BOOST Vibe (#56)

Episode Transcript
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Ulrikke (00:01):
and sometimes I feel like, okay, so that's what it's
like to be you, like that's usall the time.
It's like I'll just come inthere, just random, just hit you
with a million different startsof sentences and you're left
being like am I supposed to makesense of all this?

Nick (00:14):
but somehow you do, I, I, oh, all too well, we could.
We could probably talk forabout two hours on this, but
we're uh, that's not the type ofpodcast we do.

Ulrikke (00:23):
I know, I just I we probably going to cut it out,
but I just need to find the linkto that Instagram.
Paul's now share it with youbecause it's so much fun.
I think people are going torelate to it.
Okay, so sorry Digress, let'sdive into the Sorry.

Nick (00:36):
Go ahead.

Ulrikke (00:37):
No, Okay.
So people listening in everyweek now knows us well enough to
kind of this is okay, I think.
Hello everyone and welcome tothe Power Platform Boost podcast

(01:08):
, your timely source of PowerPlatform news and updates, with
your hosts Nick Doelman andUlrikke Akerbæk.
Hey, Hello, Hello, how are you?

Nick (01:20):
I'm good, thanks Another day.

Ulrikke (01:27):
Holy shit, what happened in AI the past two
weeks.
Are we going to rename thepodcast anytime soon?
Do you think?

Nick (01:31):
Well then, that means we have to update our tattoos as
well.
So maybe not we're still goingto be boost, but maybe we're
still going to be boost.

Ulrikke (01:38):
What about AI boost, copilot boost?

Nick (01:41):
I don't know, it could be anything boost yeah, or talk
about food foodies like let's dothat instead.
That seems seems more fun boostfoodie boost, right, okay?

Ulrikke (01:51):
um no, we're not going to do that, because we're all
about power platform yet.
At least maybe we just call itvibe boost, because then we can
combine two things that we'regoing to talk about.

Nick (02:02):
So yeah, and that's kind of how we do this podcast right.
We just sort of vibe with it,right, we get in.
We just we have an idea of whatwe're going to do.

Ulrikke (02:09):
I get nauseous, it's just.
I get nauseous just saying whyat this point.
But that's okay, becauseactually so.
The point is, this is so newthat the last time we recorded
an episode it wasn't reallyactually a thing yet.
And then the last two weeks.
It's just exploded, so let'sget on with the thing and then

(02:30):
we'll come.
Come to that when we come to it, kind of thing.
Yep, and of course my hair isnow right, okay so let's dive in
with the first one.
Yeah, I know, you cut your hairvery, very good, very short and
short and sweet, just like you.
No, you're not short, butyou're sweet.
Okay, so you want to kick offat the beginning?
We have Power Apps.
You saw something from AndrewPatinko?

Nick (02:51):
Yes, good friend, andrew Patinko, about embedding PCF
controls into the sitemap, whichit's interesting because I
think he kind of took somethinghe saw and then kind of ran with
it a little bit.
And what's really cool is weall know, for creating this is
going in the context of creatingmodel-driven power apps and
there's the whole.
We can do the site, we canpoint it to custom pages, we can

(03:14):
point it to Dataverse tables.
But he's taken it a stepfurther where he wanted to embed
an actual PCF control and ofcourse, we can do navigation
links as well.
I do that a lot when I'mbuilding model-driven apps.
If you need to navigate outside,the model-driven app is
somewhere else.
So he's taken that navigationlink and he wanted to point that
to an embedded PCF and he was.

(03:35):
You know.
Of course he has that URLparameter.
He got the hello world, butthen talk more about passing
additional parameters using theXtrem Navigate 2.
It's really an interestingprocess here in terms of how
it's being supported and stuff.
I think he might have addressedthis, but basically it's kind
of like instead of building notinstead of, but very much like
building custom pages.

(03:56):
You'll be able to navigatedirectly to a PCF control into
your model-driven app directlyfrom the site map and directly
get to it.
Of course, when you and Ifinally ramp ourselves up on PCF
controls, like we said we weregoing to since last December and
maybe we'll, maybe we'll vibecode that too, but again, I'll
try not to.

Ulrikke (04:14):
Yeah, why not?
I mean, come on, I'm not goingto learn React at this point.
There's no point.
So, yeah, I'm just going to.
If I'm going to do it, it'sgoing to have to be a vibe
coding, yeah, yeah, so we'll putthat link in the show notes.

Nick (04:24):
So if you're building PCF controls and you want another
way for your users to accessthis, check out that post by
Andrew.
He is a very smart guy, reallygreat guy, too and check out his
other content as well.
He's one of the probably one ofthe top developers that I know
in the power platform space.
So thanks, andrew for postingthat.

Ulrikke (04:43):
Yeah, very much.
And also I saw something fromScott Martin today on LinkedIn
which he alerts everyone thatrich text fields is now
deprecated and you have to usethe modern controls instead.
So if you have rich text fieldcomponents on your model open
app and you're using it, thenyou have to remove it.

(05:03):
I think it was April 18th orsomething.
It's pretty crazy, so it'saround these days.
So just make sure to check yourexisting solutions for that and
replace it with a new one.

Nick (05:13):
Yeah, I think it had to do with security, so that's why
there was the big rush on it.
And it's interesting becausethis isn't the first time
Microsoft has swapped out therich text editor.
It used to be based onsomething called TinyMCE a few
years ago.
Maybe I'm rememberingincorrectly, but I think that's
what it was, and I think thatwas more due to a licensing

(05:34):
issue.
So hopefully this will be thelast time we have to worry about
rich text controls, but whoknows, it's always an exciting
and bumpy ride.

Ulrikke (05:42):
Yeah, but also, scott, he points his finger at
something which is alsoimportant.
So, for instance, some of usare using this for data being
pulled dynamically intoPowerPages, but the junk tag are
ruining that functionality.
And he's quoting thedocumentation saying you can
customize the editor'sexperience, features and
behavior.
The control's modern textexperience is shown in the

(06:04):
following screenshot.
Except you can't anymore.
He says so it's too much toexpect.
That feature partly is achievedprior to deprecation,
apparently, and it's.
And then he kind of shows thefinger and it says the price of
co-pilot.
Everything else goes to beep.
So because and it also bringsup something, the event
management functionality andoutbound marketing and stuff.

(06:25):
So I think it's one of thosesituations where, yes, they're
deprecating something somewhere,but then they don't know
exactly what that implicates onother systems and maybe there's
not really a replacement either.
It's good that people put afinger on this and highlight it
for sure.

Nick (06:41):
Yeah, so before we leave the PowerApp, something fun from
our friend.

Ulrikke (06:44):
Anna.

Nick (06:44):
Black and we dove into some serious stuff right away,
but I think she did somethingreally cool.
Now I do realize we're now wellinto April and April Fool's Day
is past, but still I think thisis a really cool post of what
she did.
Let me see if I had it here.
Here we go About how she had alot of the naming conventions

(07:06):
and things that we do, but shedid kind of a really cool April
Fool's post.
Like very much sarcasm and justI'm going to pull up like read
for that.
We'll put the link but read itfor yourself.
But like talk about classicworkflow, the old school
automation.
That's definitely beingdeprecated next month or the
month after that, or maybe never.
Honestly, at this point it'sless of a feature and more of a

(07:26):
legend whispered among betterdevs.
It's true, I still use classicworkflows, still running strong
and prod, still feared at dev.
It's true it's like but it'skind of a tug of cheek, but of
course there's a lot of honestyin this.
She talks about, of course,auditing business rules.
We'll talk about business rulesin a bit, maybe Copilot, custom
connector, data, duplicatedetection.

(07:46):
Oh yeah, dataverse.
It sounds like a Marvel spinoff, so it is.

Ulrikke (07:51):
You have the multiverse and you have the Dataverse.

Nick (07:53):
Exactly.
Oh yeah, solution layers.
It's like lasagna, but if youmess up the order, the genes
ends up in dev and the sauce iscrying in pride.
So true.

Ulrikke (08:03):
So funny.
Yeah, very good.
Thank you, anna.
I actually proposed using oldschool workflows for something
the other day.
I can't remember what use caseit was.
And then the young dev wentwhat the what now?
So we're in Power.
I can't find it in PowerAutomate.
I'm like no, no, no, no, you'rea summer child, let me show you
the old interface.

(08:23):
And then he went what?

Nick (08:24):
Yes, old interface, but it does cool things.
So for all you kids out there,if you want to get some
synchronous workflows going,remember classic workflows.

Ulrikke (08:35):
Yeah, and then I'm like I'm showing them in the
solution they go.
So why is it under processes?
I'm like don't ask too manyquestions, Just point and click
and laugh and smile.
Okay, Yep.

Nick (08:45):
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Ulrikke (08:46):
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
All right, moving on tosomething a lot more fun.
Next on the list is Power PagesDark Mode by Colm Harrison, and
I love to see posts about PowerPages and styling and branding.
It makes me all goofy and happyand chibi, because he has a few
blog posts about.
So this one is about how youcan enable dark mode for
PowerPages.
He has a little script on thepage where it allows the user to

(09:09):
toggle between dark mode andlight mode, and it starts the
post by saying how I think itwas.
70% of users on mobile deviceshave dark mode as their default,
so this is kind of how you canhelp PowerPages adhere to some
of that for your users.
And also he has another blogpost of how to use the bootstrap
styling engine so you canactually have it look a little

(09:33):
more up to date maybe than thedefault bootstrap blue and yeah.

Nick (09:38):
So good job, colm, colm, and keep it up, and I'll make
sure to share whatever niceposts you make over our power
pages styling yeah, awesome,looks very cool and like I love
posts where I see blocks of code, that's great and just cut and
paste the code and go with it sointeresting.
It kind of ironic, because thenext one you're talking about a

(09:59):
pcf component, uploading blobs,and you and I were just fighting
with the file upload pre, likeactually right before recording
this podcast, because it's youwere trying to set this up and
I'm like, yeah, just follow thedocumentation, it should work.
And then I went through tofollow the documentation and
we're running to a few littleweird blockers.
So we're we're currently in astate of did something change or

(10:20):
did we miss something?
I think something, something'schanged, but anyways, let's talk
about this PCF component thatyou stumbled across.

Ulrikke (10:28):
Because this is ironic.
I put this link in here liketwo weeks ago, just immediately
after we recorded the last one,and then I've been working with
the Azure guy to get this up andrunning so that you can upload
images from a basic form inPower Pages and have it upload
to Azure Blob Storage.
Of course the scenario isexpenses and receipts, right and

(10:50):
so, and then preparing torecord this with you, I'm like
going through a list and I gowait, there's a PCF for that.
Because another PCF, I shouldsay.
So someone created a new PCFcomponent that upload file
directly to Azure Blob Storage.
It supports files up to 10gigabytes.
It's built on the PowerPagesfile API secure, standard-based
can do.
With PowerPages you have muchmore granular controls of what

(11:31):
external services you want tointeract with and also what kind
of course you will allow forthose services, both on
PowerPages and in the Azuresetup.
So you can have a pretty narrowkind of straw between the two.
So I guess this is fullysupported.
I can't see any reasons why not,and it's a custom experience
that you can set up if you don'tthink that the out of the box

(11:54):
thing is good enough.
So of course I'll put a link toit in the show notes and it's
in the PCF gallery.
You can go in and download it.
And, of course, if you ever goin and download and use one of
these components in your ownsolution, if you ever go in and
download and use one of thesecomponents in your own solution,
you are responsible forchecking the code, making sure
that it adheres to your securitystandards.
No code, as with everythingelse, if it's created by an AI

(12:15):
bot or it's by coded, or if onStack Overflow, whatever it is
If you put something in yourproduction environment, you are
responsible for it.
So make sure that you doublecheck with your security people
if this is good enough for youruse case.
But yeah, keep the PCF comingpeople.

Nick (12:34):
It's all good.
It was Richard Wilson thatposted that.
I'm not sure if he mentionedhis name yet, but he's got the
GitHub link in the PCF galleryand we'll repost that as well.

Ulrikke (12:40):
So that's all good and well, and I see that the next
few here are on me, so let mejust, let's just dive into this
now.

Nick (12:51):
Do you want to talk about the ALM stuff first and then we
can dive into all the otherstuff?

