August 2018

Volume 33 Number 8

ASP.NET Core - What's New in ASP.NET Core 2.1

[ASP.NET Core]

What's New in ASP.NET Core 2.1

Steve Smith

From Razor UI and identity improvements, to updates to Webhooks and Web APIs, the latest version of ASP.NET Core advances the state of the art in Microsoft's Web application framework.

Data Points - Deep Dive into EF Core HasData SeedingColumn

[Data Points]

Deep Dive into EF Core HasData Seeding

Julie Lerman

The ability to seed data when running migrations disappeared in in the transition from EF6 to EF Core. Now EF Core 2.1 brings a new mechanism that’s a nice improvement over the workflow that existed in earlier versions of Entity Framework.

Blockchain - Blockchain Fundamentals: Diving into Transaction Hash Chains

[Blockchain]

Blockchain Fundamentals: Diving into Transaction Hash Chains

Jonathan Waldman

Jonathan Waldman extends his exploration of blockchain technology, focusing on transaction hash chains, the role of the transaction pool, and how a longest blockchain always prevails.

Artificially Intelligent - Exploring the Custom Vision ServiceColumn

[Artificially Intelligent]

Exploring the Custom Vision Service

Frank La

Frank La Vigne shows how to create, train and refine complex visual models that can detect specific visual characteristics, using the Custom Vision Service.

HoloLens - Mixed Reality and Fluent Design

[HoloLens]

Mixed Reality and Fluent Design

Tim Kulp

Mixed reality (MR) applications were front and center at the Build 2018 conference. Tim Kulp expands on those use cases, implementing the components to build MR UI based on Fluent Design principles using the Mixed Reality Toolkit and HoloLens.

Cutting Edge - Social-Style Notifications with ASP.NET Core SignalRColumn

[Cutting Edge]

Social-Style Notifications with ASP.NET Core SignalR

Dino Esposito

Want to enrich your Web application with social network-style notifications? Dino Esposito shows you how to make it happen with ASP.NET Core SignalR.

Test Run - Introduction to Q-Learning Using C\#Column

[Test Run]

Introduction to Q-Learning Using C#

James McCaffrey

Reinforcement learning (RL) tackles problems lacking explicit training data with known, correct output values. James McCaffrey explains how Q-learning can be used to solve some types of RL problems.

Don't Get Me Started - Sing in Me, MuseColumn

[Don't Get Me Started]

Sing in Me, Muse

David S. Platt

David Platt asks, what ancient Greek muse might inspire software developers? Finding none, he posits a muse of his own: Monomidene.

Editor's Note - Cover of the Rolling StoneColumn

[Editor's Note]

Cover of the Rolling Stone

Michael Desmond

MSDN Magazine offers talented developers a platform to share their hard-won insights with the community. Do you have an innovative solution or approach that can help developers in their jobs? We'd love to hear about it.