Unlocking the Power of AI: Jim Bennett on Pieces for Developers

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Show Notes

"So we're dealing with code bases that are getting bigger and bigger every day. You know, those million line code bases, two million line code bases is not unusual. We are being pushed to do more. I remember when I was working at Microsoft a couple of years ago, Satya Nadella, CEO, his favourite phrase was, "you have to do more with less." But yeah, so Satya was big on this idea of do more with less. And this has kind of resonated across the industry as a whole."— Jim Bennett

Welcome friends to The Modern .NET Show; the premier .NET podcast, focusing entirely on the knowledge, tools, and frameworks that all .NET developers should have in their toolbox. We are the go-to podcast for .NET developers worldwide, and I am not your host: Jamie. I'm Delilah and I will be recording the intro for this episode because Jamie is suffering with a throat infection.

In this episode, Jim Bennett returns to the show after a six-year absence. In his previous appearance, Jim introduced us to Xamarin, but in the time since that appearance, Xamarin has been sunsetted. So it felt natural to start our conversation about the wonderful outpouring of support over on X with the hashtag #XamarinGaveMe.

The main topic of conversation is about Generative AI, Large Language Models, and how the new startup, Pieces, can help developers to keep the context of what they are working on at the front of their mind at all times; both when they are online and off.

"If I said to you, "which character from the Pixar movie Up are you?" The answer is going to be, "Doug," we're all Doug. We're all like, "squirrel!"

So if we have to go from our IDE to a browser to ask a question, we're reading email on the way. We are looking at chat tools on the way. Oh, we're in a browser. "Oh, I've got a notification on Blue Sky. I'm going to have a look at that." We are context switching. We are distracted. We are drinking coffee. We are losing our productivity"— Jim Bennett

Anyway, without further ado, let's sit back, open up a terminal, type in `dotnet new podcast` and we'll dive into the core of Modern .NET.

My voice was created using Generative AI.

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Full Show Notes

The full show notes, including links to some of the things we discussed and a full transcription of this episode, can be found at: https://dotnetcore.show/season-7/unlocking-the-power-of-ai-jim-bennett-on-pieces-for-developers

Jim's Links:

• Jim's linked on Link Tree
• Pieces
• Pieces Discord
• #XamarinGaveMe
• Xamarin in Action (AKA Jim's book on Xamarin)

Jamie's Public NuGet Packages:

• OwaspHeaders.Core
• ClackMiddleware
• OnionArch.Mvc

Useful Links

• Generative AI for .NET Developers with Amit Bahree
• Ollama
• OpenVino

LLMs Mentioned:

• Llama
• Microsoft Phi
• Mistral
• Qwen-2.5 which Jamie mis-names as Quon.

Supporting the show:

• Leave a rating or review
• Buy the show a coffee
• Become a patron

Getting in Touch:

• Via the contact page
• Joining the Discord

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