Audio file screenmedia.output_01.mp3 Transcript 00:00:10 Matt Welcome back everyone to The Xamarin podcast. 00:00:20 Matt Keeping you up to. 00:00:21 Matt Date with the latest and greatest in xamarinand.net, mauidevelopmentincluding.net Azure and more. I'm at soak up. 00:00:30 Matt And today we have another Xamarin developer story Screenmedia. 00:00:34 Matt Yeah, and I'm joined by Gordon Langford and Colin Banks from Screenmedia announcement from Microsoft. 00:00:40 Matt Modern app customer advisory team. 00:00:42 Matt Hey Gordon, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? 00:00:46 Gordon Hi Matt and first of all thank you very much for having us on on my name is Gordon Langford and the mobile director at Screenmedia. 00:00:54 Gordon I've been working on mobile now for for many years going right back to data. 00:01:01 Gordon Any apps that we used to build through the. 00:01:04 Gordon Smartphone revolution and I've been working with Xamarin for about 9 years now. 00:01:10 Matt Alright, and then Colin, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? 00:01:13 Matt And what it screenmedia does? 00:01:15 Colin Hi Matt, my name is Colin. 00:01:16 Colin I'm technical projects to date toilet screenmedia I I work really closely with our global development team across a range of different projects and looking after account management, project management and the overall delivery of projects working very closely with with Gordon from the technical side. 00:01:34 Colin Screen media Our Scotland largest independent UX web and mobile innovation practice. 00:01:40 Colin We have a team of around about 60 specialists who work across the entire breadth of projects. 00:01:45 Colin From project planning, requirements, Discovery, user experience, designing graphical user interface design, development, testing and support. 00:01:54 Colin And we specialize in delivering end to end solutions across Web, mobile and cloud development and have expert teams in a range of supporting technologies, including Azure. 00:02:03 Matt All right, yeah? 00:02:04 Matt So today is a. 00:02:04 Matt Little bit different of a podcast in that we're not going to be talking about just one app going to be talking about a couple different apps. 00:02:09 Matt That screen media is help customers put together. 00:02:12 Matt And Speaking of folks that help customers put apps together, we have Alex won't. 00:02:17 Matt For Microsoft Modern app. 00:02:19 Matt Customer advisory team. 00:02:21 Matt Now obviously that team is not into the whole. 00:02:23 Matt Brevity thing when coming up with names, but Alex talks a lot about you. 00:02:27 Matt Tell us a little bit about yourself and. 00:02:30 Matt What your team does. 00:02:31 Alex Ah, yes, so I've had the pleasure of being on the podcast before, so thank you for for having me back again. 00:02:37 Alex Alex Blount, principal software engineer, manager on the customer advisory team for modern client applications. And yeah, we we kind of go out work with our customers, help them be successful with their with their client applications, trying to learn as much about how they're using our products as possible. Visualstudio.net xamarin. 00:02:57 Alex And sudabeh.net, Maui, so we can hopefully kind of take that information. Take those learnings and and bring them back into our product teams and. 00:03:05 Alex Help make the product better for. 00:03:06 Alex Very well, and so that's what that's what my team does. 00:03:09 Matt Great and I want to thank everybody for joining me on this podcast 'cause we're having a lot of fun talking about a couple different apps and screen media has been building Xamarin app for like 9 years so we get to talk a little bit about their experience and. 00:03:20 Matt How they moved? 00:03:21 Matt Forward with that and and through the journey. 00:03:23 Matt So Gordon, actually I want to start out and asking about that. 00:03:25 Matt You've been building Xamarin apps for nine years. 00:03:28 Matt Tell me just a little bit about your thoughts over. 00:03:30 Matt The early days of the. 00:03:32 Matt The prehistoric time before Xamarin forms what what was building a Xamarin app nine years ago like? 00:03:40 Gordon Uh, yeah it was. It was a an interesting experience I. I think our team came from. We were all sort of native mobile developers, but we had a we actually thebig.net contingent in in the company as well and I guess it was. It was partly. 00:03:58 Gordon That decision that. 00:03:59 Gordon That helped push us towards picking up Xamarin and but yeah, I mean there was certainly some some some hurdles to jump through, but I think because we had. 00:04:10 Gordon Both the the so C sharp.net experience and the native. 00:04:15 Gordon IOS and Android experience and we were actually able to get hit the ground running, you know pretty quickly and you know. 00:04:22 Gordon And probably partly the reason for that is that we we actually got involved with Stuart Lodge, who it was, uh, he's a great character in the industry who was actually the author of Mekk Ross. 00:04:35 Gordon And who really helped us? 00:04:37 Gordon You know, kick that off and they can get up and running. 00:04:40 Alex I really miss Stuart Lodge doing presentations. 00:04:43 Alex He used to be absolutely awesome doing his mvvmcross presentations. 00:04:49 Gordon Is n + 1. 00:04:50 Alex Yeah, exactly. 00:04:52 Gordon Don't watch the watch today. 00:04:53 Alex Staff definitely. 00:04:55 Matt And that's actually how I learned Macross way long time ago is. 00:04:59 Matt Yeah, those N plus ones I totally forgot about those Alex. 00:05:02 Alex We need to bring him back. 00:05:04 Matt Yeah, all right and alright, so let's. 00:05:07 Matt Now jump back into a couple apps. 00:05:10 Matt That that screen media that you produced so and so before the podcast. 00:05:15 Matt Gordon, you're telling me a little bit about the Honeywell app that you've helped with now for like several years so. 00:05:22 Matt Give me a quick overview of what the Honeywell app is, what it does, and how you built it. 00:05:27 Matt And then I guess the whole whole thing here. 00:05:30 Gordon Yeah, uhm so. 00:05:33 Gordon We actually started working with Honeywell when they came to us to help. 00:05:36 Gordon We design a new thermostat that they were creating which is it was going to be the UI and UX of that of that thermostat on the wall. 00:05:45 Gordon And and, and quite quickly after that, it nest came out with their with their equivalent. 00:05:52 Gordon And obviously there was. 00:05:53 Gordon An app that drove. 00:05:54 Gordon That so honey well got in touch with us and who happened to be? 00:05:58 Gordon We're based in Glasgow and very well one of them. 00:06:01 Gordon Their main offices was actually just a few miles away so they they got in touch with us. 00:06:05 Gordon Said, you know we need to. 00:06:07 Gordon We need an app out there. 00:06:08 Gordon We need a five star experience. 00:06:10 Gordon It needs to be cross platform and at that point you know we've been looking at lots of different solutions we we had previously looked at mono as a solution and then obviously you know, Xamarin productized I guess. 