July 16, 2024

Episode 329: In the Dynamics Corner Chair: Business Central AL Development for OGs

In this episode, Kris and Brad are joined by Eric "waldo" Wauters and Arend-Jan "AJ" Kauffmann to discuss AL development for OGs, commonly referred to as "dinosaurs." The conversation covers enhancements to the AL language, the challenges of keeping up with the rapid evolution of the language, and the need for specialization in specific areas of AL development. During the conversation, waldo and AJ emphasized the importance of staying updated with new tools and features while acknowledging the limitations of knowledge and the need to know where to find information when needed.

Connect with Waldo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericwauters

or X: https://x.com/waldo1001

Connect with AJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajkauffmann

or X: https://x.com/ajkauffmann

Send us a text

#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCorner

Follow Kris and Brad for more content:
https://matalino.io/bio
https://bprendergast.bio.link/

00:00 - Dynamics Corner Episode With OG Dinosaurs

18:22 - Navigating Development and Consultancy Boundaries

25:33 - Adapting and Specializing in AL

35:16 - Complexity of Power Platform Solutions

51:21 - Navigating Technological Awareness and Knowledge

01:00:36 - Constant Microsoft Updates and Adaptations

WEBVTT

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Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics Corner, the podcast where we dive deep into all things Microsoft Dynamics.

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Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting your journey into the world of Dynamics 365, this is your place to gain insights, learn new tricks and make development fun.

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I'm your co-host, chris.

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And this is Brad.

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This episode was recorded on July 5th 2024.

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Chris, chris, chris.

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Yes, I'm done with Fridays, by the way, I just have to put that out there.

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Another Friday, it's another Friday.

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But this Friday we had a great conversation.

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Great conversation we had the opportunity to talk with two OG dinosaurs from the community about being OG dinosaurs With us today.

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We had the opportunity to speak with Waldo and AJ Koffman.

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Good afternoon, hello.

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Hi how are you Great?

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You're not at the resort.

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No, no, I'm at work at the moment.

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Oh, I was expecting to see the fabulous background.

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Well, I wish I was there yeah, I do too.

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Christopher seems to be at some resort yes, yeah, I mean my in-laws.

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They have a nice setting background so it's nice and warm.

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Except this morning it's a little chilly.

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And he has the mountains, which is a nice view too, the mountains up here yeah, hello, hello, good afternoon.

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How are you doing?

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Doing fine oh wait, wait.

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If it's doing Hello, I'm fine, great.

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Oh, wait, wait.

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Is AJ joining, then I'm off.

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Okay so nice to see you, valdo Hi, aj, how are you?

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You never know who will show up.

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It's always a surprise, okay.

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Are there more surprises like this?

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We may have more.

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Should be honest with you, uh, I may have surprises even more.

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Okay, yes, yes, that's.

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That's what we do on friday afternoons is have a full uh, a show full of surprises or an episode full of surprises.

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Well, it's a friday recording chris, so I don't know, I know to see what happens.

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it's a Friday recording, chris, so I don't know.

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I don't want to see what happens.

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It's already started off poorly before the two of you joined, so we'll see Nothing well ever happens on Fridays when it comes to doing podcasts, I found, but we'll charge through anyway.

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I'd like to thank you both for taking the time to speak with us today.

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I've been looking forward to this conversation and I wanted to have a conversation about this for a long time and even have some more questions after seeing some things I saw posted this morning.

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You know you probably saw them a long time ago, but we're a little bit behind you.

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But I was excited to talk to you about AL developers for OGs or dinosaurs, which I saw that you were.

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You guys both had presented a session together at BC Tech Days recently and I thought no other perfect time to talk to somebody about that and people to talk with about that than the two of you, so I appreciate it.

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Because we are dinosaurs.

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I think you may fall into that dinosaur class, but dinosaurs are great Define dinosaurs then, but dinosaurs are great Well define dinosaurs then I mean they're extinct.

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True, true, true.

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Well, some dinosaurs still exist.

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Aren't alligators dinosaurs, or aren't there other animals that they consider dinosaurs, some of the other reptiles that they say have been around?

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for a long time.

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I heard they're related to chickens.

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They're not chickens exactly.

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Okay.

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So maybe we're not chickens, uh, but before we jump into it, for those that don't know of the dinosaurs that we are, uh, would you please take a moment to tell everyone a little bit about yourself, mr waldo sir um, I'm baldo, uh, from belgium, from Belgium, development manager at Effective Business Solutions, being in the community, or, let's say, contributing to the community for quite some time, being MVP for somewhat like 16 years.

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Yeah, I'm still doing what.

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I do Excellent.

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16 years, that's a long time.

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Or 17.

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17 years, 17 years Wow.

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There must be, something like that yeah.

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That's a very long time, so when did you start working with AL development?

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I started in 2001.

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2001.

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Wow, that is a long time.

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Yes, and then I ran away from it.

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Why did you run away from?

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it.

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This was not what I wanted to do.

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I actually wanted to do like C-sharp kind of development.

