Episode 154: myNewsWrap – SAP and Microsoft
Tags: azure, github, sap, serverless
Published: 2023-10-14 08:42:23


# Episode 154: myNewsWrap – Microsoft, GitHub and SAP

Welcome to this week's edition of myNewsWrap, news from the world of Microsoft, GitHub, SAP ... and the world in between. The focus of my newsletter is the *application development* and all things around that can improve our lives as developers.

Let's dive into the news and explore what came up this week that can help us to build better solutions for our customers.

## Microsoft Universe

First we take a look at the Microsoft universe and what crossed my path there.

### Serverless - Functions, SWA and Azure Container Apps

Apps need to run somewhere and a very convenient way to run them is *serverless*. What came up this week in this space?

#### Azure Functions and Static Web Apps (SWA)

* [Support for the 1.x version of Azure Functions ends 14 September 2026](https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/support-for-the-1x-version-of-azure-functions-ends-14-september-2026/?wt.mc_id=AZ-MVP-5004195)

#### Azure Container Apps

* [Comparing Azure Functions vs Dapr on Azure Container Apps](https://dev.to/kaiwalter/comparing-azure-functions-vs-dapr-on-azure-container-apps-2noh) by Kai Walter ... that's an extensive comparison!
* [Azure Container Apps is now eligible for Azure savings plan for compute](https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/generally-available-azure-container-apps-savings-plan-support/?wt.mc_id=AZ-MVP-5004195)
* Not perfectly fitting to ACA, but well ...[Scale your stateful apps with Azure Container Storage | Azure Friday](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMFMHl6OcxQ)

### Dapr

Having containers is nice but everything (well ... nearly everything 😉) gets better with [Dapr](https://dapr.io/) as an outstanding tool for app development in the container-based area. Here we go what might be worth a look:

* [Dapr v1.12 is now available](https://blog.dapr.io/posts/2023/10/11/dapr-v1.12-is-now-available/)
* [State of Dapr 2023](https://pages.diagrid.io/download-the-state-of-dapr-2023-report)

### Developer Platform

This section collects all news touching the topic of a *developer platform*. Fuzzy term but here you find news on topics that make the life of developers easier beyond pure development be it *Infrastructure as Code*, *GitHub* and more like the [Azure Developer CLI](https://github.com/Azure/azure-dev).  

#### Infrastructure as Code

* How cool is that: [Convert Pipelines to Actions](https://pipelinestoactions.azurewebsites.net/) by Sam Smith
* [Exploring the awesome Bicep Test Framework](https://rios.engineer/exploring-the-bicep-test-framework-%F0%9F%A7%AA/) by Dan Rios
* Fresh from Hashiconf:
  * [Infrastructure and security releases open HashiConf 2023](https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/infrastructure-security-lifecycle-releases-open-hashiconf-2023) by Chris Van Wesep
  * [New Terraform testing and UX features reduce toil, errors, and costs](https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/new-terraform-testing-and-ux-features-reduce-toil-errors-and-costs) by Yushuo Huang

#### GitHub

GitHub comes with a blast of new features and enhancements every week. Here are my top 5 news from GitHub that you should check out:

* [Research: Quantifying GitHub Copilot’s impact on code quality](https://github.blog/2023-10-10-research-quantifying-github-copilots-impact-on-code-quality/) by Mario Rodriguez
* [Prompting GitHub Copilot Chat to become your personal AI assistant for accessibility](https://github.blog/2023-10-09-prompting-github-copilot-chat-to-become-your-personal-ai-assistant-for-accessibility/) by Ed Summers and Jesse Dugas
* [https://github.blog/2023-10-11-github-availability-report-september-2023/](https://github.blog/2023-10-09-prompting-github-copilot-chat-to-become-your-personal-ai-assistant-for-accessibility/) by Jakub Oleksy
* [Repository Rules – Public Beta – History, Import, Export](https://github.blog/changelog/2023-10-12-repository-rules-public-beta-history-import-export/)
* [Enforcing code reliability by requiring workflows with GitHub Repository Rules](https://github.blog/2023-10-11-enforcing-code-reliability-by-requiring-workflows-with-github-repository-rules/) by Tony Camp

> Want to see all news around GitHub? I recommend to have a look at GitHub's [blog site](https://github.blog/) as well as at its [change log](https://github.blog/changelog/) to get the complete overview.

#### Azure Developer CLI

Close to my heart as essence of how to make the developer life easier is the [Azure Developer CLI](https://github.com/Azure/azure-dev). What's up in this area?

* [Release 1.4.2](https://github.com/Azure/azure-dev/releases/tag/azure-dev-cli_1.4.2) - some nice UI features landed

### The best of the "rest"

No matter how the structure of this newsletter is crafted, there is always something that does not perfectly fit. This section is dedicated to topics that I think are worth reading but did not fit into the structure from above:

* [Announcing Microsoft Playwright Testing: Scalable end-to-end testing for modern web apps](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-microsoft-playwright-testing-scalable-end-to-end-testing-for-modern-web-apps/?wt.mc_id=AZ-MVP-5004195) by Mandy Whaley
* [The C# DevKit is out and gives you a complete .NET experience inside VS Code!](https://youtu.be/6BNtIxW0-xQ?si=Bf8GsqWL5CvPIMRP) by Scott Hanselman

## 🐱‍👤 SAP and Microsoft - Combining both worlds

Combining Microsoft with SAP can lead to incredible new applications. Let's enter the *twilight zone* (no worries the ninja cat is with us) between SAP and Microsoft and see what's up here:

* [SAP on Azure Video Podcast #164 - The one with updates to Master Data from Teams @ Mars (Steve Curtis)](https://youtu.be/RNaz0vFYazY?si=KOYu877ej6eJhDFK)

> And of course a channel that you should subscribe to if you are working with SAP and Microsoft is the [SAP on Azure](https://www.youtube.com/@SAPonAzure) hosted by [Holger Bruchelt](https://www.linkedin.com/in/holger-bruchelt/) and friends.

## Learning

One important (and imho best part) of the job of a developer is the *continuous learning*. Here are some interesting learning resources that go beyond vendor-specific technology:

* [The Up-and-Running Guide to Architectural Fitness Functions](https://betterprogramming.pub/the-up-and-running-guide-to-architectural-fitness-functions-1621ebe46ea) by Mikael Vesavuori

### Golo's Corner

One great resource for becoming a better developer and reflecting about our profession is the high-quality content of [the native web GmbH](https://thenativeweb.io/) by [Golo Roden](https://twitter.com/goloroden). This week the following topics were on the list:

* [Go (Golang): Endlich Struktur im Code // deutsch](https://youtu.be/2k0GYWBGGFM?si=YaAHjjzEkOtcktMw)

Make sure to subscribe to Golo's YouTube channels:

* [German channel](https://www.youtube.com/@thenativeweb)
* [English channel](https://www.youtube.com/@thenativeweb-en)

And Golo's personal channel with a new series - not IT, but about an important topic that is not too much talk about in the IT world:

* [Die Pizza-Diät mit Käserand?! … (wie ich mein Abnehmen frustfrei gestalte) // deutsch](https://youtu.be/0LYsdsgzcZo?si=Q2w2-RtYHCPfAQ62) - and keep in mind that you can't out-train a bad diet

### Events

And last but not least heads up for these upcoming events:

* Part of KubeCon/CNCF Con [App Developer Con](https://colocatedeventsna2023.sched.com/overview/type/AppDeveloperCon) - great to see a dedicated track for developers

**And with this enjoy your weekend and have a successful next week!**