Peter Bull - Write Code, Build It & Post It - Use Github As Your CV

Speaker A: Welcome to another episode of Talks with Tech Leaders Today. I'm delighted to be joined by Peter Bull, um, somebody who has always been a strong supporter of what we do here at Kudos. And over the years, um, with the Northeast.net meetup that we've run as well, um, you're regular there, uh, one of the most regular attendees and you've spoken quite a few times as well. So, um, we've been meaning to do this for a little while, so it's great to finally get you on.

Speaker B: No, it's great to be here, absolutely. Yeah. So I'm Peter Bull and I'm a senior software engineer at Clipboard. So basically work on their sort of web APIs and things like that. So anything Net I'm always up for. But, uh, kind of definitely enjoy that. But absolutely it's been great to support the events. Uh, always love coming along. Even if I'm not presenting. It's great to sort of come along and support them and write about them afterwards. But it's just really just a really good part of the Northeast community. We've got a lot of Net developers. So an event like that is absolutely perfect. And I've been, been pleased to be involved with actually quite a lot.

Speaker A: Yeah, great. So were you born in the Northeast?

Speaker B: Yeah, I might not sound it. I've got this kind of weird accent. I think my, I think. I don't know, it might come from where I grew up. So my parents came from Edinburgh, so my mum and dad, they were from Edinburgh, pretty much the same part of Edinburgh. Uh, but, um, I grew up in Westminster, so it's like a. Sort of. Just near Whitley Bay and kind of the accent's a bit milder there, so we didn't really have the strong Geordie accent you'd associate with the Northeast. Uh, it's more of a kind of Northumberland accent. In fact, Northumberland's not too far from me, so, uh, just, just at the top there. So it's. It was a. Just not really a strong accent, so I never picked it up. Uh, but, uh, yeah, lived there for, for most of my life and then I moved to Gateshead, so that's where I live at the moment. But yeah, uh, spent most of my time in Westminster.

Speaker A: And then did you, um, growing up, did you go down the traditional route of um, school, college, university?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, um, basically in my area we have like the. What's known as the three tier system. So you have like a first, middle and high school. So you change in schools a little bit more Often pro that you'd expect. Uh, so yeah, it was. Luckily the first and middle school were pretty much the same building, just different halves. So that's where I started. So um, that was interesting because, uh, didn't really have many computers funnily enough in my first school. I don't remember them having that many. I think they might have had like a couple uh, of VIC 20s I think maybe what we were using then, which was still quite old for the time. And then for middle school, uh, which was basically just the other side of the wall. Effectively we had four computers for everyone. So uh, that was fun. They were amstrads. So we had four amstrads which we could use just for a little bit. They didn't actually let you do schoolwork. Actually had to get uh, permission to use the computer to hand in work. As I said, oh no, it's just for like research and stuff, but actually uh, to actually use it for work. They weren't too keen on that, but I managed to talk them around, which was nice, but that was a good experience. And then the high school was, was a bit further away, but again just went there and sort of continued. My plan was to kind of actually not go into like, like computers specifically, but actually electronics. So my dad was an electrical engineer and I loved electronics. Loved playing about with components and stuff. I had these kind of kits you could buy where you could sort of connect them up and just uh, really enjoyed that. So I was really keen on that. I thought that'll be my path, you know, you know, follow. Follow in your dad's footsteps as they say. So, uh, I go to high school. Uh, they do, uh, they were doing electronics a little bit anyway in my first year. So I was like, great. They had like an acid etching equipment, all the things you needed to make your own printed circuit boards. It was fantastic. I was like this is great electronics. Really want to get into this. So, um, so that's what I thought. That's what I'll do. So when I pick my GCSEs, that's what I thought. Uh, I'll do. That'll be my main one. I'll do electronics. Not. Not it, surprisingly enough. And um, turn up for my first day and they're like, oh, sorry, we're not doing it anymore. I'm like what? Yeah, we're not doing electronics anymore. I was like what am I doing then? Where's all the stuff you had? All the equipment? Yeah, it's in the skip outside. Couldn't believe it. So instead I had to do something called engineering skills. I said, don't worry, we've transferred you to this other gcse because I couldn't do it because it was full up. Uh, so I was kind um, of stuck doing engineering skills instead, which is not what I wanted to do. And I was devastated. It kind of pushed me away from electronics because I had all of that passion to do it, but there was nowhere to direct it. We did get to play around with the uh, molten aluminium. I got to pour that one time because we were making stuff that was fun, but it was just, it just kind of derailed my plans a little bit. But by the time I got to A levels I went back to the IT track. Went to. So I was probably the only person who took A level IT who didn't do GCSE it. So I kind of skipped a step. Uh, but uh, that was great. So that got me back on track and then through that did a couple of other A levels and just got enough points to get into uni. I literally had my, one of my teachers phone me up and says, peter, you'll never guess what. You've got enough points to get into uni. And she seemed worried, but I was, I was like, why are you worried? This is great. And she was like, oh, uh, because I was meant to be going for a hnd, so HND is like kind of like half a degree if you like, at the time. And that's what I was aiming for. I'll do a HND just to build my skills up. But I got enough to get a degree so I thought, well, why not go for it? So I'll end up doing a degree in computing. There was like two tracks on your first year, you're kind of all together and then you'd split off into computing for business and computing for industry. Business was more databases and stuff. I thought I don't want to be doing databases. So the other one was more hands on. So it kind of led kind of not quite electronics, but more, more hands on hardware, running code on things like VX works, which was this kind of real time thing and writing your own compiler. I just thought that's exciting for me. So that gave me some really low level stuff to sort of get those fundamentals in. So I really, really enjoyed that. Uh, uh, a lot of it was kind of starting to become a bit out of date because as unis were kind of just like trying to teach you with what, what was available. They were kind of having to guess what was going on. And I think they kind of missed it a little bit. But I learned, I learned a lot there. And that was actually my first job was during my degree. There was a. It was a sandwich degree. So one year you would do a placement. Now, normally you think, let's do a placement near where you live, maybe in Newcastle, maybe in Gateshead. Um, but because I was like running down the clock, I kind of ran out of time and I had to panic and think, I need to do a placement year. And they literally phoned me up and said, we found one for you, Peter. And I was like, okay, where is it? And it said, uh, bad Mergen time. I was like, where's that? Germany? And I said, okay, then. So I had a phone interview and they said, you sound great. And I ended up working in Germany for my placement.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So it wasn't quite the convenient place everyone else was working, just on the road maybe, or even down south. And here I was working, working in the southern part of Germany, basically two hours from Frankfurt. So we were kind of in the middle of nowhere. Ah. But, uh, fantastic opportunity, uh, really fast Internet. It was the year 2000 at the time and they had gigabit. Now we have that now in our house. But back then you didn't have it very often because we were near what they call a fat pipe for Germany. And we had the best Internet I've ever had, even probably to this day. So it was just a really good opportunity to dive into it. An, uh, earlier stage than normal because I didn't expect to be first it job to be while I'm doing my degree. But definitely, definitely a lot. And then that sort of kick started my career from there.