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So I ran away and then my new company asked me hey, you have experience in Navision, do you want to do it?

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In my company I was like, okay, I, I'll try.

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So that's kind of like yeah, it seems that happens to all of us.

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I ran away to go for a year to go work at a company managing a c-sharp development group and product and then after a year I got pulled back into it as well.

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It seems like it's one of those things once Once you join, you can never leave, as they say.

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Mr AJ, sir, you tell us a little bit about yourself please.

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I joined the business Central World, I think about one year later it was in 2002.

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Rookie, sorry.

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So what was that, waller?

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Sorry?

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By the way, everybody calls me AJ.

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My official name is Arjen Jan, but it seems to be difficult outside of any Dutch-speaking countries countries, and there are not so many of them, so they renamed me into AJ.

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That's fine, I listen to AJ as well.

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I'm currently working as a CTO for Lumos 365, a UK-based company, and we are, of course, an ISV partner in the business central world.

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I started back in 2002 and, yeah, quickly found out about the community and started contributing a couple of years later, actually encouraged by the famous luke van vugt, who actually taught me cal development back in 2002.

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I was in his classes, wow, and actually my my hometown like where he was at that time an employee of Navision Netherlands.

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So, yeah, actually I came in the Navision world back then as being a C-sharp developer and the idea was that I was going to do something about integrating web shops, portals, whatnot.

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But yeah, actually I was dragged away into the CL world and I'm still here.

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Yeah, well, happy that you're here.

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It's odd to hear someone come from the C-shop world at least in my experience into Navision way back in the day, because I know a lot of people came from Pascal or Delphi or they worked with those types of languages.

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You know, at least when I started, back when I was a young a young boy so going from C sharp at that point to Navision must have been quite an adjustment for you, to say the least.

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I did my traineeship in 2000 in um in c++ I think it was portland c++ 4 or something like that.

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I did my traineeship and I absolutely loved it.

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Uh, and that was where I was like, yeah, this is what I'm gonna do like the rest of my life and day one.

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It was decided differently, so it's good we're happy that you're both uh in the community and working with, and the al language has been an evolving language rapidly, or had been evolving rapidly over the past several months.

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It took several years for them to get to this, but the momentum seems to go, gets moving, and, uh, one of the things to talk about is we talk about and I had conversations with you before about um, you know what are the changes to the al language.

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You know how rapid they're coming, where's the language going?

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And then also, for us ogs, how do you keep up with it?

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You know, how do you keep up with a language that's been more or less Pascal-based for its entire existence and now, over the past couple of years, it seems to be moving more and more towards a NET language or a C-sharp type language if you look at what they're adding to it.

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In my opinion, it's starting to look really cool.

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Yes, yeah, absolutely.

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Actually, I don't know if you know Stefan Maron.

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He started some kind of series on YouTube or live coding thing and I attended actually yesterday because I was triggered in the tweet that he did and he did some clever things with something that's coming up with the disk keyword.

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It was pretty interesting to see where AL is going on that as well.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah, I saw that too and I saw your comments.

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I did watch that with the EverInfo rapper.

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Rapper, I think is what he was talking about yesterday, and then I saw this morning that you know the message that's in the preview for al about the tyranny, tyranny.

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How do you say that tyranny?

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I can't even pronounce it, uh you know there are any conditions, or what is it?

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yes, yes, within al.

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So now you'll be able to do the question mark like the C-sharp language and I'm just I think it's going more.

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So let's go back to what you had talked about at BC Tech Days with AL development for OGs.

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What are some of the most recent enhancements, or enhancements that you like, about AL, the AL language and development as it's gone through, as you kind of talked about with your presentation?

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AJ, the idea is actually to go over a number of topics not actually related to each other.

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Well, they are related because they are all about AL and business central development, but topics that actually change for those who bridge the gap between seaside and CIL development to business central and AL development.

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You have a number of changes there.

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It's not just a different language, but the whole development experience is changing.

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So Waldo and I were actually kind of listing topics that are changing over time and changing for those who take that, the step towards IELTS development, and we came up with a list that we could probably talk for a whole day, more than maybe even two days, if you give us the time.

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Oh, we have two days' worth of time.

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It's Friday.

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And we have done this session now a couple of times and we always run out of time.

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The first session, it happens because I took too much time on one of the topics.

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Second as well.

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Second time, it happened to Waldo taking too much time because we switched the topics a little bit.

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Okay, now, waldo, you go first because I'll take the remaining time, whereas there was none.

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That happens whenever.

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Who has the word first, he has most time.

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Yeah, but those topics are both in AL, like what is changing in AL we have a lot more in AL you can use than you had in the past with CAL but also about the overall development experience.

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We have a completely different development environment.

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Vs Code the process is different.

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You're not changing the base code anymore.

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You're extending the base code but you don't touch the base code.

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It was completely different in the past, where you don't touch the base code.

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It was completely different in the past around everything that you have in automated tests, in pipelines, dev ops and all of that and I have the feeling of it just spreads the surface in our session.