00:06:25 Gordon You know all of that, and it was. 00:06:28 Gordon Really, the only only real thing we could see that would allow us to be allow us to be able to build, you know the design and quality of the apps that we were looking for and and water company was was known for creating and you know none of the web hybrid options or solutions would actually give us that fidelity. 00:06:48 Gordon I mean, remember, going to going to MD, you know, with a number of things and saying, here's an option and his yeah no question was, you know, is it? 00:06:55 Gordon Going to be as good as that last native app that we built. 00:06:57 Gordon And usually the answer was no. 00:07:00 Gordon But then when we we brought Samuel as an option and that was when we were able to actually say yes. 00:07:05 Gordon You know we can. 00:07:05 Gordon Build that kind of fidelity and you know would get you know. 00:07:09 Gordon Get the economies of of building something in cross platform and so that was obviously a building. 00:07:16 Gordon An app in Xamarin native. 00:07:18 Gordon There was no Xamarin forms and at the time and as I mentioned you know he works closely with the Stuart Lodge at start. 00:07:24 Gordon So we used a Xamarin native app and with the MVVM cross framework and in that and. 00:07:33 Gordon You know, we Honeywell had this this vision that he wanted this five startup and so we worked together with our design team in our development team and and, you know, we managed to pull that that first app together in about six months and and you know, it was launched alongside the their evil home product. 00:07:54 Gordon In Europe, and it was, you know it was. 00:07:57 Gordon It was a great success. 00:07:58 Gordon You know there was nothing that we were presented that we didn't manage to actually achieve. 00:08:03 Gordon You know, from a from a UI perspective from. 00:08:06 Gordon Sort of cost saving architectural perspective. 00:08:09 Gordon And actually the. 00:08:12 Gordon The core, the. 00:08:13 Gordon Core code that we had in in.net wasn't just useful app and we used it for the iOS that iOS app, the Android app. 00:08:20 Gordon We also 00:08:20 Gordon Used it for. 00:08:21 Gordon The web portal back end and then there was a number of other add ONS that we used it for. 00:08:26 Gordon We ended up building. 00:08:27 Gordon I think we've done Apple Watch. 00:08:28 Gordon Prototype and we often Google Glass prototype and which is all built off the back of of this one. 00:08:34 Gordon No single core code base and so it was really. 00:08:37 Gordon A A proper cross. 00:08:39 Gordon Platform and ever who were able to achieve with Sam and Ann. 00:08:45 Gordon With that we at the time. 00:08:46 Gordon Same, I think that this this still had salmon evolve and we actually were nominated for the Zombie award. 00:08:53 Gordon Said we didn't win it. 00:08:54 Gordon Unfortunately, I think we were beaten by the the Dutch Tax Council, which was a tough one to take an but. 00:09:02 Gordon But yeah, I mean, I think that you know what we learned while we were doing. 00:09:05 Gordon All of that was how to build, you know. 00:09:07 Gordon Really robust Xamarin applications you know, with a really good architecture behind it. 00:09:12 Gordon And we've taken that architecture and you know refined it. 00:09:15 Gordon You know, as we've gone, and that that app that we built then is is still being used. 00:09:20 Gordon Now you know, and that was about nine years ago, and we still support the app, and we actually also now support its native cousin, which was the the TCC North American equivalent of it. 00:09:32 Gordon Which is probably. 00:09:33 Gordon One of the few times and that this will ever happen. 00:09:37 Gordon But there was basically an app with very similar functionality being built. 00:09:41 Gordon In in the US, being built natively in iOS and Android, and we were building a Xamarin app alongside it. 00:09:47 Gordon And the same platforms, and I certainly think we, you know, we had some huge time efficiencies over and above that. 00:09:55 Gordon So All in all, it was a, you know, it was a huge success. 00:09:59 Alex Gordon, have you have you kind of you? 00:10:01 Alex You mentioned that that apps been now live for nine years and you've been supporting that, what, what have you had to do to kind of ensure that you're keeping it up to date and you're you're kind of using the not necessarily the latest and greatest, but you're using everything that you can to. 00:10:17 Alex Ensure that you're getting the best out of that for your customer. 00:10:21 Gordon Uhm, yeah. 00:10:22 Gordon I mean, it's it's definitely. 00:10:23 Gordon There's been some soft points where we've had to upgrade certain libraries to be honest. 00:10:30 Gordon Xamarin hasn't really caused us that many issues. 00:10:33 Gordon You know, Xamarin, with their ability to, you know, iOS and Android updates they you know they've kept pace with that really, really well. 00:10:40 Gordon Some of the challenges. 00:10:41 Gordon We've had have actually been more around MVVM, cross, you know. 00:10:45 Gordon And and probably. 00:10:45 Gordon The you know the other. 00:10:47 Gordon The other frameworks that we were. 00:10:49 Gordon Using and that we've got to a point with MVVM cross where we really wanted to jump to the next. 00:10:56 Gordon But the way the app you know the way that was built that was actually gonna be quite difficult to do so. 00:11:03 Gordon We've had a. 00:11:03 Gordon We've had a number of discussions about. 00:11:05 Gordon You know whether we should. 00:11:06 Gordon We should sort of restart it, and you know and build it again. 00:11:10 Gordon And and there's some such things on those discussions going on at the moment. 00:11:13 Gordon And but I would say that. 00:11:15 Gordon You know, as far as hammering goes, we we've been able to fairly easily keep that updated. 00:11:20 Gordon It's been more the the the breaking changes in the frameworks underneath the hood that have actually caused us more problems. 00:11:28 Matt Alright, so I'm going to step back just for one second and Alex. Do you know who was in charge of the zamis back in 2014 that the Dutch tax app beat out this great Honeywell app? 00:11:41 Alex I I I, I'm kind of biased though, as I actually worked with the Dutch Tax Office as well so. 00:11:48 Alex You shouldn't ask me. 00:11:51 Gordon So here's your full alley. 00:11:52 Alex I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 00:11:56 Gordon We so I mean there were. 00:11:58 Gordon There were some other fantastic entries and I think it wasn't. 00:12:02 Gordon It was a. 00:12:02 Gordon There was a survey our entry which we. 00:12:05 Gordon Were we thought? 00:12:06 Gordon Would potentially win it, but yeah, we were a bit shocked. 00:12:08 Gordon The Dutch tax Office want it. 00:12:10 Alex I'm I'm surprised that Chris Hardy didn't kind of push that through hearing that there was a Google Glass element at some point. 00:12:16 Alex I think he would have gone crazy for that so. 00:12:19 Gordon Yeah, I mean that was an interesting demo when we're standing saying, uh, you know, turn my heating up because it was also obviously a voice interaction and and I think then we realized that maybe that Google Glass wasn't the the next. 00:12:32 Gordon The next platform for for. 00:12:35 Gordon You know, communicating with your heating? 