Speaker A: Yeah. Did you not want to stay out in Germany then, or how was that experience like when?

Speaker B: Um, it was interesting because it was a challenge because I had chosen French GCSE. So when I was choosing my GCSEs, I think I got them all wrong, didn't I? I didn't do it and I didn't do German, although I couldn't have known that. So I picked the wrong path briefly. But it was a good challenge. Luckily everyone spoke great English. Uh, but I did want to learn. I thought I might as well make the effort. So I did take some classes. Got me out of work, which is quite nice. So I took classes, uh, for about, um, a few months once a week. So every week I take German classes with a group of, you know, fellow German learners who all mutually couldn't speak English, except for me. So all of Them spoke either Russian or another or German. So you definitely had to learn pretty quick. So that was good. But, um, yeah, it was just, it was, it wasn't something I was. I was planned to do if I just got, you know, top tip, you know, if you get a placement year, get it sorted early. But I don't regret it. It definitely helped. And we did some fun stuff. There was. It was quite a big company. So we had big meetups. They had a big party where they had literally everyone from all over the world. They had loads of offices all over the world and they pretty much all turned up to this party. And we just had a great time with the VP of the company, you know, and, you know, everyone from everywhere, including the uk. Uh, but it was nice to sort of. I was kind of on in the German contingent because I was working in their office, but they just were this really big. I hadn't heard of them, but they do a lot of like plumbing supplies and stuff. They're like one of the biggest companies in Germany. 1. Someone, someone told me that, oh, you do know the MD is like the 8th richest man in Germany. I was like, okay, this is a big company. But it was, it was a great opportunity. It definitely pushed me. I was kind of, kind of stuck to my own sort of area at the time. And, uh, it kind of pushed me, pushed me out the Northeast definitely, but definitely broadened my horizons. And then when I came back, it just. It sort of. I knew what the real world was like and kind of made me want to do my own thing a lot more.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. And, um, when did you land your first software job? And I guess I wanted to ask with that as well. When did you really get a interest in software development? Was it from when, when you did your degree and it split off?

Speaker B: Or ah, was it prior to that for software development? It came much earlier. It came as a hobby, you know, when I was younger, basically when I was like, uh, you know, you got the classic story. I got myself a Commodore 64 for Christmas. I think it was for Christmas. It was from my parents and it was the. It was the Terminator 2 Judgment Day Edition. So, you know, a bit of an AI angle there. And it was just this thing that you could just, you know, you got basic, which was the programming language. And I played around with it for a bit, but my real sort of foray into it was actually a, uh, laptop that was being thrown away at my dad's work. So the railway were cleaning up all our old kit and he Brought this laptop home that he'd rescued just to kind of maybe mess about with himself. But I thought, hey, he put it in my room. So I thought, well, I'm gonna have a look at this. So it was a Toshiba T1200, which was this really heavy laptop, uh, from God knows, probably the late 80s I think it was. And it was, it was pretty good for the time. Uh, and I basically played around that. So GW BASIC was the basic I used there. And uh, that was really good. So he actually had the manual, so I had the reference manual. So back in the day before we had things like Cool Pilot and. And we had to read it in a book. So I had to basically flick. Luckily it was spiral bound so you could kind of flip through it and learn the language. So I wrote all sorts of little things, little applications, little games, all sorts of things. I really enjoyed that. And it was just an opportunity to sort of really. I would always see what else can you do. I would start drawing lines. You can do lines. Great, let's do lines. You can do circles. And just did so much because it was, wasn't really in color because it was a black and white laptop. But I just really enjoyed the experience of playing around with this code. It did have some debugging facilities but never really figured out how they worked. So I just had to kind of muddle through it. You basically had 10, whatever, 20 go to whatever. You know, there's that kind of thing. Same as the Commodore 64 but way more sophisticated. People actually were building like line of business apps with GW BASIC back in the day. So it was a pretty. That's the railway. That's what they were using it for. That's why I had it. But that was my first foray. And then at school um, they had like student licensing for Microsoft products. So I picked up Visual Studio. The very first version of visual studio in 1997 is. I got that on student licensing. And that's when I really started programming more recognizable stuff. So that was. I got into vb, uh, through that and um, just created my own stuff. And then about a year later, uh, created my own website. So I thought I need to learn this stuff. And the web was around so I didn't have to read books anymore. And I started up my own website and just posted what I was learning there. In fact, the very first line of VB code I wrote is actually screenshotted in one of my tutorial. I was just sharing these things to. And back then there Weren't many programming websites in the uk, so, you know, you had things like Yahoo who didn't have the search engines we have now, they would basically have a list of sites and if you went to the uk there was like eight of them and mine was one. So it was pretty good. I got a lot of traffic and it just meant I could share my learning experience and it made me learn more. And that took me right through to, um, the early 2000s with net. So when NET first came out I was like, this is brilliant. Actually came out when I was in Germany and I ordered the alpha. So I actually had it in the year 2000, which was a good couple of years before it came out. And I just was like, this is it, this is clearly the future. It was not like it is now, but it was clearly. There's a lot of investment gone into this. And I basically followed the. NET journey right from the year 2000 to now. You know, I was literally doing it today. So it's and will continue to. You know, there's been many versions since we're up to 10, but there was the. NET Framework as well. But, uh, yeah, pretty much followed the. NET journey all the way through and always done it as a hobby. It's always been like, oh, it's my hobby first. I still do it in my spare time. Programming is a passion for me. It's a job. It's a great way to earn money because I get to do what I love. Um, but in my spare time I do my own thing as well.

Speaker A: Yeah. When was your first NET job? Was it after university? Did you do any when you were in Germany?

