Recent content on Funky Si's Blog
On a lot of days my pair programmer is not a person. It is Copilot finishing a method, or Cursor proposing a multi-file edit I still have to own. Back in April I covered how I use ChatGPT, Cursor, and Copilot on side projects . That was mostly about which tool I reach for. Here I want to talk about what that looks like when the code is .NET—C#, Blazor, Azure Functions—and I am working in VS Code…
For years, API designers have had an awkward choice when a search got too complex for a URL. Stuff it into a GET query string and hit practical URI length limits, or send a body with POST and pretend a read-only filter is a write. Neither option felt right. In June 2026 the IETF published RFC 10008 , which defines QUERY — a new HTTP method that is safe and idempotent like GET , but carries request…
Every November, .NET Conf brings a new major release of .NET. If you have been building on the platform since the early 2020s, you have watched the ecosystem move from “.NET Core” to a single, unified .NET — and pick up minimal APIs, Native AOT, Blazor full stack, Aspire, and a steady stream of C# language improvements along the way. This post is a guided tour of what landed in each…
Featured Projects Three live Azure workloads I own end-to-end — CI/CD static delivery, AI-backed search on real content, and full-stack Blazor with actual users. 🔧 Episode Atlas Track TV progress at scale with per-user state and cloud-backed data. What it does: Per-user episode lists, “last watched” markers, and curated metadata links — so long-running franchises stay manageable. Tech used: .NET…
Sadly earlier this year I was made redundant from my Software Developer job. Looking for a new job has not been fun, but a few common themes have emerged that I wanted to share. My hope is that these will help others to put things in place that may help them in the future. Go to events and meet people Something I have said often is that I enjoy going to events or conferences, like NDC London .…
If you have ever tried to rewatch Star Trek properly—not just dip into a favourite episode, but work through hundreds of instalments across multiple series—you will know the feeling. You pause Deep Space Nine for a few weeks, start something else, and suddenly you have no idea which episode you were on. Spreadsheets help for a while, then they do not. Notes on your phone get lost. Memory is…
There is no shortage of AI tools aimed at developers right now: chat assistants, IDE completions, agents that promise to run your tests, and new products every month with overlapping features. I am not going to argue which one is “best.” Instead, here is what I am actually using today on hobby code: ChatGPT for quick, low-context questions, Cursor when the work needs my repository in…
Introduction – The Shift We are Living Through As I write this, I have just been made redundant. AI is not being used to explain this particular redundancy, but it is being used to explain many redundancies across the industry. I just got laid off..... Again...... I am still in shock. I loved my new job and was creating great impact but here we are again. Layoffs are not personal so I am ok but…
As someone who works with both Azure and AWS regularly, I’ve had hands-on experience with both Azure Container Registry (ACR) and AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR) . Recently, while migrating my blog’s deployment pipeline to use ECR, I encountered some interesting differences that are worth sharing. The Basics Both services provide secure, private Docker container registries that…
For the second year running, I had the privilege of volunteering at NDC London – one of Europe’s premier software development conferences. This year’s event was packed with insights on AI, accessibility, testing automation, and the future of software development. If you’re interested in my first experience, check out my 2025 report . The volunteer experience was just as rewarding…
Parkrun Parkrun is a free, weekly, community event offering 5km timed runs and walks in parks and open spaces around the world. It is open to everyone, regardless of age or ability, and is run entirely by volunteers. You can find your nearest event, register for a barcode, and view results at the official parkrun website . For more information about how it works, visit the parkrun UK page or check…
2025 in Review What a year 2025 has been! I published 24 blog posts covering a wide range of topics from cloud-native technologies to AI experiments, and even some personal reflections. Here are the key themes and highlights from my blogging year: Cloud-Native and DevOps This was a major focus area for me in 2025, not really surprising as I moved into a DevOps role this year, with deep dives into…