Ulrikke (12:55):
Because now I put that link in there, but I don't know
what this is.
So this you can, maybe you cantell me, Okay, so let me tell
you.
I put a link, so I put don'tlaugh at me.

Nick (13:04):
This is how yep, this is how we come, this is how we work
, this is how we roll.
Well, that looks interesting.
Let's just paste that in let'sfuture Nick.
You know if I can figure thatout.

Ulrikke (13:13):
And I saw this video on Instagram the other day.
A guy put up a camera and it'sfacing him sitting on the sofa
with a TV and a ball of food,and he's like and the tagline is
what it's like to live withsomeone with ADHD and a
non-neurotypical person.
That's what it was.
So he's sitting there enjoyinghis meal, right, and then his
girlfriend comes in and then shesays so you know the thing with

(13:35):
the, you know, so the weekend,the dog, cause the cage in the
car, cause of the cabin, and yousee the guy go, and then she
looks at him and she goes what?
And then she walks away andhe's like okay, just resume
eating, just pretend like itdidn't happen.
She comes rushing in again, sitsdown next to him and then he's
looking at her and she goes what, why don't you turn on the

(13:55):
start to show?
And he's like well, I thoughtwe were planning the weekend
with the car, the dog.
And she's like no, no, we'reeating watching a show.
Come on, put play.
He's like okay, I'll push play.
And then she gets up and shewalks out again and he's like
and then she comes back and shegoes because the car won't work,
because my mom on the weekend.
He's like so now we're planningthe trip, and then he starts

(14:15):
laughing and then she sees thecamera and she just punches and
sometimes I feel like, okay, sothat's what it's like to be you.
I'm like that's awesome.
All the time it's like I'lljust come in there just random,
just hit you with a milliondifferent starts of sentences
and you're left being like am Isupposed to make sense of all of
this?

Nick (14:36):
But somehow you do All too well.
We could probably talk forabout two hours on this, but
that's not the type of podcastwe do.

Ulrikke (14:44):
I know we're probably going to cut it out, but I just
need to find the link to thatinstagram polls now share it
with you because it's so muchfun.
I think you know people aregoing to relate to it, okay, so
sorry.
Digress done, let's dive intothe sorry go ahead no, okay.
So people listening in everyweek now knows as well enough to
to kind.
This is okay.

(15:04):
Okay, using map files in ALM byBenedict Bergman.
It has to do with a dataverseand part platform in ALM and
then I don't.
I just I don't know what it is.
So can you tell me what this isall about?
Sometimes I'll, because I know,because I've run into it, I ran
into it so many times.
I have something.
I'll download something andthen it has a map.

(15:26):
There's this map, something,something missing.
I think that this has to dowith that.
Do you get what this is?
Using map file in ALM.

Nick (15:37):
It's funny because I saw this, this post I thought, ooh,
this looks cool.
I copied the link, I went toOneNote and then I saw that you
already pasted it, so like, okay, cool, but yeah.
So basically, with the mapfiles, it's.
Let's just say this yes, weknow map files are a thing in
ALM.
Basically, what Benedict hasdone is he's written a very good

(15:58):
blog post to go through theentire process and explain it
about how you know to uploadbinaries like web resources and
plugins correctly into yoursource control using a map file
as part of your ALM process.
So, as opposed to me badlybutchering it and I'm sorry,
benedict for doing that pleaseread his post and it will help

(16:18):
explain this whole process.
If it is something you'reworking on, setting up your ALM,
you're working on creating apro code, plugins and web
resources and how to get thoseproperly into DevOps.

Ulrikke (16:28):
All right, okay, let's leave it at that.
Perfect.
And also, I saw you know it issomething that we have talked
about ALM for a while, and thenit put up a new resource.
I'm sure it's something thatsomeone needed, as we're
highlighting it, but we don'tfully understand what it is

(16:50):
about.
But it's that doesn't matter,it's no problem.
All right, let's move on tosomething that I still.
On the same kind of note, Idon't really do a lot of
automated testing and automatedtesting in Power Platform as
something I've seen and gottenexcited about so many times, but
I still haven't had the time towrap my head around it, and
that's also because it's notreally.
It's, of course, something thatI need to be aware of.
But also on the teams that I'mworking on currently, we have
people that have dedicated rolesthat do this for us in the

(17:11):
project.
So that means back in the dayit used to be Power Platform,
developers kind of had to knoweverything about everything, but
right now it's more role-basedand it's more nuanced than that.
So the PowerCat team puttogether a resource about
automated testing.
So if you're into that and thatyou're kind of in that role,
then check that out, becausethere's a kit.
There's an automated testing kitthat you can deploy to your

(17:33):
environment which allows you toset up automated testing for
Power Platform and is reallypowerful, absolutely so powerful
.
And with the advent of webcoding and AI driven development
, it is not.
It is more less than as commonto understand what the code does
.
As long as it works, we'rehappy.
So having an automated testingsetup to make sure that the new
things you introduce to yourenvironment doesn't break other

(17:54):
things, for instance, is veryimportant.
So please have a look at thatand, yeah, happy coding.

Nick (17:59):
Yeah, no, there's a lot of great tools but again, like I
think with anything and this is,this is great that there's
another resource the thing iswith testing is it doesn't
happen as often in terms ofautomated testing, because I
think there's a lot of resourcesand effort to set it up.
So it's a case this is almost aprime example of we're too busy
cutting down trees to sharpenthe saw or find a more efficient

(18:23):
process, because we get intovery much.
I think we get into projectswhere we're very results driven
and the result is get the codeworking and it's I hate to say
it, but it's almost test andprod, and I've seen that happen
in the past where let's get itworking, we do some rudimentary
testing, everything works, andthen let's deploy it and sort of
see what happens.
This, you know, the idea ofautomated testing is to provide

(18:46):
a much more rigorous process soit can go through and you know,
without having a user having togo through all of these steps to
retest something, when we add anew feature or we add new
capabilities or we fix a bug,that that bug fix doesn't break
other things.
It's sort of like.
Then it becomes tedious, it'ssort of again.
You're doing the same thingmore than once.
Now maybe it's time to automateit.

(19:07):
And this is where a lot ofthese test kits and things like
Playwright for automated testingand a bunch of other tools are
really would help out.
And again, there's thesetoolkits like.
What the Powercat team isproviding is helping reduce that
length of time to set up thetesting process, to make it, I
would say, economical tointroduce into a project and
make it just a fact of life.

(19:28):
I don't think in a lot of thePower Platform projects I've
been involved with, they're notquite mature to the point where
and the tools of course, weren'tmature as well.
It's sort of like, wow, thatseems like a lot of work to you
know what's our payoff on this?
And it definitely.
There is the huge payoff, butit does take a bit to get there.

Ulrikke (19:45):
So thanks for the part yeah, but you look at the time
yeah, absolutely.
But you look at the time for acurrent project that we're on
that we're now spending creatingchecklists.
Every time we deploy toproduction, we want to make sure
that we've run our tests.
So we're putting that together.
Imagine we make this set up ina test environment and for our
tester or QA person to haveaccess to it.
So every time we run toproduction, every time we have a

(20:07):
release, he just runs thisautomatically.
And now my next question is,then, because our biggest
challenge has always been testdata.
So does this automated testingthen include saturation of data
and making sure that your testdata is reset?
Does it have solutions andpackages for that as well?
Because that is kind of the bigAchilles heel when it comes to
testing, in my view, in myexperience, is that we never

(20:29):
have enough and good enoughquality of test data to test on,
and that's why, like I said,it's testing in production.
Yes, the integration works.
Yes, we know that the key isright and, yes, we know that
this automation is set upcorrectly.
Now the test data is kind ofwhere the crux is.
So, yeah, I think this issomething I would really look

(20:50):
into if I was in a position as atester for one of our projects
at least.

Nick (20:55):
That's a great point because you're absolutely right.
That's always been the issue.
It's like, yes, we set up atest environment, yes, we can do
solutions, deploy super nicelyall the code, mapping files, the
whole bit.
We can deploy that to ourdownstream environments.
But then of course, the datagets old.
All of a sudden we've created abunch of new test records how
many, like you know confessiontime?

(21:16):
How many people in their testsystems have Homer Simpson and
Bart Simpson as contacts intheir test data, with a whole
bunch of, like donations ormemberships or renewals or, you
know, grant applications and allof a sudden you start having
this test data and it becomesvery messy very fast.
I've worked a little bit in someof my training environments

(21:37):
where I've set up power automateflows that will go through and
clear out all the test data andreset it.
But that also takes a long timeto set up, living in and what I
love one of the things I useChatGPT for or you can do this
in Copilot as well is togenerate test data.
Give me 100 records followingthis pattern using these fields,

(21:57):
and it will generate for me,like you know, an actual file
that I can upload into Dataverse.
That's really cool, but thenthat still is how do we clear
out the old data and how do weautomate all of that?
So, yeah, I don't know if thisparticular framework has that,
but again, this is, you know, Ithink, in terms of test data,
that's something that I believethis is where AI can really get
the tedium out of it is bygenerating that test data, and

(22:20):
because that to me is, you'reabsolutely right, one of the
biggest challenges in terms ofautomated testing.

Ulrikke (22:25):
Well, you look at something like planDesigner and
you would think that it would beable to kind of create that for
you.
So once we have the ERD diagramand we have the data model set
up and it understands the wholesetup that we have in Dataverse,
how about being able to go inthrough PlanDesigner and say,
hey, produce test data.
Because we have situations inDev and some of our customers

(22:47):
where you know that something'sgoing to fail in dev because the
data isn't correct.
The hierarchy between somethingchanged and the core data is
not updated yet.
So you know you expect thatflow to fail and then you kind
of have to rely on the fact thatyou know that it's going to
work in UIT and test and youhave to test it there before you
move it on because something'snot fully baked or there's a

(23:07):
discrepancy between theenvironments.
So I think this is kind ofwhere best practices and the
real world collides or separates, because yes, we know it's not
best practice, but in the heatof the moment when you're
running a real project,sometimes these are the things
that come up in the real world.
That isn't best practices andisn't documented anywhere.
And also just wanted to sorry.

Nick (23:26):
No, I was talking about test data.
The whole other avenue to this,too, is, of course, anonymizing
that test data Like, yes, youcan harvest data from your
production to bring into yourdev and test for testing and
development, but all of a sudden, if you're using real world
names and things like that,there becomes compliance issues,
gdpr issues, that type of thing.

(23:46):
So, yeah, there are tools outthere that will anonymize all
that, but that's another wrinklein the ointment of this test
data and why we have the HomerSimpsons and Captain Americas
and everybody sitting in ourtest data as well.

Ulrikke (23:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I totally get that.
And also, I mean I think it wasMatthias Tolgaard-Bern which
had a blog post a few years backon how he's using ADO, so Azure
DevOps, to deploy test data tohis environments.
So I mean that's anotherapproach, right?
You have the data set alreadyready to go and you just deploy

(24:19):
it with Azure DevOps pipelines.
So there is a myriad ofdifferent approaches and, of
course, someone listeningthinking you know what actually
I do this and this works so wellin my project.
Let us know, because this issomething that we're really into
and very curious about.
So how do you use automatedtesting in your platform
environments?
Do you use AI?
How do you anonymize?
I would love to see morecontent around this coming out,

(24:40):
and also comments in the in thecomment section below, where you
saw this post, because this isreally top of mind for us.
So we would love to see morecontent around this.

Nick (24:49):
Yes, for sure.

Ulrikke (24:50):
And moving on, while talking about Copilot and AI and
stuff, you want to dive intothe vibe coding one.

Nick (24:59):
Yeah, because this is the thing that we were going to talk
about it being a new thing, itbeing a bunch of different
things.
So, of course, I started seeingon YouTube and a few other
talks and even some of the I've.
I started seeing on YouTube anda few other talks and even some
some of the Microsoftannouncements.
They started talking about thisconcept of vibe coding and like
hey, what, what really is this?
And then there was even a linkthat it came off pretty early

(25:21):
after our last episode by hiredguntech is.
The name of the gentleman is,um, ah, chris Harper, and he was
in Bermuda actually, and Ilived in Bermuda a little bit
over 20 years ago, so I'm notsure if we ever crossed paths or
not, I'm not sure how long hewas there, and he has a lot of

(25:41):
interesting other posts on thePower Platform.
So it's kind of good to stumble.
I like stumbling across contentof people that I've not crossed
paths with before, so sometimesyou get some surprises.
So check out Chris's blog post.
He's got a lot of good onesthere and he's talking about
extending PowerPlot from usingVibe coding and I'm like, okay,

(26:02):
what's more of this whole Vibecoding?
And he's talking about usingPython.
Python is one of theselanguages that have always been
sort of outside of my radar, butnow it's in our face, without
giving away too many statesecrets.
At MVP Summit it was kind of, Ithink, heavily hinted that
learning Python would beactually a good thing,
especially for us working in thePower Platform.
So I don't think that's toomuch of a secret, based on the

(26:25):
content coming back.
But Chris explained a little bitabout what vibe coding is,
about it not being a formalmethodology or framework.
He gave some other examples,some YouTube videos, and this is
the rabbit hole that I thinkyou and I sometimes fall down
right.
So basically, the idea is andthis is again how I'm
interpreting it is you're usingAI tools to generate code.

(26:46):
That's not really new.
We've been doing GitHub Copilot.
We have the Copilots built intoPowerPages and some other
things where we could say youknow, write me some JavaScript
to you know, highlight this linein a list in a PowerPages or
even GitHub Copilot.
We saw that we talked aboutbefore the example at Power
Platform Conference a year ortwo years ago about how he

(27:07):
created the Nokia snake gamejust by interacting with Copilot
.
The whole idea of vibe codingis, from how I interpret, is
taking it to the next level,where you don't need to even be
a coder, you don't need tonecessarily know what you're
doing in terms of the codeitself.
You still need to know whatexactly your inputs, your
outputs are.
And then there was actually aYouTube video of someone

(27:29):
creating forget the guy's name,but it was Matthew Berman, who I
think is well known on YouTube.
He went through and createdTetris using a voice command and
basically back and forth, andevery time the compiler came
back with an error or somethingwent wrong, the screen rendered
a little bit wrong.
He went back and basicallydescribed the error, even cut
and paste the error back intothe AI and went through the

(27:50):
process of fixing it, even tothe point where he told the AI
to create an AI to play the gameof Tetris.
It did a horrible.
It didn't do well playingTetris, but you get the idea.
And so it still wasn't perfect,there were still a lot of
things, but we're getting to thepoint where AI is almost, I'd
say, a new interface forcreating software applications.

(28:13):
I actually ran into this lastweek.
In a sense.
What happened was and I haveactually I did a video and I did
a blog post and kind of so forthose of you who read and
watched that, you can fastforward a bit because I'm just
going to repeat the story.
But I was working with somecolleagues and they were trying
to look at some existingbusiness rules.
They needed to extend it,basically to hide and showed
some fields in a model-drivenapp, but it was actually based

(28:34):
on related data.
So we're looking at, yeah,business rules weren't going to
cut it.
It was a little bit toocomplicated.
And for those of you who'vedone business rules before,
you've seen that old interface Ithink it was one of Anna
Black's things in one of hercards or her April Fool's joke.
Business rules has been aroundfor probably 10, over 10 years
in CRM before.
It's meant to be a way that abusiness user or a functional

(28:58):
consultant can actually buildsome logic within a model-driven
app.
It works well for what it does,but it really you run into
blockers and you run intoroadblocks very quickly.
So then the next step is okay,we need to write JavaScript code
, client-side JavaScript codeand model-driven apps that we've
been doing in CRM since thedawn of time.
But then we get into okay,javascript, that's a pro code.

(29:20):
We want to do a low code, nocode approach first.
So that's why I've seen in alot of projects they'll try to
do as much as they can inbusiness rules and then when
they get stuck, then they moveon to JavaScript.
The problem is JavaScript andbusiness rules don't play well
nice, because especially ifyou're manipulating fields, but
that's a whole other segue.
So basically we were sort oftalking.
I said, yeah, we're going toneed to use JavaScript for this,

(29:40):
and the team was like, okay, wewant to get more ramped up onto
this.
So this is something we'll takeon.
And I said, no problem, I'llwrite up the.
I'll write up what you need todo, kind of break it down how
you should.
You know kind of the businesslogic, just to make sure we're
all in agreement.
I started writing it out andjust kind of pulling the schema
names and the field names andI'm like to put into our Azure
DevOps as a task and I'm likewait a minute, I'm going to

(30:03):
write this as a prompt.
And then I wrote it as yourPower Platform developer, you
need to hide and show thesefields based on the data that's
in this related table that'snamed.
This based on the field that'srelated to this.
Put it in a chat.
Gpt chunked around, boom,here's the JavaScript with
nicely named variable names.
Here every line was completelydocumented.

(30:25):
Then it gave me a whole sectionof here's how your code works,
and then another section here'show you upload the web resource
into your model driven app andactivate the function.
Everything like that.
I do this every day, but thatliterally would have taken me a
couple hours in terms of testingand back and forth.
That's generated in a matter ofminutes.
That means I think anybody thatcan follow instructions or knows

(30:46):
logic without knowingJavaScript necessarily could go
through that process and thatcode work right away.
Very simple example.
If I was something a lot morecomplex, there'd probably need
to be a little bit moreiteration.
I might actually need to divein and fix the code a little bit
, but this to me was like wait aminute, this is vibe coding.
And if we now have this vibecoding, why would anybody use
business rules ever again?

(31:07):
Because this way a regularfunctional consultant can
actually go in, describe theneed, have it, generate the code
without them necessarilyneeding to know the code.
And I know this puts a lot ofpeople on edge, and rightly so,
but then you're going to copyand paste and put that in to
your model driven app and awayyou go.
So that kind of got me thinkingwhy do we even need Power

(31:29):
Platform?
Why do we even need to buildapps?
Why can't I get to a pointwhere I can just go to an AI
tool and say build me an app,build me a website, and it will
generate that all for me?
Now the nice thing is, withDataverse and the Power Platform
, we have built-in security, wehave governance, we have things
like caching.
We have all of these mechanismsthat Microsoft has spent big
teams and big number of yearsbuilding, so let's continue to

(31:51):
utilize that.
But in terms of the low code,yes, I still think we're going
to build Canvas apps, but Ithink already, if I go into even
Power Apps, the main tool tocreate tables right away
Copilot's in my face.
So we're getting to the pointwhere AI is beginning to do a
lot for us, and how much do wereally need to know?
To the point where AI isbeginning to do a lot for us and

(32:12):
how much do we really need toknow, and that, I think for some
is scary, but I think it alsoopens up a lot of opportunities
for people that have the logicalskills to build very powerful
business applications withouthaving to know necessarily all
the tools.
So for me, the vibe coding andAI is yet just a.
You can call it whatever youwant, but basically it's a new
tool to create code.
So I've talked for way too long.

(32:33):
What's your thoughts andopinion on this?

Ulrikke (32:36):
Yeah.
So let me just backtrack alittle bit and talk about the
difference between AI-drivendevelopment and vibe coding.
So vibe coding is where youhave no idea about custom rules
or business rules or anything.
You just have a need and youjust ask the co-pilot.
You know, help me out.
So the fact that you can writethe prompt and you know the
column names, you know the setup, you know what you want, you

(32:58):
can describe it as a developertalking to a junior dev.
It's not vibe coding.
In my world, Trying to getChatty Petit to kind of distinct
between the two, vibe coding ismore about I have no idea what
I'm doing.
I don't care about the code, Ijust want to make something and
you just have a conversationwith a bot and then it creates
something you need and then offyou go.
The fact that you can actuallysee the code and work with the
code and implement it, it's notexactly vibe coding.

(33:20):
It's like you said.
It's something we've been bitof a different thing, but also
it's.
It's also kind of putting anemphasis on where we're going

(33:41):
and I absolutely agree with you.
I think low code as a thing andI think kind of Canvas app is
the first thing to go.
I mean, you see how far you canget with something using just
Azure Copilot and then sorry,GitHub Copilot and just
deploying it to an Azureresource.
I've had a few geeking outsessions with a friend of mine
and, yeah, he's shown me howeasy it is, because I'm not a

(34:01):
pro coder so I really don't knowwhere to start.
And just to see how far he canget with just sitting down with
a bot and just creating whatever, None of us looked at the code
and suddenly we had a game wecould play.
It's kind of crazy, but alsoit's different when you know the
requirements.
So just wanted to kind ofbacktrack and put those two
different things intoperspective.

(34:21):
But yeah, I fully agree.
I think, if anything, like yousaid, Power Platform has a place
in this, because I still don'tsee that these AI services are
good enough thinking aboutsecurity.
I don't think they're goodenough in terms of accessibility
.
I don't think they're goodenough in terms of enabling
other developers to kind of editit right.

(34:43):
So I've seen a lot of use caseswhere someone's very happy
about something and then they goin trying to fix one little
thing a week later and thensuddenly rewrites from the
beginning or just mucks it allup or so.
The the kind of maintenance ofit is a bit fuzzy to me and I
think also the co-pilotexperiences we have in the
designers are going tocompletely disappear because

(35:04):
they don't really add any valueanyways.
Um, so I don't know.
I I love the idea and I am so.
Just from last week until thisweek I've used CoPilot and sorry
ChatDVT a lot more and I'm kindof embracing this more now than
I used to.
I think I've been on the fence alittle bit, but just having
those geek out sessions andconversations with other people

(35:26):
in the community that are kindof leading the way a little bit
has opened my eyes to see thatno, this is not something we're
going to stop and this is just anatural evolution of everything
.
And we've been here before.
It was with the printingprofession, it was with the
graphical design going digitalright.
So there's so many tools and somany jobs that have disappeared
over the years with this kindof evolution.

(35:46):
This is just another one ofthose have disappeared over the
years with this kind ofevolution.
This is just another one ofthose.
And yeah, it's going to takepeople's jobs away, but they're
going to create a myriad ofother jobs, so I'm not really
worried and I'm more optimisticnow that I've been forever about
this what gets me?

Nick (35:59):
and you're, I'm going to the same way, cause you know me,
I was kind of like it's notthat I didn't get it, I get it,
but it doesn't excite me as much, because I love going into code
, I love to debug the littlethings and that kind of and all
of that and and and I know, andso I just want to make it
publicly clear that the sticksshift analogy that I used in my
blog post and my video came frombecause we had talked this

(36:21):
offline and you said, well, it'slike driving stick, like you
know, and it reminded me yeah, Ilove driving stick shift.
It was so much fun.
I haven't done it in a coupleyears now and you can't even
it's really hard to even buy acar with a stick shift these
days but it's just somethingthat's just sort of evolved, and
then we kind of move on.
So, in terms of the what isvibe coding and not vibe coding,
there's no, I don't thinkthere's no official definition

(36:43):
either.
It's just one of these termsand you know what, in three
weeks, that term could be dead,it could be called something
else, or or merged or whateverelse.
And I kind of get like, yeah,because some you know it was
even one of the blog posts theysaid oh, the vibe purists say
you shouldn't know code at allor shouldn't even look at it,
and I can't help but look at thecode or anything I build, like
what's behind it.
So maybe I wasn't really doingvibe coding in terms of you know

(37:07):
the internet definition, whenthat's fair.
But the other thing that opensup my eyes is looking at even
there was something last week interms of OK, we're looking at
something else.
It was developed in a certainplatform.
How could we build somethingsimilar?
And I'm kind of like OK, well,I don't know that particular
platform.
Is it worth my time to learnthis other technology, this

(37:27):
other platform?
Time to learn this othertechnology, this other platform?
And then part of my mind isgoing well, nick, you don't need
to just install it and get AIto help you out.
Get AI to the point whereyou're at least building a
minimal, viable product, andthen by that point you should,
it should have taught you enough, you should have seen enough
that you can kind of take it tothe next level.
So this is now exciting meagain because it's opening doors

(37:49):
to things that I always wantedto learn but realized it's going
to take a lot of extra effort.
Pcf controls is a good example.
It is something that's alwaysbeen on my list.
We talked about it, but who'sto say, let me sit down with VS
Code, visual Studio Code, andlet me just start working with
ChimeGPT and let me see if Icould put a PCF together.
I don't necessarily need tounderstand all the nuances, but

(38:10):
probably, when it gets puttogether, it'll probably be very
natural to me, because I'vebeen working with the Power
Platform, I've written plugins,I've written JavaScript.
So this is.
I think you're right.
It's not.
We're not losing jobs.
We're opening the doors formany, for a lot of new things.
You just have to have to openup your mind and I would say and

(38:32):
it's kind of showing me theopportunities that exist so, as
much as we shit on AI over,we're coming through.