Speaker B: No, it just come out. So we were doing something called Java Server Pages that was meant to be the next big thing. It was a bit of a battle. It was PHP, which is obviously still around. WordPress uses it. But Java Server Pages were being pitched as the next big thing. NET came out just after. So I actually wrote a lot of stuff in jsp and, um, as soon as NET came out I was like, that just kind of wiped out that market completely. I mean there might be the odd JSP page around, uh, but my first NET role was actually by sheer chance actually, uh, was looking for work and out of uni, hoping to pick up a junior software development role. But they kind of didn't exist at the time. So every kind of job needed a couple of years experience needed maybe two or three. I had 10, but as a hobby. So at the time people were pretty strict. They were like, nah, it has to be in work as I. But I need the work to get the experience. It was that classic loop. But I had probably at least four times the experience of everyone else. But because it was as a hobby, it just didn't count. Nowadays it did. If you got a good GitHub repo today, no problem. But back then, no it didn't count. So I really struggled to get a role. So I picked up a call center role just to get myself into the work environment. And um, that contract ended. So I was looking for different things and a part time role came up, a part time programming role. I thought well, why not? Um, I didn't have too much experience still in a commercial sense but I felt what's the harm, you know, I can turn up. And it was for classic Asp. So luckily I've been doing VB for quite a few years. Classic Asp I'd done a little bit but I knew it was very similar. Uses something called VB script. So it's very similar to. It's basically visual basics. So I was like okay, let's give it a go. Turn up to interview and they're like yeah, sounds like you know what you're talking about. You know, CV wise, doesn't really matter. They could, I could talk the talk. And they were like okay, great. So I get to join that company and it's four of us. So there's the uh, there's the founder, uh, two customer support agents and a developer. Yeah, my first proper job other than the uh, placement year I'm the only dev. The original developer, she was there for a couple of months to do a handover and then she left and she said don't worry, if you need any help you can call on me. Never needed to. She did a great handover. So I basically was a solo dev in this part time role. And uh, so it was classic aspect but obviously we knew that can't last. It was, you know, if there was any kind of problems, the site we needed to, we wanted to expand it. The website was first, uh, buying and selling books online. So we were an online secondhand bookstore. In fact he did it before Amazon was doing that. Amazon was selling new books but nobody was selling secondhand books. So he actually beat Amazon to it. They actually did it just after he did. Not sure if that was a coincidence but this, it was a great way to recycle books. He could send them to people. And my job that I decided to do was let's change it to Net. My very first full website for Net was that one. So we ported it in nine. I say we, I ported it in nine months. I sat down with my uh, with the owner. We planned it out. Uh, so we basically spent a few months planning and a few months developing it. I had to actually go into the office and do that. Couldn't do it remotely. So I had to actually go into the office back then even when it was cold weather and the snow was in. But we did it and we shipped it and just overnight site expanded even more. We added more features and functionality. We added a forum which cut down our customer support load because many of them could just wanted to resolve issues. My book hasn't turned up but they could. This forum uh, allowed them to do that. And the site just was starting to look after itself. You know I was starting to. We built in everything we wanted. You know there's only so many different things you can do. Uh, but we rebranded it, we refreshed the website. It just looked amazing. It was a really good project, really enjoyed it with a great team, nice small team to work with. And as it was starting to wind down I thought okay, let's see what else is out there. And I'm doing a talk. Not your, not one of your events I'm afraid. But it was uh, before that and it was, I just was talking about one of my projects. I'd done a uh, an app for Windows Phone, uh, which was a mobile phone platform that Microsoft gave a go. Didn't quite work out. But um, somebody there was like listen to my talk about. He said peter can you come and do our Windows Phone app? And I said absolutely, I get paid to do this. So I took that job on part time. So that was, and that was again a good opportunity. Windows Phone didn't quite pan out but I was in the door. And eventually when the other job uh, panned out it uh, you know it ended on a good note. You know it was just because the postage prices went up and it just wasn't viable. But um, took that job full time and that was a full time job in a team of developers this time with. And we, and that was, that was great. So I basically used that part time job, gave me the experience I needed to get that next job. And once I was on that ladder I've been able to claim it ever since basically because you've always had an

Speaker A: interest in Windows apps and Windows Phone. Something that uh, I've noticed across the years as well. What has that now still got a market or has that uh, now come to an end when it comes to

Speaker B: Windows M apps, it's a good question. So native Windows apps is an interesting one. That was always what I did as a hobby. So back in 98 when I was doing my website, those VB examples were Windows apps. So I've always done Windows apps. Um, certain platforms have come and go in between, but there's still a need to have some native apps. Your native apps on mobile are obviously pretty common. So native apps and Windows still have a place. There are ways to do that. In Net, you have something called Net Maui, so you can build an app that basically runs on Windows, Windows and iOS and Android. So that gives you the choice. But Microsoft have been quite interesting. They do lots of different platforms. They do something called Windows Forms, which was like the.net original one. Uh, there's um, WPF, which is kind of like a more designer led kind of system, which actually helped inform what we have today, which is called, uh, winui. So winui is like what a lot of the newest Windows apps are probably written in. So if you've got something like Microsoft, uh, Copilot, the app that is a WinUI app and that goes with something called Windows App SDK. And that's my current sort of hobby passion is supporting that. So there's some that basically surfaces all the Windows 11 features. So anything that's in Windows 11 that you think that looks cool, that's where that's coming from. So all the new stuff, like newer, um, toolbars or newer styling, that's what winui is. And also there's things like, uh, Windows widgets as well, which are not as popular admittedly, but again those technologies. But yeah, there's still a place for Windows Native, but if you want to cast a wider net, then you have to obviously go for something like a web technology maybe. Blazer is obviously a good option on the Net side. But, um, yeah, I think Windows Native still has a place. I still support it for my own work and certainly if it ever came up at work I, uh, would be able to do it. But, um, yeah, mostly my, my work life is, is Web APIs. But, um, I think Windows Native still has a place. Windows Phone obvious that didn't work out, but through Windows Phone I got those other opportunities. So even though it didn't work out, I did and it did open a lot of doors to a lot of opportunities because there weren't many Windows Phone developers. So it was kind of nice to be. And I got one of the first apps that launched. So when that Device launched, I think back in the early 2010s there was a thousand apps on the store. Some would say not many more after that. But I had two of them. So I had two of the apps that launched. So when I bought my first Windows Phone, guess what the first thing I did was install my own app. Yeah, of course. So I was at least one of those downloads. But uh, it was pretty popular for that platform. But I was, I was pretty invested in it. But it didn't work out. But the experience it gave me definitely did work out.

Speaker A: Yeah, I remember when they came out because I worked at ee, um at the time and it was a lot like early 2010s when there was like the iPhone, all the Android phones at the HTML TC and Samsung and things like that. But then I think Nokia released Lumia phone and that was like a uh, Windows operating system. Um, so was it maybe for the like Nokias that ran the Windows system? Is that what you were developing apps for?

Speaker B: Yeah, because originally, because I got the HTC HD7, that was my HD7, that was my first phone, I actually rolled under the rollers of the O2 shop in Northumberland street. Literally opened, they opened it up and I was probably the first one to buy it. I'm not sure but there's a good chance I was probably the first person in the northeast to get a Windows Phone. But yeah, Nokia, because Nokia was an acquisition that Microsoft made, uh, mostly to ensure Nokia didn't do something else. So Nokia had their own operating system called Symbian and that was basically what they used. And Microsoft was like Nokia's hardware was excellent. You know, they were like the top notch hardware of smartphones. You know, Apple, you know, had, you know, obviously they were in the space but people still respected Nokia from back in the day when they were pretty much if you had a phone, you had a Nokia Smartphones they were kind of struggling with uh, because I think they kind of so giving them giving. So taking them on was an opportunity for Microsoft to say let's have premium hardware. And actually they did produce the best hardware. Some of my later Windows phones were Nokia's. I had the uh, one with the really good camera. I remember I had a 50 megapixel camera on the back which was pretty good for. I think it was, I think it was 50, it was pretty high for a phone of that kind. But uh, they just, they put the effort in for the hardware and the marketing. But the buying of it was a different story because people were choosing either Android or iOS so being a number three, very hard. In fact it was BlackBerry at the time as well. So you had four ecosystems battling it out and two of them have obviously dropped out. But Microsoft, like everyone likes to give things a go. Uh, but they actually admitted later that they've pulled the plug too early. I know when the new CEO took over Satya Nadella, he said his biggest regret as CEO is not stopping that from ending. Because when it became Windows Mobile, they had it. It was pretty good. You know, we had a lot of features you have in phones now. You know, wireless charging, always on displays, the ability to connect it to uh, a dock and have a full screen desktop experience. Those were all available, you know, more than 10 years ago. You're only just getting those in Android devices and iPhones now. And it's like I had that on my phone as standard. So there was a lot of effort put in and the development uh, experience was excellent. You know they had a, uh, full on emulator, um, that was actually the Windows Phone operating System and Windows 10 Mobile as well. Development experience was obviously top notch, exactly what you'd expect from Microsoft. So it was really easy. I did my own tutorials to teach other people how to do Windows Phone development, but it was very straightforward. I've kind of done. I played around with Android briefly and I found it very difficult, very, very like complicated and just was like, how's this worse? How is this a worse experience than what I had 10 years ago? I know Windows Phone didn't work out, but I expect better of what we have today. And what we had back then was fantastic. Really, really good ecosystem, very friendly. Uh, the rules were pretty flexible. If you wanted to have your own payment system, good for you. Microsoft wouldn't take a cut, they'd only take a cut of your app on the stores like we have now. But they'd take nothing if you used your own payment system, which certain platforms don't necessarily allow. So they were very flexible. They offered, uh, also if your app sold a lot, they'd actually reduce their percentage cut. Um, they did a lot to, you know, encourage apps to their platform, but there was a lot of blockers and problems. Google famously didn't support it. In fact, Microsoft developed their own YouTube app and Google had it pulled. You know, there was a lot of effort to bring. Everyone said my apps aren't there. Believe me, we tried. Many of developers like myself, uh, were encouraging people to do it and many other developers were trying to bring those apps like Instagram was around then. So that was being Tried, but just there was a lot of effort just kind of get in the way of that. Maybe it wouldn't have worked out anyway. But it certainly didn't help when people said my apps aren't there. It was true. You know, my apps were there, but they weren't the apps. They were apps that would take advantage of the platform and give people more options and things like that. But uh, it was a shame to see it go. But I like the fact they regretted it at least. I thought if they just wrote it off and said it was all a waste of time. But no, I still miss it. And obviously I couldn't come on without mentioning Windows Phone because it was a massive impact on my career. That job went on for years. I ended up working on their web platform and we did some pretty innovative stuff. We worked on really, really cool stuff like content, uh, generation. We did uh, uh, content generation for generating assets for our, uh, we had like a platform where we could show content in venues and we had. I invented a static content, uh, generation system and I co invented one with my boss, uh, for video. So we basically could deliver broadcast video and professionally designed assets for venues. We were way ahead of our time. You know, this is like what you have in Figma today was kind of what we were trying to do back then, but in 2012 when it was a lot harder, but we were really pushing the boundaries, it was just exciting. You know, you could really innovate back then with. Net and do crazy stuff that actually brought desktop technology. So my desktop development technology expertise actually brought that in to the web. So I mushed these two things together to produce that. So actually that desktop experience came in really handy because I was able to say, hang on a minute, can you get these two things to work? And I did. And that became a core feature of our platform.

Speaker A: Yeah. And where did this like thirst for knowledge come from? So, uh, one things we were discussing earlier, I said to you was that whenever we do our meetups, if you're not presenting, you're always there, uh, with your laptop, you're always making notes, you're always writing blogs, um, and you attend a lot of the meetups and learning. I feel like you, there's something that you really enjoy doing. Where did that sort of originate from? And you know, how do you feel that's helped you along your career as well?

Speaker B: I think it's always that thirst for knowledge. I always like to learn stuff. I'm like a trivia buff. I'm like that. I'm on the IMDb for movies and, you know, and just like to. Just like to know stuff, you know, I just like to add to my knowledge. You know, every time someone says something, it's like, great. I'm always learning, even if it's not software. So even from, you know, that, you know, when I was basically 11 years old, playing around with the Commodore 64 or my Toshiba T1200, I was always wanting to learn how to do it myself to begin with, because before I knew about the World Wide Web, it was kind of like you just had to learn on your own. So I was like, if only people could benefit from my knowledge, that would be great. If only that thing got invented, you know. So when I discovered the web, I was like, this is the medium. Not only can I learn, and I learned a lot from other developers. I could share what I knew and you could kind of bounce off each other. I'd see something someone did, I'd be like, that's really clever. And I would take that and sort of, you know, and integrate that into my way of doing things. I always like learning something and it never stops. And even after all these years, been doing it like professionally for what, 26 years or so, I'm still learning. And it's just, I love to learn. I love to go to events and just find out about different things, you know, find out what people are doing, you know, different technologies. Even if it's not net, you know, there's something. And the best way to kind of learn that is to write it down and sort of put it in my notes. And initially I would put it in my notes and I kind of file it away. And I thought, wait a second, it's all these notes I'm writing. Why don't I share them as well? So I just started doing that initially just on LinkedIn and just thought, ah, I had my own website, you know, back in the 90s. Let's bring that back. So I resurrected my website, um, and, and basically brought that back to life. And that's where I post now. So I've got my, my rogue player toy website. That's my Persona, uh, basically in everything I do. And I publish articles of all the events I go to the net meetups that Kasimu hosts, uh, and also the ones I do myself, those ones I can cheat because I can write my bit first. But, uh, it's just great to share again my presentation in a different way, but also to just learn from others. I've seen so many speakers and maybe they've shown off something I've not used before or they've shown or talked about something that maybe I wouldn't necessarily use. But it's like great, I know about that now when someone mentions that, um, I know about it and it's just an opportunity to learn, but just to share that with other people. I've always had that passion for sharing and the web gave me that opportunity and that's kind of the space I've been working in. But one of the things I've got planned is a course I'm going to teach people uh, Net and C sharp. And you think in this era of AI, is that really necessary? I think it is because AI is a fantastic tool used all the time. But just knowing the fundamentals is handy just like it was back then with my, with my, with my GW Basic manual. I just want people to kind of have that sort of good foundation AI the rest. Fair enough. But just to give people that, that basic knowledge so they can grow more because that's what helped me those that first line of code, hello world grow to massive full on applications. So I just want to give other people that same chance. It'll be just me and them talking, going through these examples in live, let's do it live, why not? And uh, just a chance to share this knowledge because in my head it's useful to me but that's not enough for me. I want to share it with everyone else because uh, you know, I'm not precious. I'm not one of those developers who'd be like, oh, I know this, I'm not gonna tell you. I just, just the ability to share what I know and that's rewarding as well. That's what, that's what motivates me more. I do, I do my own packages to help other developers. I've got, had a kind of mini obsession with SVG assets. So all the emoji you get in Windows, I've got that as a package and various other things I've put together from either open source assets just to remix them. Um, all my own. Just a chance to kind of share these cool things I've learned. But through the events, not just the ones I presented but I've attended, I've just learned a lot. And the presenting is just an opportunity to give back and I'm always there for you. When anytime there's a chance to present at the Net meet up, um, I'm there for it definitely.

Speaker A: I really appreciate it. Could you tell us a little bit about your Journey to receiving an MVP from Microsoft.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Microsoft MVP was awesome. It's one of those things that, ah, I knew about MVPs because I've, I've met them, many of them, ran various events in the past. I've met them around the country and in this area as well. And I always knew about that. But I thought, I don't know what it takes, you know, how much effort you have to put in. But I just was working, working hard. You know, I was doing my blog posts on my website, I was doing my packages, I was presenting events, of course. And someone who used to run some events back before yours just reached out to me, said, pia, have you thought about becoming an mvp? I said, of course I have. Uh, but I've not. I don't really know what to do. He says, I'll nominate you. So that was, that was Ben Lee. And he was. And he just said, I just said, oh, thank you very much. And he wrote me a wonderful, uh, nomination. And he's like, there's no guarantee that you get it, but once you get that, you have to fill in all the things you do. So one of the things you're told to do is make a list of all the things you've done. So I've got this spreadsheet where I basically put in. Did the Net meetup with kassm. Great, that's one. Wrote a blog post about it as well. Great, that counts. I get it twice there. Other events I've been to, my packages that I've done, I've done the ones for, uh. Net generally I've done ones for Blazer. I did a recent one for Blazer, which was really good. All those things go on a list, but initially you submit the ones. I'd go up to that point, it's had about a year's worth of things submitted those and you just put in as much detail as possible. And then you wait, you wait and you don't know how long it's going to be. You might get rejected. Uh, but within, I think about a couple of months, I got the email saying congratulations, and I couldn't believe. And I spoke to Ben and said, oh, I got it. I said, I'm so pleased. He says, I've nominated a few people and they've all got it. So. But I was so honored. I mean, God, it was like the amount of things that I've done over the years, just, just. It didn't. Whether I got it or not wouldn't have made any difference. I still would have continued. But just to have that recognition from Microsoft, you know, they know my name at the very least now I was hours over the moon. And you got a glass, a glass trophy. I know it's actually crystal. And it was just, just to have that on, um, my shelf at home. It sits on my, uh, my shelf at home. And I just was so honored you. And it opens up more opportunities. Hardly any I can talk about. Basically. You get a lot of interactions with the product teams, you can ask questions and get answers back about various things. But it's all under NDA. But once it's public, we can talk about it. So there's the Microsoft Build conference, for example. That's a big conference. We'll often get, you know, a heads up about some of those things. Can tell you what they are this time, even though I wanted to. But it just is a chance for us to absorb that. So it gives me a really, really good heads up. And it means when it is made public, I'm already ready to go. Then I can share it, then I can post about it. Oh, there's this thing that I, you know, like when Visual Studio, the latest version of Visual Studio came out, you know, I'd been using it for like a few months before but couldn't say anything. And then when the NDA was lifted, it's like a relief. You can say, great, let's talk about it. Because that was fantastic, brilliant piece of work. I've obviously used it since the start. But just access to that kind of resource where you can try these things out and give them feedback and just. And that helps improve things. That means when I, you know, when I was recommending Visual Studio, the latest version, uh, uh, 26, 2026, it was because I used it, you know, it wasn't just because I was being told to. We're not told to say things. It's just we have that insight, we have that benefit. And then they said the hardest thing is getting renewed. So that, that was the part that I was like, okay, it was coming up for my renewal and I got it again. Again, I did the same thing. Just made a list of all the things I did. Blog posts, you know, the presentations I'd done, I'd done, done webinars as well. I did some events, uh, last year that I did a webinar for a big event in the Northeast where I taught people how to do a podcast, AI. So they basically wrote an AI chatbot in, in. In blazer and that got picked as a workshop and I did that as a, an act went in. So everything I did went in there and I got it again. And I went to an event, uh, just recently and I spoke to a few people who were MVPs and I said, yeah, it is really difficult. You should be doubly honored to be renewed. Which I am. But it was just, it's like, it's a testament of my journey. But had I not got it, I would have made no difference. You know, it feels like it's one of those things that was almost inevitable but just as a reward for the work I'd done. It was brilliant. And you know, uh, there's never a day goes by where I'm not honored by it. You know, it's on my presentations now. Microsoft MVP. And I've met other MVPs and it's just a great community to be part of, but also to also make sure everyone else is included. When I can share, I will. And just to build, to inform and share because I, I'm passionate about. NET development in particular. So it's like an ask me anything, I'll help you out. I've helped people with their interviews, getting jobs. I've helped colleagues skill up and they've gone on to other roles which involved programming that might not have before. I've helped more people than I know. And that's great, you know, that's, that's what I want. Really.

Speaker A: Yeah. Do you get like, um, classification in terms of a specialty when you get, when you receive like an MVP and what's yours?

