AI Engineering for Infrastructure) - An interesting tool that Anyshift.io that digs into our infra to build a diagram and helps us to see. See what works and understand what doesn't. I might go try the free trial.

• The Science of Achieving Goals: How to Change Your Life in 5 Simple Steps (The Mel Robbins Podcast) - We all have goals, some are attainable faster than others. For those goals that require more planning, this episode shares simple steps (very simple indeed) to achieve them. It's explained as only Mel can do it.
  

I've made it a habit to share the fascinating articles, blog posts, and books that cross my path each week. Think of this as an open invitation, if you stumble upon something intriguing, don't hesitate to share it!
Let's build a community of curious minds.

~frank

Reading Notes #697

This week’s reading notes cover a wide range of topics, from local AI workflows and Docker agent fleets to data privacy, SQL tips, and developer tooling updates. There’s also an interesting look at how AI may be reshaping platforms like GitHub, alongside practical articles and podcasts packed with ideas for developers and tech enthusiasts alike.

Programming

• The new Run dialog: faster, cleaner, and more capable (Clint Rutkas) - Nice boost to performance for Run dialog (currently only in the insider version)

• Ghostty Is Leaving GitHub (Mitchell Hashimoto) - I didn't realize it was that bad! It's true that I spend less time there, but did AI cause all those outages (by generating peaks of traffic)

• Run Gemma 4 with Ollama locally, and keep the Aspire LLM Insights (sparkles and all) (Erik Lieben) - Oh yes! Interesting tutorial that explains how to hook local AI to Aspire (a dev tool)

Data

• Things I Think I Think... Data Privacy - Data is the new gold, the new oil, now more than ever. This post shares an opinion of our future.

AI

• AI Agent Fleet for CI/CD: How Docker Ships Faster (Manuel de la Peña) - This is a nice post that describes a new tool that's great and also provides good tips on how to write your skills.

• Generate Images Locally with Docker Model Runner (Ignasi Lopez Luna) - I have a very similar setup, and I love having a local AI for my little tasks

• Burn Through Your Backlog With My /triage Skill (Matt Pocock) - This post explains a skill triage to help you in your repos. There is also a video version.

Databases

• Why COALESCE might be the most useful SQL function you’re not using right ( Lukas Vileikis) - If you don't know, coalesce this post for you. If you don't know any other alternative, this post is for you. If you're not sure when to use what this post is also for you

Podcasts

• Docker AI, what’s new with MCP, Agents, Sandboxes, and more (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - Michael Irwin from Docker is on this episode and they go through alllll the recent releases and some major upcoming stuff, rellay interesting episode

• Making opinionated AI tooling decisions with Nimbalyst's Greg Hinkle (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Interesting discussion around Nimbalyst, an AI tool that has a few pretty cool tricks up its sleeves

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank