The art of simplicity

Have you ever wanted to see your project's Git history come to life? Gource is a fantastic tool that transforms your commit history into a mesmerizing animated visualization, showing how your codebase grows and evolves over time. It's like watching a time-lapse of your project's development, with files appearing, changing, and moving as contributors work on different parts of the code. But Gource is more than just eye candy. I like to use this tool to spot architectural patterns, identify hotspots where code changes frequently, understand how the team collaborates, and even detect potential coupling issues before they become problems. It's a powerful lens for understanding not just what a team has built, but how they've built it. In this post, I'll walk you through everything you need to know to create your first Gource visualization and use it to gain valuable insights into your codebase's architecture. What is Gource? Gource is an open-source vis...

Last week I was listening to Adam Grant's Rethink podcast. The guest was Daryl Davis, a black musician who has spent decades doing something most of us would find unthinkable: sitting down face-to-face with members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, listening to them, and through empathy and curiosity, helping many leave hate groups behind. What struck me wasn't just his extraordinary work. It was also his advice for the rest of us, the ones who can't imagine doing what he does. Not everyone belongs on the front line Daryl Davis and Jeff Schoep, who also joined the podcast, are what he calls "on the front lines"—directly engaging with people in hate groups. But Davis readily acknowledges that this isn't for everyone. "Some people, they can't do that," he explained. "They cannot bring themselves to sit down with a KKK member or a neo-Nazi. 'I can't sit with those people. I'm afraid of them. Or I'm afraid I might punch...

After enabling Aspire for your application, you get OpenTelemetry integration for free thanks to the included ServiceDefaults code.  This will setup OpenTelemetry using a set of defaults: Unfortunately this default configuration didn’t pick up any of the custom metrics I added. I first thought that this meant that I couldn’t use the service defaults anymore and configure the OpenTelemetry integration manually. But then I discovered that you can change/extend the default configuration in a specific project by using the ConfigureOpenTelemetryTracerProvider and/or ConfigureOpenTelemetryMeterProvider methods. Add your custom OpenTelemetry configuration after calling the Aspire builder.AddServiceDefaults() : Now our custom metrics appear nicely in the Aspire dashboard: More information Welcome to Aspire | Aspire Enabling .NET Aspire for an existing solution Replacing EventCounters with the new Metrics API

If you've been using EventCounters for instrumenting your .NET applications, it's time to consider migrating to the newer System.Diagnostics.Metrics API. Based on the OpenTelemetry specification, the Metrics API offers a more modern, flexible, and standardized approach to application instrumentation. Why migrate? The Metrics API provides several advantages over EventCounters: Industry Standard : Built on OpenTelemetry, ensuring compatibility with a wide ecosystem of monitoring tools Better Performance : More efficient with lower overhead Richer Functionality : Support for histograms, exemplars, and more sophisticated metric types Improved API Design : Cleaner, more intuitive interface for defining and recording metrics Better Tooling Support : Growing ecosystem support from APM vendors and monitoring solutions Microsoft has indicated that EventCounters are in maintenance mode, with new development focused on the Metrics API. So reasons enough to m...

In a recent leadership training, one practice stopped me in my tracks:  Leave room for the other voice. For every decision made during the training, the trainer always left room for the people who disagreed. Not to build consensus, but to be aware of what we have possibly missed and value different viewpoints. It sounds simple, almost obvious. But as I sat with it over the following days, I realized how I struggle putting this into practice —and how transformative it is when I do. The uncomfortable truth We love agreement. It feels good. It's efficient. When someone nods along with our ideas, it validates our thinking and makes us feel competent and heard. But here's what I'm learning: a room full of agreement is often a room full of danger. When everyone agrees with you, one of two things is happening. Either you've hired people who think exactly like you—which means you're missing perspectives, blindspots, and opportunities. Or you've created an enviro...

Yes! .NET 10 is out and not only does it come with a new SDK and runtime version, but it is accompanied by a new NuGet version. With this version, Microsoft has significantly strengthened NuGet's security capabilities to help build more secure applications. These enhancements focus on improved vulnerability detection, automated package management, and better tooling for managing your dependency tree. Let's explore what's new and how these features can help protect your projects. Transitive dependency auditing The change with probably the biggest impact is the NuGet Audit's default behavior. For projects targeting .NET 10 or higher, the NuGetAuditMode property now defaults to all instead of direct . This means that NuGet will automatically scan not just your direct package references, but also all transitive dependencies for known security vulnerabilities. That’s good news as a a majority of vulnerabilities are often found in indirect dependencies. In a typical...