Speaker B: Yeah. You do. So I've got two. NET and Windows Development. Windows Development was an interesting one. So often you'll get it for maybe one category. So there's different categories of MVP. So there'll be some for say, Microsoft 365 for Azure and things like that. Uh, but for me it's NET and Windows Development, which is perfect. NET and Windows Development, obviously my two passions that reflect. So you get specific access to those teams. Uh, the Windows team for Windows Development for example. So, uh, you get to ask them all sorts of cool questions and it'd be so great to go into some of the things we talk about. But you'll have to join us if you ever join us. I'll see you in one of those chats. But uh, it's just wonderful, just such an amazing thing because you used to stand up some meetings with your own developers. Imagine that with developers from Microsoft. Right. That's the kind of access you get. And it's brilliant, fantastic.

Speaker A: And has it helped you with your work as well in any way when it comes to like, you know, your current place of work or place you've worked before, having that access to Microsoft and having that network of fellow MVPs,

Speaker B: it's a good question. I mean, I've only been an MVP for the past couple of years, so it's really been in my last couple of jobs. It does seem, I think it is making a difference now. I know, I know somebody at my current job said, I can't believe we've got somebody like you who's a Microsoft mvp. And I'm like, wow, you know, I've actually got, we've actually got another mvp, works for Clipboard as well. And I actually knew him before and I saw him post on LinkedIn. I was like, I didn't know he worked for us. So we've chatted a bit and it's, you know, we could talk about stuff that we, you know, between us a little bit more easily. But uh, yeah, it's just uh, I think it's just a nice thing. Especially in the Northeast, we don't have too many MVPs. I, I pretty much know them all personally. Uh, there used to be a lot more, but it just varies from time to time. If you want more, go and you know, get, get yourself, uh, I'll nominate you or get yourself nominated. You know, it's such, if you're doing good in a community, it gets recognized and a nomination is just the first stage of that. But I think it does, I think it, ah, you know, if you're a company and you say you've, you've got two MVPs working for you or more. You know, there's companies down, there's like Black Marble, for example, they run a lot of the big conferences like DDD north and that they have a lot of MVPs working for them. And I'm actually, I'm actually going to this year's one. Always go down there when I can. It's again a chance to meet developers from the rest of the country. Um, but it's just, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's hopefully adds a lot of value. Obviously a lot of those early insights I still can't share even with work. But uh, yeah, it does give me the heads up that will hopefully help as I grow in my, in my current job. I think, uh, I think it'll definitely, definitely make a difference.

Speaker A: Yeah. So we were discussing earlier how uh, many years you've been um, in the Software space. Um, and I want to speak about management so I'll speak to a lot of software M managers or ctos. And um, just wanted to. Yeah, just curious to understand. Have you ever thought about getting into management yourself or has it been a part of your journey so far?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really good question and I haven't and it's because I just like software development. Every time I've seen a lead in the jobs I've been in, they don't do much coding, you know and I think, I uh, think uh, maybe in the future but for now I just like software development too much. I'm kind of like, I don't want to be away from coding. I see loads of people who've kind of took that career path and they enjoy the work of management but it takes them away from software development. And that's the only reason I'm not a manager now, I suspect. I think I would have gone for a lead role and I think I will go for a lead role, but I just enjoy software development too much. If there's a lead role where I can do it, I'd go for it. But I just uh, for me, software development has always been a passion from an early age, like I've said. But for management it's just not for me yet, you know, you know, I mean I'm, I might be getting on a little bit but I think management is maybe for later, you know, um, I just want to, I want a be hands on. I want, you know, you know, share my knowledge with my teammates. Want to learn more. I'm always learning and I think being a manager would take me away from that. Yeah, until, until I'm not too bothered about that. I think I'll stick with it. But yeah, that's, that's why I focused on roles, previous roles I've took deliberately where they've given me an opportunity to mentor. My last role before this one was come in as a mentor to mentor the developers and I did. It was a great opportunity to come in with two really talented, you know, couple of talented developers. I worked in my team, we had more developers in the company broadly and they were fantastic. You know, there's like, you know, uh, what's to do? But it was m. Mostly to sort of give them some insights they might not necessarily have got. You know, how to solve approaches, you know, things you've done wrong. You know, I've been there and done that. I'll help you avoid those issues. Sometimes you got to make your own mistakes. Fair enough, but just to avoid the obvious ones, to just kind of give them a leg up and that was a great opportunity. Um, unfortunately there were some issues and I had to move on. But in my current role, again it's just an opportunity to just kind of grow and so give something back. And as a senior software engineer, I'm enjoying it. You know, that's the kind of role I'll stick with. But if in 10 years time I'm like, yeah, maybe, but, but for now I'm doing it on my own, I'm doing it at work and I think I'll continue to do that for quite some time.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you mentioned earlier, like how you got into software development. Do you see any paths or can you give any guidance to anybody who is maybe looking into like the Microsoft ecosystem or maybe at college, university? Do you have any tips in terms of where they could start looking? Especially obviously if you mentioned AI as well and maybe getting those foundations in? Um, obviously I appreciate you probably looking to want to put something together yourself, but is there any guidance you could give to somebody in that position?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think the best thing to do is, you know, do things on your own time definitely. Because when I was doing that I was, even when I was in my jobs, when I was working in that call center job, I was still programming in my spare time. So even though every day I'm not using those skills, um, uh, when I got home I was, I was writing code building stuff. So I think that's the best way. Get yourself a GitHub account and start building code and posting it because that could, that's your CV now. You know, I can imagine many a company is going to take you on board. You know, if I, if me of the past was, was now, I would have been fine because all of the experience I had would have counted for something because I could have had my GitHub repo, here's all this code and they would have went, wow, this is great, no problem, that's what you have today. So I think my main recommendation is just try a few things. You know, Obviously we've got AI to help you out. You've got things like GitHub, Copilot and that definitely worth understanding those. Um, that's going to give you a heads up because a lot of people are using AI to build software, which is great, but you still got to understand what's going on. You still got to understand what it's doing because if it does, if isn't doing quite what you want even if you need to tell it what to do. Right. You have to understand what it's done in the first place. So you still need these fundamentals. So the basics.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, obviously I've got things like my course, I've done my tutorials and workshops as well, which are freely available, but little examples. That's what I did. I started Small hello World is the obvious one. But build from there, play around with things. Every time I did a tutorial it was because I wanted to try something new. So if you just play around with something, maybe there's something in Net, maybe you've never done Blazor before. Let's knock up a Blazor site. At least with Copilot, that can get you most of the way now and see what you can do. The best thing to do. Because the tools are free now. Back when I was learning it, I had to buy these things. I had to go and get a student license and it was quite expensive. It was like £250 in 1997. That's a lot of money now. It's about two or three times that now. But for now, for free, you can get the latest net, the latest visual studio, the same tools I use at work and build pretty much the same kind of software. And you can then check that in and then when you go in for a job that's going to show a real good understanding. AI is going to help you a lot. Of course it is. But so did intellisense when that came out. So did you know, all the other things that we've had in the software development lifecycle? But just starting small, try a few things, push yourself. Maybe you've never done mobile development. Let's do, uh, a NET Maui application. Maybe I'll do a Windows thing. Of course. Yeah, we could, we could certainly do with more Windows native devs, but it might allow you to play around with a few things easily and then go back to something else. But just start, uh, small and find examples. That's what I did. I looked at examples, recreated them, played about with them. What happens if I change this? What happens if I change that? What does it do? Can I break it? You know, that's. And with prompting and AI, it's the same thing. What, what can I do to get the results I want? If I ask it to do this? What will happen if I change it and ask it to do this? You know, it's the same cycle and I think that's the best way. Um, no matter what you're learning in Your university or whatever learn that. Because even if you're learning, say the latest net, say you've got net 10, say you're learning that right now in uh, school or in college, you're like, well, it's not going to be net 10 in a few years time, but it'll be whatever, net 13 14. But someone's probably still using 10 by then or you'll at least progress through to those versions anyway, so it's still relevant even, even if AI totally takes over, there's all this NET legacy code has got to be looked after so there'll always be a demand for some.network and that's great because it continues the legacy. Because when I do move up the chain and there's got to be developers who come up and I want to support them and I want to make sure they, they have the tools that they need. And because everything's free, there's nothing stopping you. Back then I had to pay for it and it was worth it. But now you don't. So give it uh, a go. Start with small, grow, play around and share it too. Because guess what will happen? Other people will learn from you. And what's better than learning, than inspiring someone else to learn?