2026 Event/Talk Date Location SteelCon 11 July 2026 Sheffield dotNet York - EF Core Architecture, Document Databases, and MongoDB 2 July 2026 York Developers Up North 18 June 2026 Hull Leeds Sharp - AI Observability as the Engine of Production-Ready AI 21 May 2026 Leeds Leeds Sharp - How I tamed Claude 30 April 2026 Leeds DDD North 28 February 2026 Hull Leeds Sharp - Ditch the Drudge Work: Agentic…
Introduction I’m excited to be taking part in this year’s Festive Tech Calendar , a community-driven advent calendar showcasing amazing technical content throughout December. Make sure to check out the other excellent posts created by developers from around the world! In this festive tutorial, we’ll build a fun “Naughty or Nice” checker using Microsoft’s…
What’s New in .NET 10? .NET 10 was released this week and it is full of awesome new features. Check it out at .NET Download , there is also a new version of Visual Studio which you should also check out. I quickly upgraded my .NET projects to take advantage of the new version, but my Blazor WebAssembly (Wasm) project encountered the following error in the browser console:…
DevOps has transformed the way teams build, deploy, and manage software. Over the years, the tools we use have evolved rapidly—some have become industry standards, while others have faded away or emerged to solve new challenges. In this post, I revisit the concept of a “Periodic Table of DevOps” to compare the landscape in 2016 with 2025, highlight key changes, and reflect on what…
The Mandelbrot Set: Beauty, Chaos, and Mathematical Art The Mandelbrot set is one of the most iconic images in mathematics—a mesmerizing swirl of fractal patterns, infinite complexity, and unexpected beauty. But what exactly is the Mandelbrot set, and why has it captured the imagination of mathematicians, artists, and curious minds alike? What Is the Mandelbrot Set? At its core, the Mandelbrot set…
The Hacker Ethic: Principles That Shaped the Digital Age When most people hear the word “hacker,” they imagine shadowy figures breaking into computer systems. But the original meaning of “hacker” is far richer, rooted in curiosity, creativity, and a set of values that have profoundly shaped technology and culture. This philosophy, known as the hacker ethic , remains a powerful force driving…
I have blogged before about how cool Let’s Encrypt is for getting your web things running under https. However I have just got myself a local kubernetes cluster and it is super easy to spin up new web services with SSL certs. The basic instructions can be found here but let’s look at what was involved. First of all lets get Cert Manager installed on kubernetes. kubectl apply -f…
Stepping outside my comfort zone doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m happiest behind my laptop, but every now and then, I know it’s important to try something new. This year, my family and I decided to do just that—and it turned out to be one of our most memorable weeks ever. Curious about what happens when you swap routine for adventure? Read on! Introduction This week was our family holiday.…
Helm allows you to package your Kubernetes resources, manage configuration, and deploy updates with a single command. In this post, I’ll share how I used Helm to deploy my Hugo blog, making it easy to manage updates and spin up new environments. Full disclosure: My blog currently runs on an Azure Static Web App, but now that I know how to deploy to a Kubernetes cluster, I have the option to switch…
I know nothing (or very little) about Kubernetes. It is high time I do something to learn more about it. Kubernetes is a powerful tool for managing containerized applications, and it’s becoming a must-have skill for developers and DevOps engineers. In this blog, I’ll share my journey as a beginner exploring Kubernetes, from running a simple Grafana pod to understanding the basics of…
What is OpenTelemetry? OpenTelemetry is an open-source observability framework that provides a unified way to collect, process, and export telemetry data such as traces , metrics , and logs . It is designed to help developers monitor and debug distributed systems by providing insights into application performance and behavior. With OpenTelemetry, you can instrument your applications to gain…
.NET Aspire 9.2 is here, bringing exciting new features to simplify infrastructure visualization. Whether you’re managing microservices or exploring Docker-based architectures, this release makes it easier than ever to create detailed infrastructure diagrams with minimal effort. Let’s dive into the highlights and see how you can use these tools to streamline your workflow. For details of…