00:12:36 Gordon Obviously things have moved on. 00:12:37 Gordon Now invoices a standard interface. 00:12:39 Gordon A lot of things, but at. 00:12:42 Gordon The time it wasn't quite ready, especially with a Scottish accent. 00:12:47 Matt Well now it would. 00:12:47 Matt Be kind of interesting to see you can get different tints of shade. 00:12:51 Matt You know when? 00:12:52 Matt You're looking at a room that's hot. 00:12:53 Matt If you had different sensors in the room and the group could actually be orange versus Blue Earth or. 00:12:58 Matt Cold I mean. 00:12:59 Matt There we go, I want. 00:13:00 Matt To talk about another app, then yeah that we talked about before and it's for a retail company called Next which is not in the states at all. 00:13:10 Matt Can so I guess can you fill me? 00:13:12 Matt In on what next does or what the app? 00:13:13 Matt Does for next. 00:13:16 Gordon Yes, so next is a I mean the massive. 00:13:19 Gordon A UK retailer and they they do clothing. 00:13:24 Gordon They do household goods. 00:13:27 Gordon Various other things, probably anything you can think of. 00:13:30 Gordon You know the next next wholesaler. 00:13:32 Gordon I guess they are. 00:13:33 Gordon They're best known for the really high quality clothing. 00:13:36 Gordon And certainly that's the there's most of the jobs in the High Street are sort of clothing shops and but they have a. 00:13:45 Gordon They obviously have lots of logistics. 00:13:48 Gordon They need to take care of with regard stock and and we were. 00:13:53 Gordon We were asked that they were looking to. 00:13:56 Gordon To create an app to. 00:13:57 Gordon Manage all of their in store and. 00:14:00 Gordon Products movement and we were. 00:14:03 Gordon We were asked component and help with their team who had been on. 00:14:07 Gordon I think they've been on a relatively short Xamarin course and but in general most of them had no had no mobile experience at all and so we were asked to come in and help them build. 00:14:20 Gordon What they told us at the time was going to be around, I think about 70 apps and. 00:14:25 Gordon We we were. 00:14:26 Gordon Like fantastic, you know this would be great and it's but we had to obviously get the team up to speed as well. 00:14:33 Gordon As it turned out, I think we managed to sort of whittle. 00:14:35 Gordon This down to. 00:14:36 Gordon About 50 or apps just by, you know, taking the common components and being able to put them together. 00:14:41 Gordon And but what we what we had to do first was obviously get the team up to speed. 00:14:46 Gordon You know, understanding you know what mobile is all about. 00:14:49 Gordon And but then also being able to build a component library that would allow us to build these these 50 apps within the time frame that we had, and to do that, we decided to use. 00:15:02 Gordon Xamarin forms? 00:15:03 Gordon Uhm, so we. 00:15:05 Gordon We had a Xamarin forms and. 00:15:08 Gordon We combined that with the the framework. 00:15:10 Gordon Prism to to build those. 00:15:13 Gordon And really what we did was we broke it down into. 00:15:16 Gordon And plugins that we could use that were functional plugins. 00:15:19 Gordon And then we also had UI components as well and that we created and and they're not. 00:15:28 Gordon We haven't managed to get these these 50 applications now. 00:15:31 Gordon These applications weren't. 00:15:32 Gordon There was some micro applications so there was one main. 00:15:36 Gordon Menu which managed the users authentication. 00:15:40 Gordon And then there was the rest or So what you may call worker or functional type apps which we could move in and out of on on on an Android device. 00:15:51 Gordon And the the partner with Zebra who are a big hardware provider. 00:15:58 Gordon They provide sort of a barcode scanner. 00:16:00 Gordon So yeah, they have robust devices. 00:16:03 Gordon Uh, they have barcode scanners built into them so that people can use them in store. 00:16:09 Gordon So one of the one of the more fun things that we did with that was we built an integration with Zebra RFID reader and which was a a massive win. 00:16:19 Gordon And for those guys, because it was a this was used for a stocktake task which used to take a whole number of people a whole day to achieve. 00:16:29 Gordon And they had this zambrana and worth. 00:16:33 Gordon An RFID reader hooked onto it, and they could. 00:16:36 Gordon Essentially they could walk into the warehouse and just wave it around and do stocktaking in minutes as opposed to hours, and so that was a that was a real win for for next and they still they still have those apps today and they still maintain them today. 00:16:51 Alex Gordon, can you can you talk a bit about that? 00:16:53 Alex That integration that you built, but it sounds like you had to do. 00:16:56 Alex Some some integration with kind of native hard word. 00:17:00 Alex What was the process that you went through to to do that for the and? 00:17:03 Alex I'm going to say Zebra, just as I live in America now, so I I I've fallen into that. 00:17:09 Alex That trap. 00:17:10 Alex So how did you? 00:17:11 Alex How did you build that that that Zebra integration? 00:17:17 Gordon They were actually they were really quite helpful and with that most most hardware integrations that we come across usually had a. 00:17:26 Gordon They had a native SDK and and normally we would have to bind with that, but we actually next and Zebra had a a fairly good relationship, so we're actually able to work with them. 00:17:38 Gordon To get him to create a Zebra SDK for us and it would work with their RFID reader. 00:17:44 Gordon And so it wasn't actually as difficult as some other things. 00:17:47 Gordon I'll probably come on to speak, speak about a bit later. 00:17:51 Gordon Anne to to integrate this is actually just great. 00:17:54 Gordon Having a Direct Line of communication with them to help us do that. 00:17:58 Gordon So we put that together and hooked up with the retail in store stock, take apps, and then you obviously have to manage the the Bluetooth communication with that and the RFID. 00:18:11 Gordon Want and I could do two things. 00:18:14 Gordon As I said, it could do. 00:18:15 Gordon A stocktake so it could sweep around it and pick up all the the the RFID tags that were on the clothing and but it could also almost act like. 00:18:23 Gordon A a metal. 00:18:24 Gordon Detector for clothes. 00:18:25 Gordon So if you knew that you had to find a specific item of clothing, you can actually walk around with the with the RFID wand and the device and track. 00:18:35 Gordon There in the back clothing and that you were looking for and which again obviously was a huge cost saving for them. 00:18:41 Gordon And whenever you. 00:18:42 Gordon You know, uh, a real performance boost and for the for the stock management team. 00:18:47 Alex I have to say I'm I'm imagining kind of the people that work for next kind of dressed like Harry Potter and like waving the device around like. 00:18:56 Alex And this nagging and taking as they do it. 00:18:59 Gordon I mean the testing of it was. 00:19:01 Gordon Well, it was great fun. 00:19:02 Gordon You know you got down to the warehouse. 