In this episode, The Beer Driven Devs talk to Nick Randolph at NDC about designing and building apps, and how the process is evolving to include design tools like Figma and, of course, AI.

Nick is the founder of Built to Roam, a Microsoft MVP, .NET Foundation member, and us currently working on Uno platform. He regularly blogs about his work and can often be found speaking at NDC and user groups about all aspects of app design and development.

As always, any Likes 👍, Shares 📣, Subscriptions 🔔 and Love ❤️ & Support ❤️ go a long way to helping us continue with this podcast.

The Show

• 01:15 - Nick tells us about himself and his work with Uno Platform
• 02:25 - The Uno Platform toolkit and how it compares to the competition
• 03:10 - Uno and Figma integration, Fluent UI, and Material Design
• 06:25 - The old ways: Windows Phone and Blend - catering to developers and not designers, and why Uno for Figma is different
• 12:40 - Why Figma rules the roost
• 16:20 - Web vs native and how things come full circle
• 17:20 - .NET 8 improvements in Hot Reload and Developer Experience
• 19:00 - The other end of the spectrum: Low/no-code, PowerApps and Citizen Developers
• 23:02 - Microsoft’s disconnect between front-end and cloud: Azure Mobile Apps vs Firebase and Realm
• 27:00 - Adapting cloud and web-scale technology for client facing app
• 28:00 - How AI is changing apps and app development…
• 32:15 - …and the bigger changes yet to come
• 34:35 - Is AI the next Blockchain?
• 35:22 - The actual value in large language models and how ChatGPT is changing our relationship with the web
• 37:04 - The evolving value of CoPilots, Agents, and of ourselves
• 39:50 - Matt’s problem with “CoPilot”
• 41:20 - Bridging design and development with AI
• 45:15 - The beers (or wines)

The Beers 🍻

• 🍷 Nick likes a WA shiraz