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No, I can imagine there are so many changes now that you're putting it in a list like that.

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Just to think from someone who has been working with it since back in early 2000s or the late 1990s when the language was really there.

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I know when it first came to the US was in the late 1990s when developers started working with it, when you had the optic designer built within the application, and now, as you'd mentioned, you're over now into using VS Code to develop an AL extension.

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And the nice thing is, in a session like that, it's very recognizable to touch whatever we are coming from, because everyone who is there, or most of the people who is there, is an OG, is a everyone.

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Everyone who was there, or most of them, most of the people who was there is an OG, is a dinosaur right.

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And whatever you talk about, like do you remember the object designer and do you remember how we did source control?

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We didn't.

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Or who did.

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I was going to say and so that is actually always a very nice touch point, like to uh to emphasize how much we progressed since back in the days and it's I mean I just came to it during the session but uh, it was always called the object designer or the way we did our stuff.

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Uh, it was always called simplicity and that was I was always called simplicity and that was I always hated that word, always, like from the first day that I did Navision, or because I mean whatever is simple to do, probably we are doing something wrong at that point or we are not doing enough.

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And the reason why it was simple it was simply because we were not able to do the basic stuff we should be doing as software developers.

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So it was not simplicity, it was stupidity kind of thing, right, and now we have progressed so much already it is actually quite interesting to keep looking back to, okay, but do you remember, like like 15 years ago, like we weren't evil, we didn't even have like intellisense, right?

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Um, so, yeah, how, how we have progressed.

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This is it makes it an interesting session and it's, like AJ says, like we had an insane amount of topics and our first challenge was what do we take what.

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What are we going to talk about?

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Because we can talk about pretty much many days about this um and the idea lives that we would be doing and following up session maybe next year or two year after, something like that.

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What I find interesting, though, is there are also many new developers.

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Many people are new in the channel, new to AL development, and you would maybe think that those who maybe think that those who, let's say, the OGs, who work with Business Central, they are kind of behind because they need to learn new technologies, but I find that people who join Business Central today or, let's say, two or three years ago, they are kind of lagging behind on knowledge about knowledge of the product behind it, about Business Central how does Business Central work, and I see many questions that are actually around topics that we all were used to as OGs, and that still applies to today.

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I don't know if you have the same experience well, over there.

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It's a question about how do I create a record, or how do I work with a customer record versus a contact, versus a sales head, or whatever these kind of things.

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It's obvious now.

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It's the old question like how functional should the developer be and how technical should the consultant be?

00:18:09.144 --> 00:18:19.246
I think that's kind of like I'm less abstract in that, to be honest, or maybe even more abstract in that.

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You are abstract in that.

00:18:21.045 --> 00:18:36.256
Yeah, in my opinion, there should be a very thick line that I should not cross as a developer, as being a consultant, you know, because I would not like consultants to cross the development line either.

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That doesn't mean we shouldn't have knowledge, right, I need to know what an invoice is and how an invoice is posted and how, what a ledger entry is, and now I can get to the data, how much I normalize my data and how I shouldn't be doing that and why and that's all an ERP kind of reason on doing stuff.

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But yeah, it's hard to explain.

00:19:03.471 --> 00:19:05.933
But no, I understand that.

00:19:05.933 --> 00:19:11.364
That is a challenge that I see and it's also, I think, the line.

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When we first started there really wasn't a line because the application itself, as you said, was simple and there weren't that many, you know, people implementing it or working with it.

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So a developer and a functional consultant did cross that line.

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So you kind of did all of the same roles.

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I know early on when we first started, the partner I started at there was a few of us that worked on this and we had to do pretty much everything, and it wasn't until years had progressed where they started to become more and more users of the application, which involved, which therefore led to having more need for someone to implement or develop or work with it.

00:19:51.746 --> 00:19:58.749
I think that line again, if you deal with the OGs, a lot of people still don't have that line.

00:19:58.749 --> 00:20:06.365
They think that a lot of the functional consultants or technical consultants may think that they can develop the same way like they did years ago because they knew enough then.

00:20:06.365 --> 00:20:09.186
But I think now Enough.

00:20:09.449 --> 00:20:13.709
right, that's the simplicity that I'm struggling with, you know.

00:20:13.709 --> 00:20:19.028
Just as an example, yesterday I had a meeting with a customer.

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He was seeking advice to someone who had knowledge on NAV5.

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And I mean, I'm part of an organization uh, I'm, I'm actually a small company in a bigger hall kind of thing and the bigger hall found that customer and if was trying to find some knowledge in the bigger organization.

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So that came to me like I was like no, no, please, no, okay, I'll have a talk with the customer.

00:20:47.348 --> 00:20:58.859
And the first thing he says, like look, we are very happy with our NAV5 database, but now we want to do Power Automate.

00:20:58.859 --> 00:21:07.526
And I was like no, you're not happy with your five database or NAV5 database, because functionally it might work but you cannot extend it, so you're not happy.

00:21:07.526 --> 00:21:12.306
The bottleneck is exactly what you're happy about and you're not happy about it.

00:21:12.306 --> 00:21:13.945
The answer would be pretty simple.

00:21:14.421 --> 00:21:18.286
I'm going to make you not happy by saying Power Automate is out of the question.

00:21:19.789 --> 00:21:20.912
Yeah, I did that.

00:21:20.912 --> 00:21:25.247
And then I just asked let me have a look.

00:21:25.247 --> 00:21:29.131
And I mean I shouldn't have asked.

00:21:29.131 --> 00:21:31.180
So you see the object design.

00:21:31.180 --> 00:21:42.913
You just see basically every single object being touched at some point by a developer and you see very physically the simplicity that we don't have anymore.

00:21:42.913 --> 00:21:45.631
And he asked me, like you're the expert, how can you upgrade this?

00:21:45.631 --> 00:21:46.103
And the simple answer is we can't have anymore.

00:21:46.103 --> 00:21:46.448
And he asked me, like you're the expert, how can you upgrade this?

00:21:46.448 --> 00:21:51.210
And the simple answer is we can't, we cannot help you anymore.

00:21:51.210 --> 00:21:54.107
And the reason is simplicity.

00:21:54.107 --> 00:21:55.290
You know what I mean?

00:21:55.290 --> 00:22:04.865
Because we have been able to do what we shouldn't have been able to do for years and years and years and years on your database.

00:22:04.865 --> 00:22:11.480
And people did that, and now it's completely a big mess, so you're helpless yeah, but.

00:22:11.760 --> 00:22:11.921
But?

00:22:11.921 --> 00:22:33.467
But here the point is that those developers who were used to that simplicity are struggling with moving towards business central, where you do not have the same level of simplicity, or should I maybe say, uh, flexibility?

00:22:33.467 --> 00:22:48.188
Um, because, yeah, you simply cannot touch the database, not that the, the base application, and that is a concept that they need to get used to, which was actually part of the session that we have.

00:22:48.188 --> 00:22:54.048
And for some, for some, it's, it's, it's hard.

00:22:54.048 --> 00:23:00.228
Others are like finally, now I don't have to.

00:23:00.228 --> 00:23:19.682
But yeah, I mean, okay, I'm going to admit that in the beginning, in the very beginning of al and creating extensions, it took me some time to get used to the idea that I cannot touch the base application.

00:23:19.682 --> 00:23:21.945
I had to get used to that.

00:23:21.945 --> 00:23:24.551
Now I cannot imagine how.

00:23:25.981 --> 00:23:26.703
I need to shut up.

00:23:26.703 --> 00:23:30.886
Say again Now I'm going to try to not.

00:23:32.321 --> 00:23:33.246
No, no, don't hold back.

00:23:33.246 --> 00:23:36.489
It's Friday, we need to get it all out, don't hold back at all.

00:23:36.661 --> 00:23:37.605
Don't be honest, Waldo.

00:23:37.605 --> 00:23:39.465
You're not in the same position.

00:23:39.988 --> 00:23:42.463
No, yes, yes and no.

00:23:42.463 --> 00:23:59.211
The thing is, I have been one of the big adversaries or how do you say it in English of anything hybrid and anything that comes close to changing the base app right.

00:23:59.211 --> 00:24:19.509
So the code-customized base app or hybrid development, where you had some AL and some CAL in one implementation, I've been like from the starters being advocating like don't do it, don't ever do it, do not go that way, ever, ever.

00:24:19.509 --> 00:24:50.930
If you just want to do AL just because it's cool and back in the days like NAV 2018, bc14, it was just cool Because it didn't contribute to the complete supportability of an implementation very well actually, because it was actually quite hard to do I would say don't do it, just everything C-AL and then make it convertible toL at some point when you can, but don't mix and match, don't do the code customized base at some point.

00:24:50.930 --> 00:25:00.134
And I remember distinctively in the entire community that I was quite alone in that space.

00:25:01.061 --> 00:25:02.386
I remember that a lot as well.

00:25:02.386 --> 00:25:04.867
We had some discussions.

00:25:05.299 --> 00:25:14.434
Yes, isn't that caused by OG dinosaur developers that are just like, hey, I can still do it.

00:25:14.434 --> 00:25:17.965
I might as well just do it for now, worry about it later.

00:25:18.508 --> 00:25:27.101
I think that was a common thing, yeah, and that's where I started to uh shout like, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

00:25:27.101 --> 00:25:28.987
And now there is a sticker.

00:25:28.987 --> 00:25:30.490
I have a sticker on that on my lap.

00:25:30.490 --> 00:25:31.773
I need one of those.

00:25:33.703 --> 00:25:37.613
I've always been an advocate of that people want to do things because it's cool.

00:25:37.613 --> 00:25:42.587
It's the new shiny object, but it may not be the most practical solution or the best solution at the time.

00:25:44.191 --> 00:25:48.308
It was also something about feeling to be in control.

00:25:48.308 --> 00:25:56.327
You're not always happy with what the base app does or what the code is doing there.

00:25:56.327 --> 00:26:05.164
You will always be able to change that behavior, out-of-the-box behavior.

00:26:05.164 --> 00:26:17.353
Now you're depending on what Microsoft delivers as an event possibilities to override or bypass certain pieces.

00:26:17.353 --> 00:26:29.327
If there is no possibility for that, for whatever reason, you need to ask for it and hopefully they're going to grant you that request.

00:26:29.327 --> 00:26:37.303
Or you're just blocked from accessing certain tables because it's on-prem and you cannot touch it.

00:26:37.303 --> 00:26:40.290
I mean, I ran into that today.

00:26:40.290 --> 00:26:44.541
I wanted to do something that I really cannot imagine by.

00:26:44.541 --> 00:26:55.971
Microsoft would have this particular table as on-prem, but hey, it is on-prem and there is no interface that helps me doing something with the data in that table.

00:26:57.220 --> 00:26:59.528
Yeah, it's a daily challenge for many people.

00:27:02.662 --> 00:27:12.314
Yeah, and for a moment I was thinking, okay, if I could only have this database on-prem for 10 minutes, I could do what I needed to and then go off.

00:27:12.314 --> 00:27:14.643
It's a one-time thing anyway.

00:27:14.643 --> 00:27:19.535
But yeah, it is what it is.

00:27:19.535 --> 00:27:29.028
We have to live with the hardcomings, the limitations.

00:27:29.028 --> 00:27:29.510
I would say.

00:27:30.925 --> 00:27:33.974
Yeah, but it's also they do add a lot to it.

00:27:33.974 --> 00:27:38.432
I mean, I do like the simplicity of what we had with the vision and the development.

00:27:38.432 --> 00:27:42.777
I also greatly appreciate and enjoy what we can do with AL.

00:27:42.777 --> 00:27:44.592
I'm a big fan of the extension base.

00:27:44.592 --> 00:27:55.586
It does allow you to migrate from version to version and do quite a bit more with source control management pipelines a lot of things that back before we kind of just, you know, simply threw in.

00:27:55.586 --> 00:28:04.090
You know, just threw some code into some stuff and, you know, had it worked, you didn't like the functionality, you didn't understand the functionality.

00:28:04.090 --> 00:28:04.446
It goes back to.

00:28:04.467 --> 00:28:08.750
What we were talking about is how much should a developer understand about the functional areas of the application?

00:28:08.750 --> 00:28:12.352
You know, in order for you to develop it, you do have to have some level of understanding.

00:28:12.352 --> 00:28:15.565
With flow, I know over the years I worked on some limitations.

00:28:15.565 --> 00:28:28.612
Somebody didn't clearly understand how the sales order processing worked within the vision or dynamics nav and they just created their own sales order entry process because somebody wanted one small feature and they didn't, you know, want to modify that.

00:28:29.433 --> 00:28:29.595
Um.

00:28:29.595 --> 00:28:38.712
So but with all of the changes that are occurring, um, how do you keep up with it?

00:28:38.712 --> 00:28:41.096
You know, how can someone keep up with it?

00:28:41.096 --> 00:28:43.000
How can someone keep up with it?

00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:54.895
There's younger talent that's now coming into the community that we have, that is, they sit side by side with some of the dinosaurs and they don't understand or they don't even know.

00:28:54.895 --> 00:28:56.612
I know I talk with some of the younger talent.

00:28:56.612 --> 00:29:01.105
I mentioned some things and they've never even heard of it before or they never even thought of it before.

00:29:01.105 --> 00:29:03.534
So they're used to working and developing a contemporary manner.

00:29:03.534 --> 00:29:14.980
So then you have some of the, the OG guys that you need to understand the application and how to work with it.

00:29:16.746 --> 00:29:20.976
Well, I'm curious, though, because I'm seeing this quite a bit.

00:29:20.976 --> 00:29:38.948
Well, I'm curious, though, because I'm seeing this quite a bit, and while Brad's doing, his thing.

00:29:38.968 --> 00:29:39.169
do you see?

00:29:39.169 --> 00:29:42.143
Some OG developers and even some functionals that used to be able to do development fall out or fall off of the wagon as AL progresses.

00:29:42.143 --> 00:29:48.690
Honestly, not really Okay, I think I.

00:29:48.711 --> 00:29:57.695
So, yeah you go, let me say that it's not more than I witnessed in the CAL world.

00:29:57.695 --> 00:30:10.972
I remember a developer who, in the CAL world, I remember a developer who in the CAL world, actually at some point said I'm done, there are so many different changes.

00:30:10.972 --> 00:30:14.794
Every release which then back in the days, came out every two years.

00:30:14.794 --> 00:30:22.675
But he could not follow and he said, well, I'm going to be a functional consultant instead.

00:30:22.675 --> 00:30:29.846
And today he's still an application manager for Business Central and a customer.

00:30:29.846 --> 00:30:33.497
But there is just an exception.