Speaker A: I think, yeah. Do you think there could be in danger coming up where companies may think we can get AI to do everything and then they may lack developers with those fundamentals that uh, could then get them out of a position where things break and maybe not understanding why they're breaking?

Speaker B: It's a good question.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That's starting to become increasingly a fear, isn't it? Because you could basically, you can almost vibe up an application now and if it's self contained and small enough and you leave it alone, it's fine. But if it needs any work done at home, what's going on inside there, you know, any experienced developer is going to really not understand what's happening potentially because they're going to look at that code and maybe it's done it all weird or maybe it's done it the best way ever. But without that development experience, yeah, there's a potential risk there. That's why having the fundamental knowledge AI is definitely great. I mean, it's sped up my software development. We use GitHub, Copilot and our team pretty much all the time. Many members of my team, we hit the limits. We hit 100% at the end of the month of usage and I'm making use of it every single day, almost every hour of every day. I'm using GitHub Copilot in some manner, but I'm still understanding what it's doing. And I think that's the point. Nothing wrong with using AI as a company. If you want to employ AI, go at it, but you need to still have people there who understand what it's doing at some level. Because when it does go in wrong or something goes awry, or that prompt just doesn't quite do what you want, you've got. That's where someone has to go in and do it for you. And having that understanding. Because at the end of the day, if someone asks you what does this application do and how does it work and if you can't answer that question, that might not necessarily be a problem, but say in a regulated industry or something else or whatever, it's like that's the only way it becomes a problem. You know, it's, it's m. The, the caution is you need someone with experience that can be many people. Maybe someone knows this bit of the application, maybe someone knows that, but you don't expect someone to know everything. That's fair enough. But I think having some expertise of a code base isn't still necessary. I think it'll still be necessary for a long time once we can. If you can trust AI enough to build everything for you flawlessly, then things may be changing. But that would still require people to understand how to do that. Even if you don't need to understand code anymore, you'll still need to understand how to produce the relevant output. Code is just the medium by which developers produce output. Doesn't mean it can't be English, doesn't have to be C sharp, does it? But that mindset, that creative problem solving, knowing about that's still important. So the developer skills you have now will still be relevant even if AI takes over. Because you have to understand it. Because in order to get the out, because it's like anyone, nobody really knows what they want. It's the classic product thing. People ask for something, but what they want is something different. Now if you ask for something AI, it doesn't know that it tries to please you with the output. And a developer knows, ah, uh, I actually understand you. And maybe you still prompt it yourself, but your job is to translate what you're hearing to what you actually know they want. And that is still something that will be a skill. Even if it's not a coding skill, I think that'll still be a skill. Developers all have a place. It's just the language that we're using. May change, but that thought process, that'll still apply. So we still need people who understand the fundamentals. The fundamentals might just be how do I prompt this into working? It's a combination at the moment, but it'll still be that skill set, I think.

Speaker A: Is there anything that you're quite excited about that you can obviously share with the Microsoft ecosystem?

Speaker B: Um, I think NET is really just hitting its strides at the moment. Uh, it's had a reputation, let's put it out there. NET always had a legacy reputation. There's probably many a startup who are like we won't touch it because it's Microsoft. It's quite funny. You'll often hear about people who say won't touch NET with a barge pole. And then they'll load up Visual Studio code and start writing in typescripts, which are both Microsoft products. Right. So you get that kind of ironic disconnect. But for Net, it's like, I think it's reached that point where uh, there isn't any reason not to use it. There used to be. It's only Windows, it's proprietary, it's Microsoft only. Nobody else is adopting this. Nobody else is using this. That's not true. Now you've got companies like uh, there's Uno platform that's a dot NET based ecosystem that can run applications cross platform. It's not Microsoft products. You've got Avalonia which is a very similar thing. You've got Open Silver which is a Silverlight. So if you're a Silverlight dev, which is pre Windows Phone, guess what? You resurrect all your stuff. There's all these companies who are adopting NET Unity, the game development platform that uses NET to some extent. NET has reached this point where it's kind of like dismissing it out of hand is illogical. Yeah. Back in the day, of course, yes. Windows only dismiss it now. It feels like it's the. Net I always wanted it to be when Net1 came out. But when I had the alpha version back in the year 2000 I was like, this is a game changer. This is something. And it was way primitive compared to what we have now. But just that potential. This ecosystem that Microsoft was willing to bet on and you've got 26 years later, it's still around, it's open source now. The tooling is pretty much free. You know, it is. Everything about screams out use me. You know, but it still has Microsoft attached to it and that kind of puts people off. But you've got Blazor which came out of a pet project that one of their developers did on a weekend. Let's see if I can run webassembly and run NET like mono as it was at the time in the browser. Why not? Let's give that a go. That's now a core product in the. NET ecosystem. Blazor is literally the front end web technology for. Net. Now it's crazy to think that, but before that it was uh, asp, net, MVC and webforms even back in the day, these kind of clunky ways of doing things. Now we've got Blazor, which is pretty clean, very similar to other frameworks, really mature, really awesome. Used it myself, got my own toolkit which was actually AI driven. I ported a, uh, Windows toolkit that I wrote to Blazor using AI and I was amazed at the capabilities of Blazor even. I even have been using Blazor for quite some time. Wasn't fully aware of what you can actually pull off. I uh, was actually surprised that many of the components that I included worked in that way. I thought you can't do that without JavaScript surely. But nope, worked fine. The main thing about net now is it's kind of, if it was called anything else that was from anyone else, it would be way more popular than it is. It's not deficient in any way. It blows most other platforms away on performance. But it has a reputation and that's kind of hard to overcome. But people like myself try to push that. You know, obviously I've got a pro Microsoft agenda, of course, but why not you? You come with me with a good reason not to use it, that's fine. But NET as it exists today is like, uh, if you're not considering, at least give it a go. But if you're just going, nah, don't want to use it, that's crazy because it just uh, all the companies I've worked for, we've delivered massive value of using. Net. I mean the Northeast is quite interesting because we have a lot, you'll know it yourself. We have a lot of companies using Net, kind of in secret almost. Uh, there's so many companies in Northeast, well known companies who use Net and you would never know it because they don't shout about it, they don't go we use Net. But they do. So many companies, you know, household names and companies that I've worked for, all using.net and with talented.net developers working for them. But you wouldn't know it because nobody really talks about except Yourself, you know, we, we sort of showcase what the Northeast is all about because the talent is here. We have a lot of talent and around the world as well. That's why there's many of MVP around the world because people like the Microsoft ecosystem, you know, it's. There's been various things here and there, but generally, you know, there's a lot more positive now. And that's what my job is, to talk about it.

