3...2...1....MS Launch.....
I should get a hat that says, "I survived being launched by Microsoft". I attended the MS Launch Best of event yesterday here in B'ham. I also attended the main launch event in Atlanta a few weeks ago. I didn't blog much or say too much about the Atlanta .... um ...... debacle ..... because, well, it really kinda sucked. There were a large number of people there and free software is nice, but most of the demo's sucked (read "didn't work") and the speakers weren't really that great. I can't say they sucked, they did the best they could when speaking to 2k people, but I wasn't impressed.
Now yesterday here in B'ham the morning started off a little bit better. While I couldn't really get into the groove for the morning session on SQL 2k5 (the speaker had a cool accent, but wasn't really "pumped Langan-style" or for those non-Southers "excited" about the talk), the afternoon session turned me totally around on MS events. The afternoon speaker was Glen Gordan (http://blogs.msdn.com/glengordon/) and he seemed a little more into Visual Studio than I expected.
He demo'd a few new cool features of VS2k5, like code snippets (common chunks of code that you write can be tagged and quickly pasted into a project, no more searching for the files and copy/paste), some cool new intellisense features, the architecture designer (for those project designers/managers), and my favorite ClickOnce deployment for Smart Clients. The smart client thing is something I wasn't familiar with (of course Mr. Porter was, freakin Doug knows everything!!!), but I'm almost inspired by it. Quick and dirty Skrubby version: a smart client is an application that is at it's heart a full-bore windows app, but is deployed and can be used like a straight web application. It's some pretty neat stuff imho. Hopefully I'll post more about them (since I don't know much at the moment) because I bought a book (or 30) on developing smart client applications in VS 2k5.
A secondary implication of the day is that I'm starting to think about certifications (curse you Porter, may you have many bouncy bubbly children!!!!!!). I took a look at the new MS certifications and I'm twirling with the idea of starting the MCAD (Applications Developer) line. Only thing that really bothers me about them these days is that they are all C# and VB based. What happened to the core language, C/C++? There are a number of books on Managed C++ (MC++) and of course compiler support isn't disappearing, but it seems that even MS is basically saying that pure OOP is the only way to go (not that a HUGE percentage of the tech industry isn't already spouting it). It might just as well be me turning into a tech dinosaur, clinging to the "old" ways, unable to cope with the newbies (they people that came 2 years later than I did, lol).
Wow....this post is turning depressing........ ok Skrubby.....think of good things....like cornbread......hmmmm.....cornbread.......goooood.....ok, I'm better.
For those of you who like a little brain exercise, I found http://planarity.net/. It's really simple in principle, yet for some reason I find it pseudo-relaxing. It may be the only game in which I can do better than my toothbrush these days........
Now yesterday here in B'ham the morning started off a little bit better. While I couldn't really get into the groove for the morning session on SQL 2k5 (the speaker had a cool accent, but wasn't really "pumped Langan-style" or for those non-Southers "excited" about the talk), the afternoon session turned me totally around on MS events. The afternoon speaker was Glen Gordan (http://blogs.msdn.com/glengordon/) and he seemed a little more into Visual Studio than I expected.
He demo'd a few new cool features of VS2k5, like code snippets (common chunks of code that you write can be tagged and quickly pasted into a project, no more searching for the files and copy/paste), some cool new intellisense features, the architecture designer (for those project designers/managers), and my favorite ClickOnce deployment for Smart Clients. The smart client thing is something I wasn't familiar with (of course Mr. Porter was, freakin Doug knows everything!!!), but I'm almost inspired by it. Quick and dirty Skrubby version: a smart client is an application that is at it's heart a full-bore windows app, but is deployed and can be used like a straight web application. It's some pretty neat stuff imho. Hopefully I'll post more about them (since I don't know much at the moment) because I bought a book (or 30) on developing smart client applications in VS 2k5.
A secondary implication of the day is that I'm starting to think about certifications (curse you Porter, may you have many bouncy bubbly children!!!!!!). I took a look at the new MS certifications and I'm twirling with the idea of starting the MCAD (Applications Developer) line. Only thing that really bothers me about them these days is that they are all C# and VB based. What happened to the core language, C/C++? There are a number of books on Managed C++ (MC++) and of course compiler support isn't disappearing, but it seems that even MS is basically saying that pure OOP is the only way to go (not that a HUGE percentage of the tech industry isn't already spouting it). It might just as well be me turning into a tech dinosaur, clinging to the "old" ways, unable to cope with the newbies (they people that came 2 years later than I did, lol).
Wow....this post is turning depressing........ ok Skrubby.....think of good things....like cornbread......hmmmm.....cornbread.......goooood.....ok, I'm better.
For those of you who like a little brain exercise, I found http://planarity.net/. It's really simple in principle, yet for some reason I find it pseudo-relaxing. It may be the only game in which I can do better than my toothbrush these days........
posted by Skrubby at
10:46 AM
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