00:30:33.497 --> 00:30:44.699
I mean, most of the developers keep up, or at least partly, but what I see is that most of them are more and more specialized.

00:30:44.699 --> 00:31:06.512
You have the developers who specialize in everything around projects, jobs, or everything around manufacturing, or around inventory and item tracking and whatnot, or finance or reporting, if there is any developer who likes it.

00:31:06.512 --> 00:31:14.471
So they're more specialized in a certain area, or two or three areas, but not all of it.

00:31:14.471 --> 00:31:19.756
Okay, that used to be different in the past, okay.

00:31:21.529 --> 00:31:22.071
I agree with that.

00:31:22.585 --> 00:31:30.493
Because I've come across some developers that are just struggling to yeah, like even right now keep up with some of the new features.

00:31:30.493 --> 00:31:36.913
But I think just knowing, based on their history, are typically where they can do all of it.

00:31:36.913 --> 00:31:40.154
Now they're having to pick in one area to be good at.

00:31:40.154 --> 00:31:49.693
I think that's what you're saying, aj is that you've got to be more of a specialist with the modern AL.

00:31:51.857 --> 00:31:52.259
Absolutely.

00:31:52.259 --> 00:32:01.630
Actually, when Brad asked the question how you keep up, we don't, or at least I don't.

00:32:01.630 --> 00:32:04.054
I don't keep up with everything.

00:32:04.054 --> 00:32:05.570
It's as simple as that.

00:32:05.570 --> 00:32:13.351
I just pick my things that I try to be good at and that's where I will specialize in.

00:32:13.351 --> 00:32:19.173
You pick your battles Mostly stuff that I need in my daily job.

00:32:19.173 --> 00:32:25.832
Like last year, I've been diving a lot into telemetry because simply, I needed it.

00:32:25.832 --> 00:32:41.991
We had a big problem at a customer and now we are extending that to following up on the product and all that performance, but also just application stability and all that with telemetry, and try to now make that available to the entire team as well.

00:32:41.991 --> 00:32:44.192
So yeah, then you need to dive into that.

00:32:45.144 --> 00:32:50.096
Yeah, just based on the need is when you're diving into.

00:32:50.096 --> 00:32:54.497
Okay, what are the features based on my need and what can I do with it?

00:32:54.497 --> 00:32:56.383
Okay, All right.

00:32:57.045 --> 00:32:58.873
This is the funny thing, actually.

00:32:58.873 --> 00:33:10.972
So, while there'll be an example here, but I've seen that with more people For a while, I think, more and more involved with telemetry.

00:33:10.972 --> 00:33:30.976
And now you're appointed kind of an expert and I mean, yeah, look at your session at Tech Days.

00:33:30.976 --> 00:33:39.191
I mean that means that you quickly evolved over, let's say, a year, while telemetry was already there.

00:33:39.191 --> 00:33:40.974
For what is it?

00:33:40.974 --> 00:33:41.817
Two, three years.

00:33:43.748 --> 00:33:44.932
So in the beginning you ignore it.

00:33:44.932 --> 00:33:45.714
I think BC16.

00:33:45.714 --> 00:33:55.935
In the beginning you ignore it and now you're jumping onto it and I see that personally.

00:33:55.935 --> 00:34:11.795
I mean there are topics that I ignored for a while and then at some point it becomes relevant and then I jump onto it and say, okay, now I'm going to learn everything that is around this, which means that you have to leave other things go.

00:34:11.795 --> 00:34:28.233
I mean you have a certain number of hours in a day, right, but yeah, there are so many other topics that I would love to learn more about, and I think that goes for every developer and every technical person in the Business Central world.

00:34:28.233 --> 00:34:35.831
Yeah, it could be that next year you're doing something completely different still in Business Central.

00:34:37.065 --> 00:34:38.030
Just a different focus.

00:34:38.030 --> 00:34:44.744
Have you guys gotten into designing your extension that could work with Power Platform?

00:34:44.744 --> 00:34:54.876
It seems that you know we've had some I've come across some of the developers where they're starting to think about Power Platform.

00:34:54.876 --> 00:34:58.615
How can a Power Platform consume my extension?

00:34:58.615 --> 00:35:00.532
Have you guys gotten into that space yet?

00:35:11.224 --> 00:35:12.467
Actually the last couple of months.

00:35:12.467 --> 00:35:16.393
Uh, we have because we, we are developing a product for another company involving power platform.

00:35:16.393 --> 00:35:19.920
Uh, power apps, if I, if I'm not mistaken, could be canvas apps.

00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:31.027
I think, canvas apps with business central and a quite high level or quite no, not high level deep down integration to it.

00:35:31.027 --> 00:35:37.076
So, yes, learn new stuff.

00:35:43.244 --> 00:35:44.347
Yeah, I've been in the same place.

00:35:44.347 --> 00:35:52.019
A couple of years ago, I actually created a Canvas app from scratch with Business Central data.

00:35:52.019 --> 00:36:01.235
Back in the days we did not have synchronization to Dataverse, so everything was working with APIs directly on Business Central.

