Dynamics, ISVs, Power Apps, Industry Cloud, and more with Steve Mordue

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06/08/21 • 44 min

Switched On: A Bowdark Podcast

Previous Episode

Introducing Switched On with Paul Modderman and James Wood

James Wood

Super-nerd in SAP and Microsoft technologies for 20+ years!
Computer science undergrad, Master’s degree in software engineering
Started Bowdark in 2006
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Paul Modderman

SAP, cloud, ML, and other various nerdings!
Monkeyed around in college and took 6 years to graduate
Started career in PC fix-it work, moved into application development after a few years
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James and I are both authors of multiple books, check out the company media page to find out more.

What The Heck Do We Want To Do?

Level up ourselves and our listeners with our natural curiosity and amazing guests
Be true to our authentic nerd selves, but don’t just publish zeroes and ones
Get our creative energy out into the universe, and connect with fascinating people

Paul says:

I want to do the things that help our guests, and us, and our listeners learn at a different level.

James says:

I want this to be an environment where we can be naturally curious, and have meaningful conversations.

Next Episode

Progressive Web Apps with Carmen Bourlon

James and I spoke with Carmen Bourlon, a virtuoso developer that just so happens to work with us at Bowdark. Carmen created margiemap.com, which visually illustrates the relationship between income levels and library access. She also wrote Let’s Take This Offline, a book introducing developers to the concepts of service workers and progressive web apps. Buy it!

Highlights

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are less of a technology and more of an idea. A web app should be fast, work offline, and be native-like...and now browsers include technologies that enable that. Foremost among these technologies are the service worker and, to a lesser extent, the manifest file which gives the web app a native-like experience on devices.
Android is especially good in this play. iOS doesn’t have all the same features as Android at this moment, but the important ones are there. You can have a home screen icon, and have service workers (since 2018-ish).
This has great applicability to utilities companies. They are out in random spots all the time — so often without network, even without a cellular data connection. How do I get the information back to HQ? Traditional web app would demand your full connectivity before doing ANYTHING.
The beauty of this middleware is that there’s no cost. It’s just a JavaScript file.
There are tons of cases out there where an existing app can be converted without a full rewrite.
Carmen would love to see the world move closer to peer-to-peer mesh networks for connectivity purposes.