00:19:04 Gordon And we were just gonna, you know, waving this thing around and I think everyone was just about kind of blown away by the fact that. 00:19:10 Gordon This was picking things up. 00:19:11 Gordon So quickly, you know, I think they were always. 00:19:14 Gordon Start going, it's a promotion in this for me. 00:19:20 Gordon So yeah, it was that now was this. 00:19:22 Gordon Gives good one. 00:19:23 Matt So how does the device itself talk back to the phone? 00:19:27 Matt So it has an. 00:19:27 Matt RFID communication to the tag and then what? 00:19:32 Matt What's the communication mechanism back to the? 00:19:34 Matt Phone is like over Bluetooth. 00:19:35 Matt Or is that RFID as well? 00:19:38 Gordon And that was that was a Bluetooth connection. 00:19:40 Gordon OK, so we are just connecting through the the libraries, the posted libraries and. 00:19:46 Matt OK, now I would say. 00:19:48 Matt And that was all taken care of for you by the SDK from Zebra. 00:19:52 Gordon Yeah yeah, yeah, that was all done by then. I think we may have used some of the what would now be the XAML essentials, James Montemagno's libraries and back then I think we we probably picked up some of those. 00:19:53 Matt OK. 00:20:05 Gordon And I think Zebra certainly helped integrate a lot of. 00:20:08 Gordon That stuff so. 00:20:09 Gordon Yeah, they were. 00:20:09 Gordon They were great to work with. 00:20:11 Gordon It's this is quite unusual to get. 00:20:13 Gordon You know a vendor. 00:20:13 Gordon Who's who's so keen to kinda be? 00:20:15 Gordon Involved in that, so that was good. 00:20:16 Alex And I've just. 00:20:17 Alex I've just found there's a link that we can drop into the the show notes as well that that that Zebra actually offer a a demo app for for the Xamarin SDK, so people can just go and download that if they have a device to test it on. 00:20:31 Alex So that's pretty awesome that they have it out there. 00:20:33 Matt Yeah, well, we definitely put that in the show notes and it's yeah I'm clicking. 00:20:36 Matt On it right now. 00:20:36 Matt It looks it looks cool and it's always magical to see one of those things like work, I shouldn't say. 00:20:41 Matt Actually work, but when it works, it's so. 00:20:44 Matt So, Gordon, there's another thing I wanted to ask you about. So when you started your engagement with next, he said that a lot of the effort went around showing.net developers. What mobile development all entails, and so that's a question that I get asked a lot that Alice gets asked a lot, is how do I get into mobile development? How do I understand it and so? 00:21:05 Matt What was your answer to that? 00:21:06 Matt I mean, what would you say that somebody who's brand new they know not in that inside and out, but they want to start doing mobile? 00:21:14 Matt How how do you? 00:21:15 Matt How do you? 00:21:15 Gordon Learn mobile. 00:21:16 Gordon I mean, I think the one of the good things about is Xamarin. 00:21:19 Gordon Forms is you can probably get by to a degree without knowing a huge amount, probably. 00:21:27 Gordon When it comes to at the point, possibly when you want to publish, you know you probably need to start. 00:21:33 Gordon You know, really looking up you know how. 00:21:34 Gordon How do we publish these applications? 00:21:37 Gordon And but I I think you know from from that point of view. 00:21:42 Gordon A lot of the stuff that that the that you guys work on you know actually takes away a lot of that pain. 00:21:47 Gordon And as I said, you know, the salmon essentials libraries. You know not, not really. Needing to hugely understand what's going on under the hood of them means you can get by or probably 90%, uh, you know. The things that. 00:22:00 Gordon You want to do. 00:22:02 Gordon In apps, but I think that one of the things that we've always done, you know, certainly. 00:22:06 Gordon As a as. 00:22:07 Gordon A general policy in our team and and the mobile team. 00:22:11 Gordon That is, is we try and have at. 00:22:13 Gordon Least some people. 00:22:14 Gordon With a little bit of native experience, and because I think that that's one of the things that. 00:22:19 Gordon Can take you from, you know, build some good salmon forms at this like great salmon farms. 00:22:24 Gordon That's because it just you just have that deeper understanding. 00:22:27 Gordon And if you do need to do something you know a bit more specialised or even if you you know you want to start creating custom renderers, it's always just good to understand how those APIs and SDK. 00:22:39 Gordon Well, you know a native level and but I mean there is also this great documentation and from Xamarin as well. 00:22:45 Gordon I mean, there's it was quite often better documentation from from Xamarin. 00:22:50 Gordon Then you might find in someone. 00:22:51 Gordon Some of them need any it you're trying to do. 00:22:53 Gordon So I would. 00:22:54 Gordon Always trying to point people in the direction of that first. 00:22:58 Matt I said we always take we. 00:23:00 Matt I love documentation, we always talk about it all the time and so yeah, we always take pride in. 00:23:05 Matt Our documentation, so Alex. 00:23:07 Matt How do you answer that question though? 00:23:08 Matt When somebody comes up to you and says, you know, I know dot net and how do I learn mobile or not even? 00:23:14 Matt How do I do? 00:23:15 Matt I know do I need to know mobile development to make a mobile? 00:23:20 Alex Uh, yeah, I think I think that answer has changed for for me and and kind of my my team when we're interacting with customers. 00:23:29 Alex I think a few years back I would definitely go with the the answer that hey you, you can get by as as kind of Gordon says with with just knowing with just knowing. 00:23:40 Alex That by having somebody on the team who has that that deeper level of understanding of the native platforms. 00:23:46 Alex Uhm, as we now are in kind of Xamarin forms 5 and as we move into.net Maui, I think that is changing. And if you were a.net developer then you were a mobile developer. 00:23:59 Alex You are a desktop developer. 00:24:01 Alex You're a web developer and I honestly think that the skills that you have built. 00:24:06 Alex Up through through learning.net transfer everywhere and there isn't really that that that need unless you're doing very something very, very specific. 00:24:17 Alex Tick that needs to be able to kind of jump down into into the specific iOS and Android APIs and kind of really understand those that that need as has gone away to to uh, to a certain extent. 00:24:32 Alex So yeah, my answer is if you're a if you're a.net developer, you can. You can pretty much do. 00:24:37 Alex Do anything. 00:24:38 Matt I like that answer. 00:24:40 Matt But Gordon, you did. 00:24:42 Matt Touch on one thing and you said custom renderers, and I know that's something that. 00:24:47 Matt That's you know. 00:24:48 Matt What did both your and Alex is answer when I asked about you know, how do you? 00:24:53 Matt Become a mobile developer. 00:24:55 Matt Gordon, you mentioned that you eventually you do have to create a custom renderer. 00:24:59 Matt You do have to. 00:24:59 Matt Build the platforms and now Alex. 00:25:03 Matt As we moved along without as a Xamarin has evolved, I found myself writing less and less custom renderers, which is great. 