Ulrikke (38:39):
No, no.
I want to say just to be clearI am shitting on the co-pilot
experience inside the PowerPagesdesigner, because that's shit.
I hate the Power Automateco-pilot.
It's fucking shit Because itruins my whole thing.
I ask it for one expression,one Power Fx expression, and it
takes upon itself to ruins mywhole thing.
I ask it for one expression,one PC power effects expression,
and it takes upon itself torewrite my whole flow.

(39:00):
It takes me hours because.
Can it go back?
No, can I say please go back tothe last version?
No, it can't, because then itlocked everything up.
I'm not touching that thingbecause it takes me forever to
clean it up.
I absolutely so no, that I hateon.
This is next level, this issomething else.
And then I wanted to kind ofmove us along a little bit,

(39:21):
because last episode we talkedabout I talked about a news item
that I didn't fully understandagain, which had to do with MCPs
model context protocols.
I did not understand theramifications of that at all.
And then this week I saw a postfrom Sandy Peng on LinkedIn
explaining what exactly is PCPModel Context Protocol, and she

(39:43):
says it's the bridge between AIand everything else.
It's like a USB-C for AI nointegration hell, no security
nightmares and no infrastructureheadaches.
It is how you connect AI toeverything else.
And then I suddenly okay, sothat I understand.
So that blog post alone justkind of opened my mind and kind

(40:03):
of shifted gears a little bit.
If you can then have that withPower Platform, then suddenly
you can talk to Dataverse in adifferent way, or it doesn't
matter, you can have your app bewhatever you want it to be and
you can can plug it in towhatever service you want it to
be.
Kind of it shifts the gears alittle bit.
And then from that perspectiveI'm thinking, okay, because part
platform in a sense is a big AIhub.

(40:23):
Its connectivity is kind of thebackbone of it.
I'm like, okay, so let's seewhere this is going.
So I'm just putting tabs onthat at the moment and also just
trying to make sure, becausenow we're on, the timekeeper has
been sleeping.
I see you have a blog post fromMark Christie you wanted to
talk about.

Nick (40:38):
We can.
We can probably recircle that.
Again.
That was actually going backmore to embracing AI with
Microsoft Co-Pilot, but talkingabout the different levels of AI
transfer, transformation, aboutusing, and again this kind of
covers off a lot of othercontent.
But Mark does a good job atbreaking it down.
The four levels Human first,you know we talk to AI and then

(40:59):
we're using humans with agents,and then agents with humans, and
then agent first and humanoversight.
So going through theseiterations, I don't think agents
is a whole other concept that'sevolving very quickly from a
lot of different companies.
We're seeing a lot of contentnow about people building agents
and what it is is, you know.
So about going out creatingagents to kind of do personal

(41:20):
whether it's personalproductivity or greater
productivity and Mark does agood job of kind of breaking
down what these different levelsare and where companies are at
and where it's going.
So, again, without kind ofdiving too deep into that or
causing another big discussion,he talks about the different
levels.
So check out that post.
It's a really good read.
Thanks, mark, for doing thatcontent.
I really appreciate it.
I think it's good to continuethis conversation as we all get

(41:43):
our heads wrapped around thisand I think this is the thing
that I keep hearing fromdifferent people.
It's sort of like we're all inthis, we're all learning.
There are no.
This is part of one of thesethings where, if you're coming
into the Power Platform, there'speople like you and I that have
been doing Power Apps for years.
We've been doing Flows foryears, we've been doing Power
Pages for years.
This stuff we're all startingout kind of at the same pace.

(42:06):
In a couple of years, when newfolks come in, they'll adapt to
this.
But this is so this type ofcontent I really like.
It really shows that we're allin this together, we're all
learning, we're all sharing.
There is a ton of info, butit's changing faster than I've
ever seen something changebefore.

Ulrikke (42:21):
And I've seen some of the most.
Some of the frustrations that Isee coming through.
I think most often is when touse what.
What tool is right for this?
When to use and as architects,that's the majority of our job
is right tool for right job.
We talk so much about this, butthen this week and we've talked
about this as well withMicrosoft often what you'll find
is the right hand doesn't knowwhat the left hand is doing, and

(42:43):
that's something you told metoday and it's so accurate, and
so let me just share somethingthat I discovered this week.
So I have a customer that has aneed to have their customers
self-service access to APMendpoints so APM being Azure API
management and so I was divinginto Azure talking to one of my
colleagues just trying to seewhat APM is like today, because

(43:05):
it's been a while since I lookedat it, and what do you know?
Apm developer portals show up,which is now a portal experience
that you can set up in Azurethat talks directly to APIM and
allows your customers tointeract and to log into that
and to handle, manage their ownAPI keys, and also you can
monetize it and put strategieson top of it.

(43:26):
It's massive and it's prettynew and I go into the
documentation and I'm like ah,portal, interesting, wonder what
that looks like.
It's built on Bootstrap andthen there's a designer and you
can set up fonts and styles andpages so you can use
authentication.
You can have Azure B2C or anyOAuth or OpenID Connect.

(43:47):
Then you have deployments soyou can do that, and then you
can have header and content andfooter and page layouts and
stuff.
And I'm like whoa, wait aminute, this is way too familiar
.
So I'm looking into this andit's exactly like Power Pages
and I'm thinking, okay, surelythere is a host, your own host,
with WordPress Extend.
There's a third party businessthat has made a product around

(44:10):
this, and I thought surelythere's a Power Pages, something
, something here, somewhere.
No, there's not.
And so Microsoft is now, withinthe Azure team, created a
designer for a portal and theyhave no idea that PowerPages
even exists.
Probably A very good example ofexactly what you said, like the
left and the right hand doesn'tknow what they're doing.
And I think this goes back tothe overall conversation about
AI or any product or any servicewhat to use when.

(44:33):
What tool is right for thething.
Well, actually, the toolclosest to you and this has been
the way of developers for awhile, the thing that you're
most familiar with the tool thatis closest to you is the right
one.