00:36:01.235 --> 00:36:03.159
Yeah, I've been there, so everything was working with API directly on Business Central.

00:36:03.159 --> 00:36:12.369
And these days I'm quite deep into Power, automate and approval flows and many things.

00:36:12.369 --> 00:36:12.771
You think.

00:36:12.771 --> 00:36:18.233
How could I even think that this is a good idea?

00:36:20.711 --> 00:36:28.230
I spent the better half of the day on Wednesday in Power Automate and my conclusion is not my happy place.

00:36:30.648 --> 00:36:55.376
I have a session that goes like lessons learned from using Power Automate with especially focused on approvals, and one of the first slides is like because you can does not mean you should, and what I'm saying there is hey, look, you can do a lot in Power Automate.

00:36:55.376 --> 00:36:56.851
You can in Power Automate.

00:36:56.851 --> 00:37:06.733
Maybe you can maybe replace a complete code unit of kind of functions in Power Automate and you can maybe replace a complete code unit with kind of functions in Power Automate and expose the APIs and do everything in Power Automate.

00:37:06.733 --> 00:37:11.831
But because you can do that, it doesn't mean that it is a good idea to do that.

00:37:11.831 --> 00:37:19.730
But hey, if you are a Power Automate developer, then you're doing it in a way.

00:37:19.730 --> 00:37:23.873
I mean, if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

00:37:23.873 --> 00:37:24.576
That's simple.

00:37:27.425 --> 00:37:48.318
Yeah, I'm always curious about that, for, you know, I struggled in getting into part automate myself because then at that time I didn't know how to manage diversions of it and because it was such an easy access to many I mean, it was kind of sold.

00:37:48.318 --> 00:37:52.891
You know, it's like, hey, anyone can do this, right, it's just plug and play.

00:37:52.891 --> 00:37:56.333
And it created a bunch of different power automate that you.

00:37:56.333 --> 00:37:59.494
You know, people didn't have visibility of who created what.

00:37:59.494 --> 00:38:03.384
You know, people didn't have visibility of who created what.

00:38:03.384 --> 00:38:09.525
And then whenever someone leaves, then it would, you know, someone would complain that, hey, something stopped working.

00:38:09.525 --> 00:38:13.710
Well, someone created a Power Automate, so you didn't get that visibility.

00:38:13.710 --> 00:38:27.711
You know, of course there's some methods around that now, but you know, but it kind of created that just like similar to what you're saying Waldo, nav 2018 in BC14, where you could do it.

00:38:27.711 --> 00:38:36.570
I mean, it was a habit that many had and now they have to kind of break out of that and just build in extensions.

00:38:38.034 --> 00:38:40.576
But yeah, A funny question, or funny just an observation maybe.

00:38:40.576 --> 00:38:40.938
But if you have.

00:38:40.938 --> 00:38:43.945
But yeah, funny question, just an observation maybe.

00:38:43.945 --> 00:38:58.313
But if you have AL developers not knowing a lot about Power Automate, for example, and you have a Power Automate, they're not called developers because there's no code, right?

00:38:58.313 --> 00:39:02.657
Citizen, developers Citizen developers but the citizen developer has developer because there's no code right.

00:39:02.677 --> 00:39:03.442
Citizen developer.

00:39:03.461 --> 00:39:03.804
Citizen developer.

00:39:03.804 --> 00:39:11.951
But the citizen developer has no clue about AL code, and now you need to come up with something.

00:39:11.951 --> 00:39:37.342
If you would ask the two persons individually how you're going to solve this problem, you are going to get completely different solutions, and if you put them together in a room, it will probably still be hard for them to come up with something that they both feel confident in and confident in.

00:39:37.342 --> 00:39:39.170
This is a lot of.

00:39:42.172 --> 00:39:43.358
That would be a fun exercise.

00:39:43.358 --> 00:39:49.411
That would be a fun exercise for anything, for anything.

00:39:49.431 --> 00:39:53.315
Solution Christopher actually put the finger on the wound.

00:39:53.315 --> 00:39:54.967
I don't know if that's an English expression.

00:39:54.967 --> 00:40:00.550
That's how we say it in Dutch salt in the wound yes, salt in the wound, or finger in the wound?

00:40:00.570 --> 00:40:02.664
no, not really, or finger in the wound.

00:40:02.664 --> 00:40:20.264
The thing is that whatever you do, power related just as a citizen developer, and a citizen developer only you basically make it break the moment you leave the company.

00:40:20.264 --> 00:40:40.088
And if you do not make sure that you set it up correctly and then we're already talking more technical than the average citizen developer is capable of well, then then yeah, if you want to set it up correctly, then you have a decent setup.

00:40:40.088 --> 00:40:42.795
You need to set up, I mean and maintain and all that.

00:40:42.795 --> 00:40:44.289
It's not easy.

00:40:45.469 --> 00:41:05.735
I always compare it with Word, like if any customer wants us to do anything power, I'm always telling them no, simple, I can help you, but it's your solution and you're going to have to maintain it and all that.