Logs are a critical part of monitoring and debugging modern applications. By integrating OpenTelemetry logs with Grafana using Loki and Alloy, you can centralize your log data, making it easier to analyze and monitor your .NET applications. In this blog, I’ll walk you through the setup process and share how these tools work together to streamline log aggregation and visualization. I have…
Fun with AI AI tools like ChatGPT are evolving rapidly, and their creative capabilities are nothing short of amazing. Recently, I decided to test its image generation features with a fun and quirky prompt. The results? A personalized action figure concept that blew my mind! Let me walk you through the process and share the results. I used the following prompt: Draw an action figure toy of the…
Automating repetitive tasks is one of the best ways to save time and focus on what matters most. In this blog, I’ll show you how I used AI with .NET to automate the creation of social media posts for my blog. By leveraging my blog’s RSS feed, OpenAI, and Semantic Kernel, I was able to generate engaging posts effortlessly. Let’s dive in! Using OpenAI for Social Media Posts…
I needed to merge two separate projects into one repository while keeping the full commit history from both sides. Copy-paste would have worked for the files, but history would have stayed trapped in the old remotes. This approach adds the second repo as a remote, fetches it, and merges with --allow-unrelated-histories so Git keeps both lineages. I still refer to the repos as project1 and project2…
I have been reading The Pragmatic Programmer and I have to say it is a fantastic book. It is full of great advice and tips for programmers. I highly recommend it to anyone who is a programmer at any level. Lots of the advice is common sense and things I already do, but there are also lots of things I know in the back of my mind that I should be doing. So reading it has been a great reminder of…
While at NDC London I heard a great talk by Matt Burke about exceptions. I will share some of the points here. The talk was based in part on the blog post Vexing Exceptions by Eric Lippert. It defined four types of exceptions: Fatal Exceptions Boneheaded Exceptions Vexing Exceptions Exogenous Exceptions Fatal Exceptions These are exceptions that are thrown when the application is in an…
I was lucky enough to hear Mads Torgersen (The Lead Designer of the C# language) speak at NDC London about some of the plans the team has for the next version of C#. Many of these new features are in the preview stage, and can be enabled by using the c# preview flag in your csproj file. The C# team welcomes feedback on the different use cases for new feature, especially during these early…
I have just come home from volunteering at NDC London. It was a great experience and I learned a lot. I met some great people and had a lot of fun. I can’t wait to go back next year. You may have heard of NDC London before. It is a conference for software developers. It is held in London every year and attracts people from all over the world. The conference covers a wide range of topics,…
Grafana is an open-source analytics and monitoring platform that lets you query, visualise, and alert on metrics. It pairs well with Prometheus for scraping application endpoints. This post walks through a Docker Compose stack that monitors a simple .NET API. Setting up Grafana To visualise metrics data, we need a few components. The .NET application exposes a /metrics endpoint. Prometheus scrapes…
A few weeks ago I talked about .Net Aspire , well lets take a look at how we can use it with Elasticsearch. Elastic search is a powerful search engine that can be used to index and search data. It is built on top of Lucene and provides a powerful way to search through your data. Aspire allows dependencies like elasticsearch to be added to a project programmatically. Lets look at how this can work.…
Managing dependencies in .NET projects can become complex, especially when dealing with multiple projects that share common packages. NuGet Central Package Management (CPM) is a feature that simplifies this process by allowing you to manage package versions centrally. What is NuGet Central Package Management? NuGet Central Package Management allows you to define and manage package versions in a…
A long time ago in my SysAdmin days, I was a big fan of Nagios . Recently, I decided to revisit it and see if I could run it in a Docker container to monitor my local network. This guide will walk you through the process of setting up Nagios monitoring using Docker. Finding a Docker Image for Nagios First, we need to find a suitable Docker image for Nagios. The manios/nagios image looks like it…
2025 Event/Talk Date Location DDD North 22 February 2025 Hull NDC London 29-31 January 2025 London For my parkrun results see parkrun
