Playwright, mappers, and C# 14
This issue covers Playwright testing, mapper tradeoffs, distributed tracing context, Azure blobs, gRPC, ASP.NET Core, and VS Code stashes.
Jasen's top three picks
- 1 Playwright - with Debbie O'Brien
unhandledexceptionpodcast.com
Debbie O’Brien’s Playwright chat is a practical reminder that end-to-end testing gets easier when the tooling actually fits how teams ship.
- 2 Facet & traditional mappers in 2026
medium.com
Facet and traditional mappers in 2026 revisits a familiar architecture decision with fresh tradeoffs and fewer assumptions.
- 3 Context Propagation in Distributed Applications and Microservices
medium.com
Context propagation is one of those invisible details that makes distributed tracing and debugging either work beautifully or fail quietly.
Editor's note
I pulled together a pretty varied mix this time, with no single theme driving the lineup. Debbie O’Brien’s Playwright conversation is a nice practical listen, and the context propagation piece is a strong reminder that observability details matter in distributed systems. The C# 14 and DTO articles round things out with language and design updates that many teams will want to track.
Today's articles
Playwright - with Debbie O'Brien
unhandledexceptionpodcast.com
In this episode, I was joined by Debbie O’Brien to chat about Playwright - Microsoft’s open-source end-to-end testing framework. I’m a huge fan of Playwright, so I was really excited to have this chat...
Topics: GitHub Copilot Unit Testing
Read articleFacet & traditional mappers in 2026
medium.com
The Mapper Problem
Topics: C# Design Patterns
Read articleContext Propagation in Distributed Applications and Microservices
medium.com
In this post, I’ll discuss something essential but often ignored. Context Propagation (CP). Even applications that uses OpenTelemetry for…
Topics: Azure OpenTelemetry
Read articleC# Channels Explained — From Producer-Consumer Basics to High-Performance .NET Systems
medium.com
C# Channels provide a precise way to control flow, apply backpressure, and coordinate async work inside high-traffic .NET applications.
Topics: C# Performance
Read articleImplementing Large File Uploads and Downloads in Azure Blob Storage With .NET
antondevtips.com
Learn how to get started with Azure Storage Account, how to create an account, enable anonymous file access and create blob storage. Learn how to implement efficient large file uploads and downloads i
Topics: Azure Performance
Read articleWhy We Abandoned Enums for Strings in Our .NET gRPC Service
medium.com
Here is the story of why we spent hours fighting the Protobuf specification, and why we ultimately decided to serialize our Enums as…
Read articleHow Do C# Records Improve the Design of Data Transfer Objects (DTOs) in .NET Applications?
c-sharpcorner.com
Discover how C# records revolutionize DTO design in .NET! Learn why they're often superior to classes for data transfer, offering immutability, and value-based equality.
Read articleSource Control in VS Code now displays Git stashes 📦
youtube.com
Framework vs Core vs 5+: The .NET Confusion — Finally Solved
Topics: GitHub Visual Studio Code
Read articleDatabases Are Not a Religion: Stop Choosing Tech Like a Fanboy
rahulsahay19.medium.com
Every few months, the tech internet discovers a new “best database”.
Topics: MongoDB PostgreSQL
Read articleWhy ASP.NET Core Feels Stable in a Fast-Changing World
medium.com
Unpacking the Reliability of ASP.NET Core
Topics: ASP.NET Core .NET 8
Read articleC# 14: From Helper Classes to First-Class APIs
c-sharpcorner.com
C# 14 extension members introduce extension properties, operators, and static members. Learn how they transform helper classes into first-class APIs and enable modern, expressive, and binary-safe .NET...
Read article