Merge Conflict
Join Frank & James for a weekly discussion on the world of technology and development including C#, F#, .NET, web, mobile, and more.
Episode Search
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506: We have no skills
March 16th, 2026 | 52 mins 59 secs
James and Frank unpack the exploding world of AI coding agents—covering instructions, MCP tools, custom agents, hooks, plugins and why “skills” matter. They walk through the new .NET Skills repo (P/Invoke, MSBuild, diagnostics, binlogs), show how skills act like practical, on‑demand tutorials for niche tasks, and sketch how tooling will soon auto-load the right skills so agents can just do the thing for you.
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505: 8GB of RAM Isn't Good Enough #MacBookNeo
March 9th, 2026 | 1 hr 3 mins
On this episode we wade through Apple’s drip‑fed “event week,” from the budget iPhone 17E to the new MacBook Neo/Air M5 and the pricey Studio Display, and argue who each device is really for. The big takeaway: 8GB of RAM is borderline unusable for modern web and dev workflows—buy up if you can—while the Air M5 looks like the sweet spot; plus a fun detour on using Copilot/Fleet to scaffold apps in minutes.
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504: 15 Years of iCircuit
March 2nd, 2026 | 49 mins 26 secs
Frank Kruger celebrates iCircuit’s 15‑year journey—from an iPad‑era $20 launch and surprising overnight success to the present—unpacking the tradeoffs between maintaining a flagship app and chasing new side projects. He offers candid lessons on pricing, backporting legacy fixes, modernizing pipelines, and explains how AI agents have reshaped his workflow and will power the next wave of iCircuit features.
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503: Welcome to Tiny Tool Town
February 23rd, 2026 | 47 mins 49 secs
On this episode we dive into Tiny Tool Town — a GeoCities‑style app hub for tiny developer utilities — and James walks us through building Tiny Clips, a Mac toolbar screen‑capture app he prototyped and shipped using Copilot, agentic workflows, and a plan‑implement‑review cycle. Expect practical takeaways on multi‑model AI pipelines (planning with 5.2, coding with Codex/Opus), CI/publishing tips, sandboxing/TestFlight pitfalls, and why tiny apps are booming.
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501: Autopilot, Fleets, and Parallel Agents Explained
February 9th, 2026 | 35 mins 57 secs
In this episode James and Frank walk through the latest Copilot CLI power-ups—Autopilot loops, experimental Fleet/parallel agents, and Opus model/context updates—while demoing how they used plan mode to spin up a full MAUI pet‑insulin app end-to-end. Learn what Autopilot and Fleet actually do, how parallel agents orchestrate work, plus practical tips (watch your context window, use plan mode) for turning AI agents into fast prototypes.
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492: SwiftData & CloudKit Sync "Just Work" Right? [Boosted Audio]
December 8th, 2025 | 51 mins 18 secs
James and Frank break tradition by recording Merge Conflict together in person, sharing laughs about ferries, sea shanties, and their annual Seattle holiday meetup. The conversation dives deep into Swift Data versus Core Data, CloudKit syncing, and the quirks of building modern apps with AI assistance. Along the way, James reveals his new weight‑tracking app experiment, complete with charts, HealthKit integration, and lessons learned from coding on planes and trains.
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488: Breaking Down the 2025 Octoverse Report
November 10th, 2025 | 54 mins 41 secs
In this year’s Octoverse, we uncover how AI, agents, and typed languages are driving the biggest shifts in software development in more than a decade.
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480: Hello iPhone 17
September 15th, 2025 | 53 mins 20 secs
New iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPod pro, and also the official release of iOS 26, macOS 26, and so much more. We break it all down.
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479: All in on Spec-Driven Development
September 8th, 2025 | 44 mins 23 secs
We discuss what spec-driven development is and a new toolkit from GitHub that seeks to streamline the approach when using AI.
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462: Are Apps Dead?
May 12th, 2025 | 55 mins 26 secs
AI is everywhere and evolving quickly. How is it transforming our lives, our development process, and what does the future hold?