00:41:05.735 --> 00:41:07.771
Right, it's the same as Word.

00:41:07.771 --> 00:41:09.552
I'm not going to write your document.

00:41:09.552 --> 00:41:14.552
I can tell you how to write the document, but I'm not going to write it, you know.

00:41:14.552 --> 00:41:23.496
So your Power Automate solution, your whatever solution, power App, whatever you come up with, it's your solution.

00:41:23.496 --> 00:41:29.010
I can create a template for you, whatever, but that's it, and you're going to deploy it.

00:41:29.010 --> 00:41:35.585
You're going to have to maintain it and if someone leaves, you're going to have to manage it you know what I mean and that is.

00:41:35.606 --> 00:41:38.527
I mean there are ways around that.

00:41:38.527 --> 00:41:49.657
I mean there are ways around that With DevOps you can set up pipelines implementing on a decent way the deployment of Power Apps and Power Automates.

00:41:49.657 --> 00:41:50.777
It's not easy.

00:41:50.777 --> 00:41:56.902
The Power Platform is getting there, is really getting there, but it's not easy at the moment.

00:41:56.902 --> 00:42:03.766
But it is possible and you can get your way around that so that things are managed in a certain way.

00:42:03.766 --> 00:42:13.898
But I can, I can promise you out of the box are are mostly at companies.

00:42:13.898 --> 00:42:39.887
This is not managed and this is very much unmanaged, and there are things running at local accounts that you don't know of and things happen to go very well and then all of a sudden they don't, and then figuring out why it doesn't run anymore when there are a gazillion power automates spread over multiple accounts running and not running anymore.

00:42:39.887 --> 00:42:39.947
I don't know.

00:42:39.947 --> 00:42:42.016
And that's what we are creating in that, if we are not careful, power Automate spread over multiple accounts running and not running anymore.

00:42:41.971 --> 00:42:48.880
I don't know, yeah, and that's what we are creating in that if we are not careful, if they are not careful because we actually don't know, right?

00:42:49.501 --> 00:42:52.974
No, you see, people leave and everything stops working.

00:42:52.974 --> 00:42:56.675
I can't tell you how many times I hear those questions that this stopped working.

00:42:56.675 --> 00:42:58.251
You found out, somebody set something up.

00:43:00.088 --> 00:43:00.751
So it goes back to.

00:43:00.751 --> 00:43:02.271
I totally agree with Waldo.

00:43:03.277 --> 00:43:05.893
Yeah, oh, we have to mark this on the calendar.

00:43:05.893 --> 00:43:12.295
The day that you two agree, but it goes back to what you had mentioned before about simplicity.

00:43:12.295 --> 00:43:17.952
Sometimes, in this case, you talked about the power platform and be able to power automate instead of some of those tools.

00:43:17.952 --> 00:43:45.490
The simplicity or the perception of simplicity of setting it up, where somebody could just set something up, actually can come back to hurt you as well exactly, exactly, it's the same story it's, it's just moved yeah simplicity and easy can sometimes create chaos in long term because it's anybody can just jump in and do whatever I put it on twitter somewhere, somewhere last couple of days, like I multiply everything by 300 always

00:43:46.110 --> 00:43:48.472
no, it was not on Twitter, but our.

00:43:50.009 --> 00:43:50.552
WhatsApp group.

00:43:50.552 --> 00:44:14.617
And then I try to ask myself am I still able to support, if this would be 300 cases, like 300 records maybe, or 300 customers, or or 300 users, or 300, whatnot Would I still be able to do the job that I do today, the same way that this would be 300 cases?

00:44:14.617 --> 00:44:19.614
Hybrid development Would I be able to maintain 300 hybrid customers?

00:44:19.614 --> 00:44:20.275
I don't think so.

00:44:20.275 --> 00:44:22.826
That's why I don't want to do it Right.

00:44:22.826 --> 00:44:28.840
Would I be able to maintain 300 spread power automate solutions?

00:44:28.840 --> 00:44:29.523
I can't.

00:44:29.523 --> 00:44:32.786
I would never be able to do that, so maybe that's not a good solution.

00:44:32.786 --> 00:44:35.228
Can I maintain 300 pipelines?

00:44:35.228 --> 00:44:41.197
Yes, I can, because that's very centralized, very templated thing to do.

00:44:41.197 --> 00:44:51.239
So that's what I always try to convince myself Is this a good idea or is this not a good idea?

00:44:51.989 --> 00:44:56.797
No, it is a good strategy, because what is it you made me think of the other saying?

00:44:56.797 --> 00:45:02.996
It's like sometimes the most permanent solution is the temporary solution where somebody will put something in just to get through today.

00:45:02.996 --> 00:45:15.262
And then that ends up becoming the process, and you know, then everybody has to work around and try to fix that and instead of fixing the process of what they originally put in it's that temporary fix becomes the permanent fix.

00:45:15.262 --> 00:45:20.382