00:25:11 Matt However, you still do have to write custom renderers every now and then, and so Gordon. 00:25:16 Matt I when you guys were writing your forms apps. 00:25:19 Matt Uhm, I know you mentioned that you did have to use custom renderers every. 00:25:22 Matt Now and then. 00:25:23 Matt So what did you think about? 00:25:25 Matt It I know this is a. 00:25:25 Matt Challenge here so. 00:25:27 Matt I mean it was it was a difficulty. 00:25:28 Matt So yeah, give me once you explain to me a. 00:25:31 Matt Little bit about what you faced, why you. 00:25:33 Matt Had to write the custom renderer. 00:25:35 Uh, no, I mean. 00:25:37 Gordon Well, personally I always found that painful experience and I just kind of hope that I didn't have to do that, especially when I was in Xamarin forms land. 00:25:46 Gordon And you know, I think that. 00:25:48 Gordon Uh, the more we can get rid of those kind of things, the better and the more that you're going to get people who can just pick this stuff up and run with it and. 00:25:57 Gordon In some respects that was almost sometimes why we were brought into teams because they would start out with Xamarin forms and they'd be going great. 00:26:06 Gordon We've got here. They get 50% of the way, and then they test something that they just didn't know how to do. 00:26:11 Gordon And quite often we might get that phone call saying can you guys come and help us, you know, and then we'd start doing that kind of stuff and and and it was fine for us to do those 'cause we had the understanding of going into the the native platform and but then if we left and left those guys to it and then they had the problem again, they were back to where they were so. 00:26:31 Gordon I think you know from your question before about. 00:26:34 Gordon What did you need? 00:26:35 Gordon You know, I think definitely as soon as you people were hitting those problems they were. 00:26:38 Gordon Having to. 00:26:39 Gordon Go into that area. 00:26:40 Gordon That was just that. 00:26:41 Gordon It was a scary. 00:26:41 Gordon Territory for people who. 00:26:42 Gordon Didn't have you know native understanding and and you know, I think that that was that was. 00:26:48 Gordon Something that if that? 00:26:50 Gordon If that problem could be addressed and fixed up, you know. 00:26:54 Gordon We just one we probably wouldn't get phone calls often, which may be a bad thing for us, but you know. 00:27:00 Gordon Secondly, I just think it it allows people to just get on with the features they want to build. 00:27:05 Gordon You know, not not fighting with the technology that they have, and you know, and even with some of the experience we have, you know we've had challenges around that as well. 00:27:13 Gordon I think I mentioned the. 00:27:15 Gordon Xamarin forms tennis. 00:27:17 Gordon We we began to you know, and some things were were fairly straightforward then other things. 00:27:22 Gordon You know, even. 00:27:23 Gordon Even with the custom renderers, we might still end up bouncing back and forth. 00:27:26 Gordon And funnily enough, quite often that was if we're having to do UWP. 00:27:30 Gordon You know as well. 00:27:31 Gordon Then we would have. 00:27:32 Gordon More problems with with that so. 00:27:34 Gordon If that pain can be taken away, that's a huge one. 00:27:37 Gordon As far as I'm concerned. 00:27:39 Matt Yeah, when you were talking to me before the podcast, Gordon explained here, the Zamick forms tennis where it works here on iOS, but it didn't work here on Android. 00:27:47 Matt Had to run over there to fix it. 00:27:49 Matt I was thinking to myself when I. 00:27:50 Matt When I developed apps I. 00:27:52 Matt Feel like I'm just taking my ball and going. 00:27:53 Matt Home, it's just gonna freak. 00:27:54 Matt On iOS, nothing else is shipping. 00:27:58 Right? 00:28:00 Matt No, but you. 00:28:01 Matt Know custom renderers was the. 00:28:03 Matt It's like a blessing and a curse. 00:28:04 Matt With forms I mean. 00:28:06 Matt It's the they. 00:28:07 Matt They are difficult, but it's the way that Xamarin forms could do anything. 00:28:12 Matt They could do everything and so. 00:28:14 Matt It it's it's. 00:28:15 Matt It's a give and take, but as Alex mentioned. 00:28:18 Matt We're not going to need that anymore or. 00:28:20 Matt Less and less. 00:28:22 Matt So yeah, it's great to see that we've kind of evolved past that. 00:28:26 Alex And I think Matt, one of the one of the things that we've seen as well, is that we need to as a team. 00:28:32 Alex We we have to jump into custom renderers right? 00:28:35 Alex Less and less. 00:28:36 Alex And when we want to do things that are platform specific, the things that we have in place that the team is given is like effects like behaviors like platform. 00:28:46 Alex Specifics, those things do the job just as well and you can do it in like two or three lines of code as opposed to having to override the whole thing so I. 00:28:55 Alex I think we have so many options now in Xamarin forms that allow you to to just dip in and touch the pieces that you really need to. 00:29:03 Alex That again, custom renderers are just becoming less and less needed, so I think it's great that we're kind of moving. 00:29:09 Alex Down that path. 00:29:11 Matt Yeah, I agree. Yeah, like. 00:29:12 Matt Everything is kind of just getting abstracted up a level, so to speak and. 00:29:17 Matt And it's easier to work with too, when it's abstracted that to the forms level. 00:29:22 Matt Cool, and so. 00:29:24 Matt Gordon you mentioned there was a plug in library with the whole next. 00:29:28 Matt Uhm project? 00:29:29 Matt Can you explain what what was all involved with that? 00:29:32 Gordon Uh, yeah, I mean really, that was that was a real exercise. 00:29:37 Gordon We did a lot of work for planning and for that, and we also we also did the UX and UI design and for. 00:29:43 Gordon All the the next apps. 00:29:45 Gordon So we kind of took what used to be sitting on. 00:29:48 Gordon Of 1 inch by 1 inch square screens. 00:29:51 Gordon And and put them into obviously you. 00:29:53 Gordon Know a you know. 00:29:54 Gordon A nicely sized their Android device and and then we marked all out. 00:30:00 Gordon All different flows. 00:30:01 Gordon And then we basically picked out the common elements. 00:30:04 Gordon So those things like you know the barcode scanner. 00:30:07 Gordon If the barcode scanner failed, there would be a. 00:30:09 Gordon Sort of custom screen that would pop up. 00:30:11 Gordon Like you enter the actual barcodes there. 00:30:14 Gordon Was like loaders. 00:30:15 Gordon And then form types and different input types and we basically broke all that down into different components that basically let people pick up we. 00:30:26 Gordon We had this this big long list as I said. 00:30:28 Gordon There's a list of about 50 apps. 00:30:30 Gordon And the developers were just going in and going OK. 00:30:32 Gordon I'm gonna do the the stock in that and another developer who picking up the the stock out app for example, and then they would just be able to go to this look at the flow and pick out the components that they needed and then just just throw them together and and we we actually had. 00:30:49 Gordon Those guys, but we also we did a couple of our developers working on that as well and I remember them just sitting talking. 