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.
Wednesday, Jun 16, 2004, 3:40 PM in The Spout
The Reason for ATOM
It seems to me that folks embrace ATOM mainly to get away from the guy that's credited with inventing RSS:
"I'm not running for president, I am not a corporate executive, and I don't tell bedtime stories to adults unless its for fun and they're friends. I can tell you what it feels like to be me, but I don't know how it feels to be you. I'm willing to listen, up to a point, but unless your site is hosted on weblogs.com, I don't understand why you're hogging the microphone right now. I believe so strongly in the weblog world, that we should be grounded in truth. I think a lot of people participating in this dicussion are not grounded in truth, deliberately so, openly so. Shame on you, I say."
This was said after he pulled down 3000 web sites he was hosting with no notice. ATOM is starting to sound more and more attractive...
Because this post has cauesd Mr. Winer to start swearing at me, I thought I'd remind folks of the following:
DISCLAIMER: This is a personal post of Chris Sells as an individual on my own personal web site and does not reflect the views or Microsoft as a whole or any portion of Microsoft.
Wednesday, Jun 16, 2004, 3:23 PM in .NET
Refining the Versioning Story
Wesner Moise reports on a talk that Jeff Richter did on the .NET versioning story in the Longhorn time frame. Some interesting quotes:
- "a library could not easily be updated since the CLR looked for an exact version match. There was a complex way to solve this problem through policy files; however, even engineers at Microsoft found this approach too difficult."
- "Microsoft has a new approach for Longhorn and Orcas (.NET v3.0), which divides assemblies into two categories, Platforms and Libraries."
- "Most assemblies will or should be libraries. Microsoft discourages the use of platform assemblies."
- "There are actually three types of platform assemblies: System-wide, process-wide, and app domain-wide."
- "Longhorn will no longer support multiple CLRs. Every managed application will be forced to use the latest version of the CLR on the system."
- "Whidbey is expected to include an Assembly attribute, AssemblyFlagsAttribute, which allows to developer to specify Library, AppDomainPlatform, ProcessPlatform, SystemPlatform, or Legacy to identify the versioning scheme the CLR uses to load a reference assembly."
I know that the existing versioning story doesn't cut it for a lot of folks. Will this new model solve the problems? Is there a complexity danger?
Also, Ian has some thoughts on the new model.
Wednesday, Jun 16, 2004, 2:59 PM
"[T]he IE team does exist and does care"
Dave Massy is moving to Internet Explorer Program Management and wants to know what you want from IE in the next version. Don't be shy.
Wednesday, Jun 16, 2004, 1:48 AM
Testing 1 2 3
This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. <beeeeeeeeep>
Tuesday, Jun 15, 2004, 10:56 PM in Fun
"he isn't null terminated!" Bwa ha ha ha!
I'm still laughing about this one...
Monday, Jun 14, 2004, 8:20 PM in Fun
Geek Milkshake
Here. I can't get the video possibilities out of my head...
Monday, Jun 14, 2004, 3:15 PM in Fun
Geek Milkshake
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
I know you want it;
the thing that makes me,
what the geeks go crazy for.
They lose their minds..
the way I whine.
I think it's time:
la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.
la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
I can see you're on it.
You want me to teach thee,
techniques that freaks these boys.
It can't be bought;
it's just my marketing wrought.
(Track-back if you're smart)
la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.
la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
Oh once you get involved,
everyone will look this way, so,
you must maintain your charm;
same time maintain your click-through,
just get the perfect link.
Feed what you have within;
RSS is cheaper than ink.
The geeks pick up your scent.
la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.
la la, la, la, lah
Post it up.
la la, la, la, lah
The geeks are waiting.
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
My web log brings all the nerds to the yard,
and I'm like: "mine's better than yours".
Damn right, it's better than yours!
I can link you, but I have to charge!
John
Elliot
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 3:15 PM
Windows Technology Off Topic mailing list
Saturday, Jun 12, 2004, 7:57 AM in .NET
Channel9 Videos: Rich Turner On The Road To Indigo
Here.
Rich Turned, an Indigo PM, has some useful things to say about Indigo in his recent Channel9 videos:
- What is the biggest misperception of Indigo?
- What is your advice to developers who are thinking about Indigo and interoperability?
- What would be the first thing about Indigo that you'd show a Visual Basic programmer?
Plus, Rich has a blog to which I subscribe (but I wish he were more prolific).
Friday, Jun 11, 2004, 9:25 AM in .NET
Jon Udell's Questions about Longhorn
I'm really loving Jon's approach to exploring and questioning the goals and implications of Longhorn:
- Questions about Longhorn, part 1: WinFS
- Questions about Longhorn, part 2: WinFS and semantics
- Questions about Longhorn, part 3: Avalon's enterprise mission
I don't have any pithy summaries of his basic points; his posts deserve a read and a think.
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004, 10:58 AM in .NET
Avalon Property Invalidation & Custom Measurement
This post is an oldie, but a goody, in which Kenny Lim talks not only about custom Avalon controls catching property changes so that they can re-render themselves, but also about the custom measurement sequence, which is a core piece of a control that does custom layout like, say, a pile of cards (hypothetically, of course : ).
Wednesday, Jun 9, 2004, 4:33 PM in .NET
Another Cool Visualization
VisitorVille maps your real-time web site data to a SimCity-like environment that you can use to see where folks are going on your site and how they're navigating from one place to another. It does the other web traffic kinds of analysis, too, but the ability to watch your visitors in real-time looks pretty darn cool. This is the kind of thing that Longhorn should be good at enabling.
[via Jason Whittingon]
Wednesday, Jun 9, 2004, 12:53 AM in .NET
Addressing Misperceptions About Indigo
Richard Turner, a PM on the Indigo team, addresses the biggest misperception about Indigo in this Channel9 video.
Bottom line: Microsoft is not taking MSMQ, COM+ or Remoting out of the platform; it's just that Indigo, which subsumes the features of these other technologies, will do it all better.
Wednesday, Jun 9, 2004, 12:34 AM in .NET
Using XAML As A 3D File Format
Daniel Lehenbauer, an SDE on the Avalon team, has started a wiki providing helpful hints on using XAML as your new 3D file format and has provided a utility to help those playing with 3D in the WinHEC build of Longhorn (build 4074).
Tuesday, Jun 8, 2004, 7:34 AM in .NET
On The Value and Direction of WinFS
Jon Udell, a writer for InfoWorld, begins a series digging into the value proposition of Longhorn with a look at WinFS. Jeremy Mazner, a Microsoft evangelist focusing on WinFS, provides a counter-point.
Monday, Jun 7, 2004, 12:48 PM in Conference
The Magic of the DevCon: The Attendees
Here.
I was recently asked to characterize the attendees of a typical DevCon and this is what I said:
The attendees of a DevCon are the top of the pyramid developers that not only try new things all the time, but also make design and architecture decisions for their employers and customers. Also, all of the speakers, i.e. experts in their fields, practitioners, vendor architects, etc, are also attendees, and it's wonderful to see them heckling each other.
The environment of a DevCon is one big room with everyone in it, so it's a shared experience front-to-back. As soon as any talk is over (I keep them at 45 minutes to get the maximum number of new ideas into people’s heads), the buzz between people starts and only stops when I introduce the next speaker (loudly : ).
A DevCon is a wonderful mix of movers and shakers, vendors, enthusiasts, architects, practitioners and and a conference with an atmosphere and a set of attendees unlike any other that I've attended.