DNR Podcast and a host of other interviews on MEF

Recently I have been doing a bunch of podcasts on MEF. Previously I had done a few with Hearding Code and Elegant Code. Back in the Hearding code days I was very new to the team and still trying to figure out exactly what MEF was about. Since then, we've gotten much more crisp about the problems we are addressing which is what we have covered in the recent chats.

Before listing the new interviews though I first advise you check out this great interview that Krzysztof Cwalina (my boss) did some time ago with Ted Neward on MEF. In this interview, Krys talks about the framework drivers that brought MEF into existence.  Don't miss it, as it is a real gem.

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.NET ROCKS

While at Øredev (I have to copy and paste that 'Ø' character every time I want to use it :-)), Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell and I did a bunch of recordings on MEF.

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First we did a DNR TV episode where we dove in and wrote some MEF code. If you haven't seen DNR TV, it's not a podcast, it's a video cast where you can actually see the code. The implementation we wrote was completely ad-hoc, but I think we got to cover some good ground. The highlight for me was when Carl was heckling me on how much easier it would be if I could just drop the assemblies in the bin folder and show them being red. Fortunately for Carl we did get to show that by the end. Anyway, if you want to get a taste for what it looks like to work with MEF, check it out. Oh and apologies to those who attended my MEF talk as I was 5 mins late due to the DNR recording being right before it. I literally ran from the speaker lounge to the room where I was giving my talk.

Glenn Block on MEF, the Managed Extensibility Framework

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My first DNR recording was with Brian Noyes where we spoke on the great work p&p was doing around Prism. Doing that interview with a veteran like Brian was great fun. This time I got to have the training wheels removed and I was on my own :) In this session we covered alot of the essentials around MEF including what it is, why we are building it / which scenarios we are trying to address, and how you actually use it. We also got to discuss what MEF means for the platform itself, and the kinds of things we hope to enable through MEF in the future. One of the highlights in the show was where we took a tangent discussing Baby Smash from Scott Hanselman and it's role as the canonical .NET app of the future.

As a side note, I really love .Net Rocks. Beyond just the content, it's the way Carl and Richard run the show. They are masters at coming up with compelling questions, giving good side commentary, and knowing when to just cut the speaker off so they can get a word in :) I can say from having done many different podcasts, that they are not all created equal. DNR is the creme de le creme. It's no accident either, the work these guys put in to deliver quality shows is significant. Richard told me all about it during one of our many conversations at Øredev.

Channel 9 Interview with MSDN Sweden

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Finally, at Øredev I got the chance to sit down with Johan Lindfors and have a quick chat about MEF. Somehow amazingly we were able to cover the essence of MEF in 6 minutes! Needless to say it was great to meet Johan and the MSDN Sweden guys. BTW, your wondering where I got such a funky swedish sweater, it's from H&M. Before leaving for Øredev, I went on a small H&M clothing spree. H&M coincidentally happens to be a Swedish company, so the timing was impeccable.

https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/MSDNSweden/Intervju-frn-redev-Glenn-Block-om-MEF/

I think I am officially done doing podcasts / interviews about MEF for a while. However please ping Nick (who hasn't posted lately) and Hammett to get their perspectives.