00:30:56 Gordon You know, just about how fast they were able to put these things together because of this. 00:31:00 Gordon This component library that we. 00:31:01 Gordon That we created. 00:31:02 Gordon And you know, and I think that was. 00:31:05 Gordon There was a really good exercise and you know, just in using plugins and components you know and getting reused, right? 00:31:14 Gordon And and I think that also allowed when we left next to carry on building, you know anything new that came out 'cause all they really had to do is go. 00:31:22 Gordon What does this thing need and just pull the components in so it massively speed. 00:31:26 Gordon Up their their development lifecycle. 00:31:27 Alex So Gordon, how did you share those those plugins? 00:31:31 Alex How did you make them available to developers so they could just kind of pull them in so so easy. 00:31:37 Gordon They had a. 00:31:38 Gordon They had a private. 00:31:39 Gordon You get feet. 00:31:40 Gordon And work with her next so. 00:31:43 Gordon They were just as long. 00:31:44 Gordon As you had access to that. 00:31:45 Gordon You can just go up and you know, pull whatever one you needed. 00:31:49 Gordon Then and yeah, just the same way as we would have built. 00:31:53 Gordon You know, any good normal citizen run apps. 00:31:56 Alex That's awesome, so did you. 00:31:57 Alex Was it kind of like a a process in terms of whenever a new thing came along? 00:32:02 Alex It's like oh hey, we we have this thing and it's going to be used across multiple places, so there's a process that they could go through to then create it as a plug in and push it to to a nu get feed. 00:32:12 Gordon Yep, Yep, so I think we were and that this was that was another part of it. 00:32:16 Gordon We were also getting their guys up to speed about. 00:32:19 Gordon You know how to make plugins and you know which at the. 00:32:23 Gordon Time was was. 00:32:24 Gordon Probably a little more involved than it. 00:32:26 Gordon Then it will be going forward, you know, and certainly be able to have a single project to create plug in as opposed to have. 00:32:33 Gordon A project for each data platform that you required and you know would have been, you know, if we had that then it would have been a massive time saving and but. 00:32:40 Gordon But yeah, we we upscaled their team in actually building components and plugins and and then you know they they were able to go off and. 00:32:47 Gordon Create new ones. 00:32:48 Gordon As well, or add the ones that they are. 00:32:50 Colin We had. 00:32:51 Matt So they're using 50 apps 50. 00:32:56 Matt Then, and it's internal, I'd imagine. 00:32:58 Matt So how are? 00:32:59 Matt These how are they handling the internal distribution of those apps? 00:33:04 Gordon And they are using, uh, an MDM uh called salty, and so they they basically push up if any individual component or or app part is upgraded, it just goes up to salty and then it's redistributed down to the stores and. 00:33:23 Gordon That's pretty much how it works and what. 00:33:26 Gordon What that allowed them to do? 00:33:28 Gordon Because there was a talk I've had. 00:33:29 Gordon Being just a single monolithic app and did everything and but that that essentially meant that if they updated anything in any of those components changed then you know they were having to just keep deploying the monolithic app, whereas they can essentially deploy you know if it's just something that affects stuck in then they can deploy that down. 00:33:49 Gordon And it's just a small change and it normally doesn't affect. 00:33:53 Gordon There's a main list of main authentication or menu app that they have and so just it streamlines it streamlines that upgrade process problem and also isolates functions within in store. 00:34:05 Gordon You know, as a as a department as well. 00:34:09 Matt That was my next question on how did you decide we're getting going between 50, which sounds like I guess essentially micro apps versus 1. 00:34:16 Matt Large one, and uh. 00:34:20 Gordon That was. 00:34:22 Gordon That was an interesting exercise and I remember not sure if I was totally in agreement. 00:34:27 Gordon Was it when we did it? 00:34:28 Gordon And but I think the fact that we wanted people to be able to work on individual. 00:34:35 Gordon We basically wanted people to be able to take away a micro app and just work on it independently and and have the main menu app just understand that it was available. 00:34:45 Gordon And there are probably other ways that we would have done that now, and but I think back then it was almost like, well, we can completely isolate, you know these these functions that are apps and just let people work on them independently. 00:34:59 Gordon That was one of the main drivers for it. 00:35:01 Gordon It meant that they could live on mass. 00:35:03 Gordon Get as many people as. 00:35:04 Gordon They wanted to build these. 00:35:06 Gordon The the each of the small apps. 00:35:09 Gordon And also meant we ended up getting we got involved with some of those as well. 00:35:13 Gordon Some of the more complex ones we got involved with to kind of help them help us speed that up. 00:35:17 Gordon But it and it just. 00:35:17 Gordon Meant there was no no. 00:35:19 Gordon Real issue or crossover and features, whereas a. 00:35:22 Gordon We had a yeah we had that on the one and and then they've been, you know, shared components within that and people weren't needed to change it. 00:35:31 Gordon It could have been more problematic. 00:35:32 Gordon So it was really about. 00:35:34 Gordon A I guess a parallel work stream was probably. 00:35:37 Gordon One of the main drivers for it. 00:35:38 Alex What does what does dependency management look like for that sort of thing? 00:35:42 Alex I'm guessing that there are certain situations where kind of a new feature is updated in one app and another app depends on that. 00:35:49 Alex Was that a complex thing to ensure that there's always kind of they're always updating them at the right times? 00:35:59 Gordon I think there there were some some issues with that, but because the apps were so small and. 00:36:07 Gordon It was, it was. 00:36:08 Gordon It was fairly rare, I think, when they had. 00:36:10 Gordon You know, if they had like the barcode scanner component. 00:36:14 Gordon If that had to change, that would mean they they had to ship quite a lot of them. 00:36:18 Gordon 'cause most of them had that. 00:36:19 Gordon Our barcode scanning component. 00:36:21 Gordon In it but, but yeah, that was that was probably one of the few things that was that went across all of them, which would have made sense to not do it that way. 00:36:29 Gordon But but I think there was a lot of them would just work pretty standalone, and so we didn't. 00:36:34 Gordon We didn't hit too many problems. 00:36:36 Gordon I do remember them having an issue. 00:36:37 Gordon Lunch with. 00:36:38 Gordon Uh, salty when they had to deploy absolutely everything. 00:36:41 Gordon To all the stores. 