This last weekend I did a run up to the Oklahoma City Code Camp to give my "Introduction to C# 3.0" talk in the morning. I got to attend the keynote talk given by Jason Zander and it was great. He did a very good job showing off how XAML (be it WPF or Silverlight) allowed for powerful and graphically inviting UIs while still allowing developers to work in a way which they are accustomed to. Unfortunately I did not get to stay for the full day, as personal obligations called me back to Arlington. Still, if you get a chance to attend a Code Camp in your area, I would definitely go. Likewise if you have a chance to hear Jason talk, I'd go out of your way to make sure you do.
I opened my newsreader last night and there on the top of my "Must Read" folder was a post from Hanselman entitled "Blue Badge". Apparently Scott has decided to take the jump and join Microsoft in ScottGu's division. According to him, this is what he'll be doing: The HR title is a nice generic one like "Program Manager" (I was thinking to get this on my business card - Scott Hanselman - progman.exe, what do you think? ;) ) but in essence I'm going to talk about .NET and Visual Studio - the whole of DevDiv, including ASP.NET, WinForms, WPF, Silverlight, CLR, LINQ, IIS, DLR, .NET CF, everything. This means videos, screencasts, podcasts, maybe some Channel 9 stuff, doing articles, wikis, speaking at conferences and large events (invite me!), creating starter kits, samples, as well as my regular hobby of plugging things into other things. I'll also be working on understanding our community (that means you, Dear Reader) thr ough conversations, visits, and trying to bring some big picture analysis (the kind of stuff I do now, again) to the .NET 3.5 and .NET Futures stack. I am also obsessed with getting my new Apple Newton Messagepad 2000 to sync with Outlook 2007, so watch for that. Personally I'm absolutely thrilled to hear this, because Scott is so very good at communicating things about the .NET Framework and things developer. I also find it funny that he created the image above because he knew that the Borg joke would be made. He's right of course, people will say he's going to become faceless, nameless, and simply join the "Evil Empire" but in reality shouldn't we be thrilled that Microsoft wants to hire someone who is so community focused as Scott? I often give the Linux community crap about hating Microsoft and a reflex, no basis just a reflexive "Microsoft == Evil" embedded in their psyche. Yet most (certainly not all) of Scott's readership are Microsoft .NET developers, because that and gadgets are what he talks about most often, and yet I expect that many of his own readers will relate this to the Borg as he did. Why is this?
I've been a busy camper the last several months, having spoken at: Microsoft TechEd 2007 - Birds of a Feather : BizTalk, WCF and WF Little Rock .NET User Group - All Day Training Event : WCF Deep Dive Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group - Introduction to C# 3.0 But now there are several more coming up over the next several months I want to make you aware of: Oklahoma City Code Camp (www.okcodecamp.com) : Introduction to C# 3.0 on July 28th, 2007 Houston TechFest (www.houstontechfest.com) : Introduction to BizTalk Server and Introduction to C# 3.0 on August 25th, 2007 Memphis .NET User Group : Practical Test Driven Development on October 16th, 2007 Little Rock .NET User Group : Introduction to C# 3.0 on November 8th, 2007 VSLive! Austin : Introduction to C# 3.0 on November 13th, 2007 In all likelihood I'll also be speaking at least twice at the Dallas BizTalk User Group between now and the end of the year as well. Looking like a busy season, and I look forward to meeting as many of you as I can while I'm out and about. Memphis, take note : I'll be in Memphis the weekend before the user group, and it will be my birthday so if you've got recommendations of where I should go, or just tourist recommendations in general then drop a comment! This will be my first time in Memphis not going 50+ MPH the whole time.