Nick (44:43):
All right.
So that, yeah, interestingabout that whole portal
experience because it's, yeah,it looked and smelled like
PowerPages but it wasn't, andyeah, so we'll put the link
there, check it out.
Like I said, it's not.
Like I said, it's not connectedto Dataverse.
So there's your, that's whatPowerPages will do for you.
But in terms of the experiences, you're right.
I saw you showed it to me.

Ulrikke (45:01):
I'm like this looks in Azure to know my way around it,
and so this is something that Idiscovered just by knowing a
little bit and just pulling thatthread a little bit Now I
learned some more, yeah.

(45:22):
So yeah, absolutely Check thatout.
We have other things to cover.
We're running out of time.
We're going to cover a few morethings before we leave, you
guys.

Nick (45:42):
And the right hand not knowing what the right, the left
hand is doing.
To be fair, microsoft is nowmove, is now 50 years old.
So it's, you know, in terms ofmemory, understanding all of
that stuff.
But no, it was this, it wasactually.
You probably saw a lot of postsand things like that about
microsoft being 50 years old.
Congratulations to any organ,any business that can last that
long, have such a culturalimpact.
It basically, if there was nomicrosoft, they're probably this
podcast would be radicallydifferent.
Um, our paths might have noteven crossed, which is a scary
thought, um, but overall, uh,yeah.

(46:05):
And then you know, havingworked there as well for for two
of those 50 years, uh, it'sreally, um, it's a, it's, you
know, despite all its, despiteits dumping co-pilots and making
shitty software in certainplaces, overall it, you know, in
the grand scheme of things,great job, microsoft.
Congratulations to the staff,the leadership, the shareholders

(46:26):
, everybody involved, of course,all the community that talks
about this stuff.
Definitely something, a hugemilestone to celebrate, and we
should all be very humbled andhonored to be a part of it, and
proud as well, yeah.

Ulrikke (46:36):
Yeah, we are.
Especially these days, youreally see the value of having a
big company with that kind ofhistory pushing AI and these
things forward.
We would not be here if itweren't for Microsoft.
Sure, we have open AI, but, youknow, having such an
established company in the worldpushing software and digital
transformation like Microsoft Sit's just, it wouldn't have

(46:57):
happened without that, I think.
So, yeah, absolutely great.
And another news a good friendof us, rory Neary.
He launched his own podcastlast week or the week before
Power Platform, this and thatit's called.
He released his pilot episodeand he has a few other episodes
coming out with someone youmight know, so it's very

(47:17):
exciting to see.
It's another one of those powerplatform interview style
podcasts, but he has a veryinteresting format.

Nick (47:24):
Check out Rory's new podcast and make sure to listen
and subscribe so that you don'tmiss an episode yeah, and
congrats Rory, because that'ssometimes just getting out that
first episode is the hardestpart and and then after that
it's easy, right, eureka?
Like, just get together everytwo weeks chat record and not
really.
It's a lot of work and, rory,if you need our help at all, you

(47:46):
know where to find us.
We're more than happy tosupport you and for all our
current listeners.
Check out Rory's podcast and welook forward to your.
We're up your episode 56.

Ulrikke (47:55):
It's and we're just vibing it and it's on autopilot.
Oh, it's vibing along.
It's half true, ok, so let mejust do some advertising before
I close up.
So my workshop at ColorCloud ison April 24th.
I'm going to do a bit of thesocial media pushing this week

(48:17):
and it's about to sell out.
So if you want to come to myworkshop on Power Pages from
Creation to Go, you have to getyour ticket now.
Don't wait, because it doessell out and I have a max
capacity, so make sure that yousign up for that.
And also I have a session withAndy Wingate on BC plus Power
Pages as a business central plusPower Pages is true on the
conference day, which is on the25th in Hamburg, so can't wait

(48:41):
for that.

Nick (48:41):
And then you have yeah, I have DynamicsCon coming up, and
then we're that's in.
It's in May, that's in Chicago.
Then there's Power Summit,which is going to be in London
on May 24th.
We talked about that last weekas well.
Dynamics Minds I had a meetingthis morning with Matt and
George and, yeah, we're dreamingup.
Our session is going to bereally cool how it's all coming

(49:02):
together, just the three of us,like.
Even the meeting itself is somuch fun, like we just would
just and we recorded, so weshould just kind of post that as
part of it.
So, and then beyond that,there's a whole, there's a whole
long list of things that I keepsaying I need to, I need to cut
back.
And then I look at that listand I'm kind of, hey, what, I'm
not, but we'll, we'll announcethose as they come through over

(49:25):
the next next few episodes.

Ulrikke (49:27):
Yeah, and I think it's ironic that you have one of the
sessions that you're doing inthe middle of all.
Of this is called next sessionburnout, powerlifting and mental
health.
So are you going to take yourown advice somewhere along here?
Because you're doingpowerlifting, you're doing the,
so you're doing the.
You're on track for a newburnout.

Nick (49:46):
It's talking about burnout basically I'll come up there
and say don't do what I've justbeen doing you're my dad, do
what I say, not what I do.
It's like yes, yes.

Ulrikke (49:56):
Stop, come on.
It's like yeah, no way, mister,I'm going to hold you
accountable.
You need to, you know, keep on.

Nick (50:03):
Alrighty, so next episode is going to be I'd say this is
where I always forget to fill init's going to be April 3rd, wow
.

Ulrikke (50:12):
It's all going to be over by then, all of the things
that I'm working on currently.
Now, there's the Easter holidaynow between this and the next
episode, so that's going to befun and I can't wait.
So, yeah, and with that, let'sjust vibe on out of here.
Vibe on out of here.
All right, catch you on thenext one.

Nick (50:29):
All right, see you later.

Ulrikke (50:30):
Bye, okay, see you later.

Nick (50:32):
Bye, thank you for listening.
If you like this episode,please make sure you share it
with your friends and colleaguesin the community and be sure to
leave a rating or a review onyour favorite streaming service.
That makes it easier for othersto find us.
Follow us on social platformsand make sure you don't miss a
single episode.
Thank you for listening to thePower Platform Boost podcast

(50:53):
with your host, lurica Akebek,and Nick Dolman.
See you next time for yourtimely boost of Power Platform
news and updates.

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