00:36:43 Gordon And and I think there was actually more of a, uh, there's a problem with. 00:36:48 Gordon With the MDM platform being able to do that, the MDM platform could ship a massive singular app. 00:36:55 Gordon But it didn't seem to work brilliantly with lots of small, you know, hundreds of small apps all going out to you. 00:37:00 Gordon Know the you know hundreds of stores and that that causing a problem at one point I'm. 00:37:06 Gordon I'm sure they resolved that because I haven't had another phone. 00:37:08 Gordon Call about it since so. 00:37:11 Alex Was there, can you talk a little just a little bit about kind of CI process? 00:37:15 Alex Was the any how were how are they testing the apps like the dev teams testing the apps? 00:37:20 Alex Were they using anything like App Center or anything to distribute them? 00:37:25 Alex What did that look like? 00:37:28 Gordon I can tell you what it looked like then and what it looks like now. 00:37:34 Gordon They were still they were using the old version of TFs and but they had. 00:37:40 Gordon I mean they had like a pipeline set up and they had like a gates set up and there was there was. 00:37:48 Gordon There's a whole testing process and then they were. 00:37:52 Gordon They were using App Center for analytics and they were obviously using it for deployment as well. 00:37:58 Gordon So we go to absence before the test deployment and now we go through to all the testers and they would do that I I think they did use. 00:38:08 Gordon There's only unitised for a while, but they ended up having to move away from that because they had a. 00:38:15 Gordon I think it was called. 00:38:17 Gordon Eggplant was the system they used which. 00:38:20 Gordon Was actually a. 00:38:21 Gordon A system that could because they needed to also test on tills, and on these zebra devices, and they had various other devices that weren't examined so. 00:38:30 Gordon They had this. 00:38:31 Gordon System that could pick up. 00:38:33 Gordon Just pixels on a screen when. 00:38:35 Gordon They could. 00:38:35 Gordon They could describe how that would be tested. 00:38:37 Gordon So I think that the reason they ended up moving away from the Xamarin UI test was because they needed to do on a. 00:38:43 Gordon Sort of massive scale across. 00:38:44 Gordon Everything and so they end up using this other angles eggplant. 00:38:49 Gordon They they called it and they use hammer in the recently used App Center or whatever. 00:38:56 Matt Alright Colin, I got a quick question for you. 00:38:58 Matt Come with the next app and all the stuff that you all did for them. 00:39:03 Matt What else I mean, does screen media offer you you, you put together a ton of work for it next, but what else can people? 00:39:10 Matt Talk with screen media about. 00:39:13 Colin Well and we are. 00:39:15 Colin A full stack agency. 00:39:16 Colin We work across a range of web, mobile and and cloud solutions. 00:39:23 Colin Recently we've been working a lot more in terms of salmon consulting and and on boarding for clients, and as Alex and Gordon both mentioned earlier, there's a ton of resources out there if you wanted to get started with salmon and and many people can just pick it up with the resources that are available. 00:39:41 Colin But for many enterprise. 00:39:43 Colin Organizations it can be quite daunting to take the jump in the leap into using Xamarin, and recently we've been offering a. 00:39:51 Colin A solution that we call jetpacks which allows us to provide. 00:39:56 Colin Dedicated upfront training and enablement services to help organisations kick start their Xamarin app development and that includes Xamarin onboarding, whether that be in personal remote training, tailored to the needs of the team. 00:40:09 Colin We also work to allow the support team and architectural planning so working to best practice enterprise. 00:40:16 Colin She's with the likes of Gordon and some of the other team members working to help define your technical strategy and the solution architecture to help move you forward. 00:40:27 Colin And then once your team is is confident that they are able to to put that into practice will also then continue to be on hand to offer regular support and guidance throughout the. 00:40:37 Colin Project delivery popping in and as much as is required alongside that we can also offer resource augmentation and and continue to add velocity and and experience to your your salmon delivery. 00:40:52 Matt I love the the the jetpack idea. 00:40:54 Matt That's that's really. 00:40:56 Matt Something would come in handy like the the just the jump start of getting somebody up. 00:40:59 Matt From really you. 00:41:01 Matt Can't somebody up from zero or England people with the experience get him? 00:41:04 Matt Moving along faster, so yeah, that's that's. 00:41:06 Colin Really cool, yeah. 00:41:07 Colin We've had some great success. 00:41:08 Colin If and as Gordon mentioned with the mid team at next year, it can be taking Dot net developers or mobile developers. 00:41:18 Colin Whoever, whatever background you have, whatever it's going to set you, you have coming to it. 00:41:22 Colin We can tailor that that solution to your needs. 00:41:25 Matt So have you been asked at all about? 00:41:28 Matt Dot net Maui. 00:41:29 Matt Gordon Oblu, or do you have any plans to move to that Molly for any any other customers or have? 00:41:35 Matt They approached that be asked like. 00:41:37 Matt We need to move to it right now. 00:41:38 Gordon Yeah, yeah, I mean, we were actually we've we've done quite a lot of work with some of the the water boards in the UK. 00:41:47 Gordon And we built a. 00:41:50 Gordon We've got an app for Northumbrian Water, and we're now talking to another one of the water boards and one of their their questions. 00:41:59 Gordon And to us was, you know, in Xamarin forms you know, is it going away? 00:42:04 Gordon We've heard there's this new. 00:42:06 Gordon Dot net mini. 00:42:07 Gordon And I think going and I think that we were. 00:42:09 Gordon So I'm explaining to them that it's a, you know, it's it's an evolution you know of of what Sam informs isn't promising going away. 00:42:17 Gordon And this is this is a new way of doing things, but yeah, I mean I'd it'd be great to hear you know your guys take on that, but we're certainly. 00:42:24 Gordon Being being asked. 00:42:25 Gordon About it, and you know. 00:42:27 Gordon And what does it mean? 00:42:28 Gordon One is don't marry me. 00:42:31 Matt Alright, I I'll jump in with my take, but Alex I'm going to ask for your take first and also tell me what can you translate from UK to US. What a water board is. 00:42:39 Alex Yes, a water board is a water come. 00:42:42 Matt Oh, gotcha. 00:42:44 Alex It's definitely not that that the the the, the torture mechanism that I'm sure people. 00:42:49 Alex Are thinking of. 00:42:52 Gordon God is calling it. 00:42:53 Gordon Maybe it's not war board, uh? 00:42:57 Colin It's uh, waterboards? 00:42:58 Colin Yep, that's OK. 00:43:00 Gordon Just checking I hadn't said it wrong. 00:43:03 Alex That's definitely going to stick him in my mind when somebody asks, like what are the English colloquialisms that it don't transfer over to America? 00:43:10 Alex I'm going to remember that one now. 00:43:14 Gordon Screen media help with culture OK? 00:43:21 Alex So yeah, so in terms of Dot net Maui, the things that we're we're generally recommending is that starting with Xamarin forms now is a great option. 