Daniel Jacobson on DevOps for Desktop Applications - Episode 59

Today's guest is Daniel Jacobson, a Program Management Lead on the Visual Studio team focused on empowering Windows Developers. Daniel was one of the speakers at the .NET Conf 2019 and will also be at the 2019 Microsoft Ignite conference! Daniel joined Microsoft about 5 years ago as a Program Manager. And now, as a Senior PM on the Visual Studio team, Daniel's focus is on the biggest challenge that developers are facing anywhere in their development. His team empowers literally millions of developers building applications for Windows devices. All that they do is centered around customers and their desires.

In this episode, Daniel and Jeffrey speak about DevOps for desktop applications. Daniel shares his vision for empowering all Windows application developers to seamlessly and incrementally modernize their existing applications through the work that he and his team is doing. Daniel largely focuses on the Visual Studio App Center in this episode, going into detail about each and every step you need to know about when integrating it, and provides additional resources at the end of the episode to further your learning. Tune in!

Topics of Discussion:

[:39] Be sure to visit AzureDevOps.Show for past episodes and show notes!

[:49] Jeffrey gives some announcements and lets you know where to get a hold of his book, .NET DevOps for Azure.

[3:27] About today's guest, Daniel Jacobson!

[3:53] Jeffrey welcomes Daniel to the show!

[4:04] Daniel speaks about his journey in the space and how he ended up where he is today.

[5:54] What is a client application? What makes them different?

[9:52] What are the choices available for those looking to run a native Windows application on the Microsoft platform?

[13:32] With WinForms, WPF, and .NET Core 3.0 coming out, what things can we not yet do if we're trying to go to .NET Core 3.0? What should people watch out for?

[15:55] Daniel explains all we need to know about Visual Studio App Center!

[17:30] A word from Azure DevOps Podcast's sponsor: Clear Measure.

[17:55] If somebody is upgrading an older WinForms' app into .NET Core, would they track their work on Azure Boards or does App Center provide work item tracking?

[18:58] Does the App Center integrate with existing source control? And following that, does the App Center support an automated build process?

[20:01] After the build and you've got a numbered release candidate package of some sort, what should the developer do?

[23:03] Is this all ready to go today for developers to use?

[23:25] Daniel explains the next step in the process once you have the package ready and are ready to deploy to your first pre-production environment or test group of users. He elaborates on what that looks like and what tool to use.

[24:31] Daniel continues to explain what the package does once it is in App Center and what the chain of pre-production environments look like.

[25:16] When users get the latest version of your app, is that going through the Microsoft store? What will automated updates look like in the future?

[26:31] So will App Center feature be a full-on replacement for ClickOnce? And what is it called?

[29:46] Is the Microsoft business store 'a thing?'

[30:17] Does App Center have an integration with the Microsoft store?

[30:38] What does the process look like to actually 'go to production?'

[32:19] Are Xamarin, operational telemetry, crash reports, etc. all wired into App Center?

[33:36] Looking forward, what is Daniel's vision for the future?

[35:11] Daniel highlights some valuable resources for listeners that want to learn more!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

Microsoft Ignite 2019

Party with Palermo - Microsoft Ignite Conference 2019 (Eventbrite)

Special pre-release offer that expires Nov. 2nd: email Jeffrey at Jeffrey@Clear-Measure.com and tell him who his very first guest on the podcast was then he'll send you a free e-book copy!

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Pre-order on Amazon here!

bit.ly/dotnetdevopsebook — Click here to download the .NET DevOps for Azure e-book!

bit.ly/dotnetdevopsbookforcommunity — Visit to get your hands on two free books to give away at conferences or events!

Jeffrey's .NET DevOps Bootcamp (Oct. 28-30th, in Lakeway, TX)

Jeffrey Palermo's Youtube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Daniel Jacobson's Twitter: @PMatmic

Aka.ms/WinUI

MSIX App Installer

XAML Islands

WinForms
WPF

.NET Core 3.0

Azure Pipelines

App Center

Azure Boards

ClickOnce

URL-Based Windows Installer

Xamarin

DevBlogs.Microsoft.com/VisualStudio

DevBlogs.Microsoft.com/DotNet

Aka.ms/MSIX

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.