In this episode Chris, Matt and Eric discuss project design, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, ASP.NET MVC, the future of C#... and much more!

• The guys start out by discussing some of the best practices for initial project design.
• Chris and Matt used a Microsoft product called Sketchflow that is part of the Expression Blend family of products.  Another popular screen layout program is Balsamiq Mockups.
• Writing specs can be an important part of the design process, even though some developers dislike this part.
• Now that Chris and Matt have more experience with ASP.NET MVC, they talk about what they like and dislike about it, as well as how the repository pattern has helped with their current process.
• Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is out now, and is a huge improvement over Beta 1.
• One of things we like about C# is how much it evolves as a language, which is also one of the things a lot of developers dislike.  One of the articles discussed is K. Scott Allen's article about where C# is in the development lifecycle.
• To wrap up the podcast, the guys discuss DJ Hero and The Beatles Rock Band.

If you have a question for the podcast, please send an e-mail to podcast@craftycoders.com.  You can either send your question in text form, or record it and send us the audio file.

Download Podcast #6 MP3

In the inaugural episode of the Crafty Coders podcast, Matt, Chris and Eric discuss ASP.NET MVC vs Web Forms, Windows 7, Chrome OS and Bing.

• Chris and Matt discuss what the ASP.NET MVC framework is, and how it relates to Web Forms.  ASP.NET MVC is not a replacement for Web Forms.  A lot of people still think this.
• Windows 7 is set for release in October.  Why do there have to be so many different versions?  In our opinion, Windows 7 is a great improvement over Microsoft's previous OS's.
• Google recently announced ChromeOS, but have not set any type of release date.  What is ChromeOS, and will it affect the current market?
• Microsoft recently rebranded Live search as Bing, and we assume they made changes to the searching algorithms.  While the Bing interface has some cool stuff, the results have not been near as good as Google.  You can search both side by side at http://www.bing-vs-google.com/.

If you have a question or comment for the podcast, please send an e-mail to podcast@craftycoders.com.  You can either send your question/comment in text form, or record it and send us the audio file.  If we do not have time to answer your question on the podcast, we will at least attempt to reply to you via e-mail.

Download Podcast #1 MP3

Note: The podcast is not yet available on iTunes, but will be soon!