It is that time of year again, time to reflect on the year that has passed and look forward to the year ahead. As with many years 2024 has been a mixed bag, some good stuff, and some not so good stuff. I did not make any goals at the start of 2024, but I am going to fix that for 2025. Goals for 2025 Blog Posts More Learning Drink More Water and Do More Walks Attend Conferences and User Groups Blog…
Creating pull requests is part of day-to-day Git work: you propose changes, review them, and merge. Long-lived integration branches make that tedious if someone has to open the release PR by hand every time. Automatic pull requests keep a develop → main (or master) PR open and refreshed when develop moves. Below are two patterns I use: GitHub Actions with the GitHub CLI, and Azure DevOps with a…
AI is everywhere at the moment, from chatbots to code completion tools like GitHub Copilot. Here are some common AI and Copilot terms with explanations. Common AI and Copilot Terms Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans. AI can be used for various applications, including…
I have been wondering what devices in my house use the most electricity. I have a smart meter which tells me how much electricity I am using, but it doesn’t tell me what devices are using the most electricity. Recently I purchased 12 of these ANTELA Smart Plugs (they come in packs of 4 so it hasn’t broken the bank). They are straightforward to set up, you plug them into your power…
What is .Net Aspire? .Net Aspire is a comprehensive set of tools, templates, and packages designed to simplify the development of cloud-native applications using .Net. It focuses on building observable, production-ready apps by providing a consistent and opinionated set of tools and patterns . The key features of .Net Aspire: Orchestration: Enhances the local development experience by simplifying…
Every November it is like Christmas for .NET developers, as Microsoft releases the next version of .NET. This year is no different, and we have version 9 of .NET to play with. This release is packed with new features and improvements across the board. If you haven’t already head on over to the dotnet website and download the latest version. Also we get a brand new version of Visual Studio,…
Understanding the Strategy Design Pattern. In the world of software development, design patterns are essential tools that help developers solve common problems in a standardized way. One such pattern is the Strategy Design Pattern . This pattern is particularly useful when you need to define a family of algorithms, encapsulate each one, and make them interchangeable. Let’s dive into what the…
Code Clubs are free, welcoming spaces designed to introduce young people to the exciting world of programming and digital skills. Today, I had the pleasure of taking my son—an absolute coding enthusiast—to one of these sessions, held at Leeds Central Library. The club was hosted in a cozy room on the top floor of the library. Walking in, I expected rows of computers set up for traditional coding…
Scottish Summit 2024 took place in Aberdeen on October 18th and 19th at the P&J Live Arena, and I was fortunate enough to attend. Friday The first full day of the conference, Friday the 18th, began with the unmistakable sound of bagpipers welcoming attendees at the venue—an echo of the 2022 event that reminded us all of the conference’s Scottish roots. Registration was quick and seamless;…
On June 8th I will walk 13 miles near Bakewell in the Peak District to raise £250 (or more) for Cancer Research. To sponsor me click fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/funkysi1701 , to find out more about the event go www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/find-an-event/big-hike/big-hike-peak-district So why am I doing this? I am a Software Developer in my day to day life, which does not involve a…
Trek Ranks #174: Top 5 Ensemble Episodes I was recently invited onto the TrekRanks podcast. I had a great time talking Trek with Jim Moorhouse and fellow guest Anika Dane. If Trek is your thing, do take a listen. Everyone contributes in this episode of TrekRanks as we break down the “Top 5 Ensemble Episodes.” Our panel highlight those episodes in which the entire cast play important…
2024 Event/Talk Date Location Yorkshire Azure 19 November 2024 York Code Club 16 November 2024 Leeds Library Code Club 2 November 2024 Leeds Library Scottish Summit 17-19 October 2024 Aberdeen DDD North 2 March 2024 Hull
It is that exciting time of year where Microsoft announce a new version of .Net (Version 8 this time) and Visual Studio. There have been lots of announcements which I am still digesting, but one that caught my eye was a new window in Visual Studio that shows all your API endpoints. The new window is called Endpoint Explorer and can be added from the menu View > Other Windows > Endpoint Explorer .…