Speaker A: Yeah. What your sort of plans, um, looking forward, um, in your career, maybe in your personal life. What is there anything that you'd really like to achieve through work, outside of work work?

Speaker B: I think growing my sort of like doing more things, like more presentations, bigger events. You know, I really enjoy the kind of meetups that I do and continue want to do that. But the big conferences are getting very tempting. I would like to do something like that. I see many a person grow from meet up to larger events to so a big conference. I would really enjoy, uh, being an MVP can kind of open these sort of doors up but, but I'm definitely aiming for aiming higher now. I think I've got to the point where I can do a good presentation now. It uh, takes me about a month to put a presentation together because I really put the work into the slides and the cadence of it all. And the demo. I, uh, did a particularly long demo in my last one that was the longest one I've ever done, which involved showing every single UI technology there is in Net, which I thought initially was a crazy idea. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought let's do it. So it's like I want to kind of push myself. I did a conference recently where I was on stage where we hosted a panel. In fact it became an episode of my podcast. Uh, so that was kind of my first foray into that kind of thing. I've done obviously talks at like smaller events, but I was thinking that's what I want to do. So personally definitely want to push myself, do these bigger conferences because I see these guys, these people. I uh, see many people. I've seen, I've seen someone where she did a really great talk at an event I was at and then she was doing the NDC like a few months later and I was like, that's amazing. Just to see these people grow. And you have these, you know, they're no names, they're rock star developers and I hope I can be at least amongst them, you know, maybe in the lower tiers. But I definitely want to do that and do more of my own projects, do my course, just share my skills more, do more tutorials. I definitely want to pick up. So do some more tutorials professionally. Just kind of grow in that as well. You know, the, the company I'm in at the moment is, is really forward looking. Um, it's sort of an older company with a kind of legacy heritage but a really forward looking focus. They actually originally started like 1963 as like a bicycle repair shop, you think, and they do now like ERP solutions for various, various companies. Basically a lot of, you know, like car dealerships and car places where you get your tires are probably using our software. Right. But we're also investing a lot in AI as well. You know, we might have this legacy but that doesn't mean we aren't looking forward. So there's a lot of push to build AI into our products. I'm not sure how many things I can say, but many of our products will have AI in them and we're also enhancing the developer experience with our own, own AI projects as well. Just to make using our uh, products internally a lot easier. A lot of interactions we have, we build out services for example that our other products use. So those kind of require like some onboarding and stuff. So we want to build some kind of things in for that. So basically. But in both like professional and personal, it's definitely seeing where things are going. In AI especially, especially the Northeast, we have a, we have a massive potential. They're building a new AI data center pretty much up from where I work, uh, for OpenAI. I mean OpenAI literally mentioned the business park where I work as one of the places, uh, one of the only places they named was a place in the Northeast and I couldn't believe it. I thought we are on the map. You know what, what, what Clipboard's doing is really interesting. You know, we're kind of building in this kind of new functionality to allow our customers to have the benefits of AI. Ah, just like they would with any other product. You know, basically if you're not building AI into your products, someone else is gonna, you know, it's like, and of course people are gonna start choosing a product. You know, if I can just talk to it, if I can just type in what I want, why would I use this other product? So we're kind of building in that functionality. And as developers we're using GitHub, uh, Copilot, as I said, every day it is, we, we think 40% of accelerators. Basically any time we spent, we're getting 40% more out of that than we would have without it. You know, in the past six months it is uh, it's basically given me a year's worth of development time instead. It's like, it's amazing. And the potential there is just going to grow. We use a variety of different models for different purposes and we also are training our own model because we have our own proprietary programming language. So uh, some of our legacy products have a proprietary cross platform language and there are no examples of this online. You can't just look up online or ask it up. Copilot, can you help me with this code? Because it doesn't know about it. So that's been an interesting challenge. So just all these kind of things just to kind of accelerate our development isn't designed to replace anyone. It merely frees us up. The amount of things I can spend my time on has increased because of AI, because I can do other things that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. But yeah, it's basically onwards and upwards and building out more events of course, writing about them, talking about them on my own podcast as well. Just kind of raising awareness of what's going on here because you know, everywhere is exciting at the moment with AI. Of course it is, but you. But to have my home region to be at the, almost at the forefront of that is something I would hope and dream and wish. But the fact it's a reality is, is brilliant and so definitely more of that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm always thankful for your support Peter and uh, yeah, really appreciate you um, making the trip down and um, it's been great to uh, to know more about your journey. You know, obviously we've known each other for years, but I think today has been great to learn more about you and, and the steps you took to get to where you are now and um, your future plans. I, that clipboard and with the event sound exciting as well. So yeah, thanks again.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's been absolutely great, really enjoyed it. It's been fantastic to go through my journey and uh, hopefully I'll see many more people following my footsteps and I'm happy to encourage people, you know, uh, following in, in sort of my, my route has been great and uh, yeah, hopefully I'll encourage a few more to join me on that programming journey.

Speaker A: I'm sure you will. Thank you.