You've reached the internet home of Chris Sells, who has a long history as a contributing member of the Windows developer community. He enjoys long walks on the beach and various computer technologies.
Friday, Sep 12, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Respect for Marketing
Even in my short time at Microsoft so far, I've have already learned a *ton* from marketing. Of course, I'm working with lots of marketing folks as we get closer to the PDC. Because of my role, I have to worry about what's good for the developer. Marketing guys, on the other hand, have to balance that with what's good for the administrator, what's good for the user, what's good for the company, what's good for the shareholders and what's good for a bunch of other folks I don't even know about. And, they have to do it for all of the streams of information coming out of the company, which now includes lots of informal streams like newsgroups, message boards, user group talks and blogs. Anyone that can balance all of these folks and still get developers what they need has my unabashed respect.
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 12:28 PM
How Rich Are You?
Here. Rounding, I'm in the top 0% of the richest people in the world. Then how come I still work for a living?!?
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 11:03 AM in .NET
Implementing Drag and Drop in ... WinForms!
Here. Steve Hoag gives a nice overview of various kinds of Windows Forms drag-n-drop, including text, pictures, files and between lists. The code is in VB.NET, but we're all one big happy family!
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 9:50 AM
Let us pause on 9/11...
Here. George Bullock, a colleague at MS who's birthday happens to fall on 9/11, has had the "coolness" taken out of the day for him and sent around a mail that I share part of.
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 8:45 AM
Redmond man slams spammers for $250,000
Here. It's great the a certain company in the Pacific Northwest has empowered technically savvy folks with the thousands of dollars needed to pursue these cases. Hopefully a few wins will cause ambulance chasers to smell blood in the water and start taking these cases in groups. Do spammers make enough money to activate lawyers against them?
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 8:33 AM
Test Dynamics
Here. Not quite knowing where Josh was going, I really liked it when he said, "... with the advent of managed code, our devs are somewhere close to twice as productive as before..." However, with the end of that same sentence, he sent chills down my spine, "... this means that one dev can overwhelm a tester pretty quickly." He goes on to wonder whether, because managed code has fewer bugs, we'll be able to keep going or have to increase the number of testers. The thing that scares me is that testers are a rare breed, hard to find and hard to keep, especially as many of them want to cut their own code, not report bugs on someone else's. Is the next growth industry in the IT industry testers? Is the next DevelopMentor an out-sourced QA company?
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 8:27 AM
Why Do You Code?
Here. I always enjoy Rory's writings. This time, he tells the stories of some amazingly dedicated coders and then asks the question "Why do you code?" I think I started coding because I was such an anti-social geek that I needed something over which my actions had some reasonable, predictable outcome. Plus, I have that kind of a mind well-suited to programming. I continue to code as a way to a) learn how MS's latest technologies work and b) make my computer do what I want it to do. How about you?
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 8:04 AM
Scott's Ultimate Developer & Power User Tools List
Here. "Everyone collects utilities, and most folks have a list of a few that they feel are indispensable. Here's mine. Each has a distinct purpose, and I probably touch each at least a few times a week. For me, util means utilitarian and it means don't clutter my tray. If it saves me time, and seamlessly integrates with my life, it's the bomb."
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Let us pause on 9/11...
My
8-year old was proud to remind me that today was the two-year anniversary of
9/11. I was surprised that he knew and grateful to his school for taking the
time to discuss it. He then went on to tell me how cool he thought the
explosions were, which left me less pleased with his school. When I told him
about my own experiences that day and how many people died, it immediately took
all of the "coolness" right out of the day for him.
George Bullock, a
colleague at MS who's birthday happens to fall on 9/11, has also had the
"coolness" taken out of the day for him and sent around a mail that starts this
way:
"Let us pause on 9/11 to remember and honor the thousands killed, maimed, put out of work, and traumatized two years ago; also to honor the heroic, living and dead, who rose to the occasion on that terrible day. May God rest their souls and keep and protect their loved ones. May God also keep and protect our men and women serving here and abroad. Yes, there is much difference of opinion about what's happening in the world today; nevertheless, I think we all support the men and women of our armed forces and wish them a safe return home. They sacrifice a lot to serve their country."
Personally, I try very hard not to let the terrorists get to me. Unfortunately, they have. Even time I get the anal probe treatment at the airport or a personal freedom is taken away by the Patriot Act or my sister-in-law is afraid to fly (and flat out refuses to fly on that day), they win. More subtly, ever time a US politician uses "terrorism" to push their own agenda, they also win. Please don't let them win. Have courage. Try to understand what it was that drove them to terrorism to attract our attention. Compare their lives to ours. But don't let them win. Don't let them take the right to the pursuit of happiness out of our lives.
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003, 4:29 PM
MSDN TV: Hard Core Messaging with WSE 2.0, Pt. 1
Here. Keith Ballinger taped live from the Applied XML Developer's Conference. Keith, as ever, a pleasure to watch.
Monday, Sep 8, 2003, 8:49 AM
OLE 2 Guru Finds God at Microsoft
Here. Kraig Brockschmidt, author of Inside OLE 2 and the first person to understand all of OLE 2 and live to tell the tale writes on his post-MS spiritual journey and his revelatations on how God was with him the whole time at MS. [gotdotnet.com/team/dbox]
Saturday, Sep 6, 2003, 3:44 PM
Other ENTJs
Here. In addition to ChrisAn and I, Harrison Ford is an ENTJ, as are FDR, Nixon, Steve Martin, David Letterman and Jim Carrey. This is so true: "ENTJs are often 'larger than life' in describing their projects or proposals... In combination with the natural propensity for filibuster, our hero can make it very difficult for the customer to decline... Experience teaches many ENTJs that restraint may often be the better part of valor, lest one find oneself victorious but alone."
Saturday, Sep 6, 2003, 10:58 AM in Money
Bloomberg University: Required Reading
Here. The recent economic conditions caused me to become very interested in not just making money (I've always been a capitalist : ), but also in keeping a careful eye on it. In the past, I've let most of the "keeping an eye on it" be done by a financial advisor (I've had one since I was 22). These days, I have a stack of financial books that I'm reading [1] and it's been a fabulous educational experience. Given the supreme importance of money in our society, I think everyone should know the basics of money management. I'm very disappointed that I made it all the way through high school, let alone college, with no more instruction then how to fill in a check (something we want folks to do less of, not more!). Towards that end, I really love Bloomberg University’s no-frills financial tutorials, including one on the basics of a 401(k) and another on the basics of investing. They provide just the tip of the iceberg and I could recommend a lot of other reading, but this is a good place to start for folks that want to actually keep the money they make. [1] http://www.sellsbrothers.com/money
Saturday, Sep 6, 2003, 10:14 AM in Tools
Are You Missing Out on Code Generation?
Here. Oh, sure, I built an entire codegen product a number of years ago. Would it have hurt folks to get excited about it then?!? : )
Saturday, Sep 6, 2003, 10:05 AM
Another ENTJ comes out of the closet
Here. ChrisAn, one of my very smart friends at Microsoft, discovers he's the same Myers-Briggs type that I am. I'll bet that one is pretty common at Microsoft, actually. Maybe we could just skip the annoying interview process from now on... : )