00:43:31 Alex Weare.net Maui is definitely a continuation of Xamarin forms affectively giving you more options of of ways you can. You can develop your applications so. 00:43:45 Alex Kind of taking that abstraction across the native the the native UI at a higher level, so it means you can kind of swap things out and and do things like like cool things like there's an awesome on an awesome experiment out there by James Clancy called Comet, which allows you to do. 00:44:05 Alex Kind of declarative UI and. 00:44:08 Alex C sharp 00:44:09 Alex So if you if you start your application right now with with Xamarin forms, you will be able to take that application as andwhen.net Maui is released and then migrate it to to dot net Maui relatively easily where actually the? 00:44:28 Alex The Dev team is is working really hard right now and we have the team working on a migration assist. 00:44:35 Alex We currently have out there for DOT net to DOT net core. 00:44:39 Alex We have the upgrade assistant which will kind of walk you through that process and that will also be available to use for. 00:44:46 Alex For Xamarin applications, moving them to to DOT net memory. 00:44:49 Matt Right and it? 00:44:51 Matt No, we in doubt that Molly right now. 00:44:52 Matt Is out in preview. 00:44:53 Matt So you can give it a spin right now. 00:44:54 Matt But there is no reason. 00:44:56 Matt To not don't hold off if you want to. 00:44:58 Matt Build an app right now. 00:44:59 Matt Don't hold off till that at Maui. 00:45:01 Matt Get started in salmon forms and on the Xamarin podcast that we put out on the 2nd Friday. 00:45:07 Matt Every month that we do have. 00:45:09 Matt David Art now on there who's a PM ing.net Maui and also Xamarin forms to talk about the how far or the progress of Maui as we go along. 00:45:19 Matt And that's one thing. 00:45:20 Matt That he talks about all the time is that there's no need to not go with forms right now, because there will be a nice transition over to. 00:45:29 Matt Dot net mauibut.net. Molly has a ton of goodness. 00:45:32 Matt Coming with it too so. 00:45:35 Matt Yeah, just don't hold off on your apps waiting for something. 00:45:38 Matt Get going now so you can have everything. 00:45:41 Matt Ready for when it comes now. 00:45:43 Alex It's the panel. 00:45:43 Matt So with Yep now is the time. 00:45:47 Matt So with all that said. 00:45:49 Matt Uhm, I wanna jump in now to the. 00:45:52 Matt Pic of the pod. 00:45:53 Matt I always ended out and I did remember. 00:45:56 Matt To brief everybody beforehand. 00:45:58 Matt Actually, Alice reminded me too that we're going. 00:46:00 Matt To have a pic. 00:46:00 Matt Of the pod, and so with that it can be anything that you all want. 00:46:05 Matt It can be a book, it can be some music, anything. 00:46:09 Matt And so Alex, I'm gonna start with you. 00:46:11 Matt What is your? 00:46:11 Matt Pick of the pod. 00:46:13 Alex I kind of let mine go early, so mine is is comet so over the past couple of days James Clancy actually upgraded or updated comet to work completely with.net Maui now. So you can go out there, download his extension for vscode and do some do some awesome. 00:46:33 Alex Things with the previewsof.net Maui building applications with declarative UI in C sharp and it's it's absolutely amazing. 00:46:41 Alex So if you if you want to try that out with cool things like C sharp hot reloading in VS code, go out and give that a go. 00:46:50 Matt So did you just say I could build the Xamarin? 00:46:52 Matt App in VS code. 00:46:53 Alex With comet, yes. 00:46:56 Matt It's like a shooting star, just went. 00:46:59 Matt Across the sky. 00:47:02 Matt All right, Colin, what is your pick of a pod? 00:47:06 Colin Well, I'm one of those. 00:47:08 Colin So one of those people who recently got our lockdown puppy. 00:47:12 Colin Uh, so our family is begged, begged for years to get one and and what they would say to finally get one. 00:47:18 Colin So recently I've been doing a lot of walking and I I feel like I've walked up and down every. 00:47:22 Colin Street in my neighborhood meeting. 00:47:25 Colin So many other people in the same position as me, so I do a lot of a lot of walking. 00:47:29 Colin A lot. 00:47:30 Colin Of talking to other dog owners, and so that's my that's what I've been up to, mainly recently. 00:47:37 Matt That's amazing, yeah we had we we got a lockdown Kitty and yeah he's the he's the best cat in the world. 00:47:43 Matt So congratulations. 00:47:46 Matt Gordon yours the pick. 00:47:48 Matt Of the pod. 00:47:50 Gordon Yeah, so I I was going. 00:47:51 Gordon To say I I don't know if you guys are familiar with ready Player one and the honest claim, but I think there's there's a movie made about as well. 00:47:57 Gordon Well, but I'm I'm actually reading ready Player 2 and I've told my son that he can't read it until I've finished it. 00:48:05 Gordon So so. 00:48:06 Gordon So yeah, I'm I'm almost there. 00:48:08 Gordon I've got a couple hours left. 00:48:09 Gordon I've seen reading, listening to the audio book. 00:48:12 Gordon Uhm, so yeah, really really enjoying that just though but just just riffing off what what Alex was saying there about the about comet and you know, I'm really excited to go and have a look at that. 00:48:23 Gordon The climate of UI is is the way forward I guess, but I think we we probably all know, you know in native and cross platform. 00:48:31 Gordon So yeah, and the fact we can. 00:48:32 Gordon Do in Visual Studio code. 00:48:33 Gordon Is is pretty exciting as well so. 00:48:35 Gordon I'll add those two together at Ready Player 2 and having only good comment, which will be the. 00:48:40 Gordon Thing will be after this. 00:48:43 Matt Cool Ready Player 2. 00:48:45 Matt Yeah, I I'm. 00:48:45 Matt I'm I wanna read the book as well, but I don't can't wait I I never read the 1st when I watched the movie but it has me wanting to read the second book all right and then finally my pick of the pod. 00:48:56 Matt Is well, it's a local. 00:48:58 Matt My local hardware store because I'll tell you why. 00:49:02 Matt On two nights ago, my kitchen faucet. 00:49:05 Matt Started to leak. 00:49:07 Matt On the faucet neck and there's nothing there except for a hose, which means the. 00:49:11 Matt Process that they've done and. 00:49:12 Matt So I I. 00:49:14 Matt I bought a new faucet and found out that the connections in the sink were not standard and you know kind of. 00:49:20 Matt I'm afraid of death of water like I can replace electricity all day, but water does damage. 00:49:26 Matt To everything else, and so I went down at Harvard. 00:49:28 Matt Story you. 00:49:29 Know what do we have? 00:49:30 Matt Here they pointed me in the right direction. 00:49:32 Matt I have a new kitchen faucet. 00:49:34 Matt Now it doesn't leak. 00:49:35 Matt All thumbs up, there's no water damage in my house. 00:49:39 Matt Everybody happy running water dry. 00:49:42 Matt Thank you. 00:49:43 Matt Local hardware store people so. 00:49:45 Matt Local hardware store. 00:49:48 Matt Might pick of the pod. 00:49:49 Matt And thank you Colin Gordon and Alex. 00:49:51 Matt This has been another Great Xamarin podcast.