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, Jan 16, 2004, 12:40 PM in .NET
"Windows is cool again"
In talking about recent developments at Microsoft, Mary Jo sums up my own feelings nicely:
"Windows is cool again, thanks to all the excitement around Longhorn."
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004, 4:57 PM in .NET
Give Your Feedback on the WinFX Docs
Here. Brad Abrams, Lead PM on the .NET Framework team, is asking how you'd like to see Microsoft improve the WinFX documentation. Don't be shy; complaining now can improve your life later.
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004, 4:54 PM in The Spout
Bush: Get Your Own Dream!
Here.
It bugs me that Bush would steal JFK's dream of getting off of our planet, especially after we've already done it. Why not reach for getting America off of foreign oil by developing alternative energy sources, freeing us from the need to screw around with other countries and making us targets for terrorism? That's a cool dream. But noooo, you can't do that one, because you're just a shill for US big oil!
Sorry about that... I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004, 4:28 PM in .NET
WinFS on MSDN TV: Schemas and Extensibility
Here. Patrick Thompson, a PM on the WinFS team, talks about how types are defined in WinFS and how to extend them and create your own (although the extensibility of WinFS isn't enabled in the PDC bits).
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004, 3:47 PM
Rory is Funny on My Blog, too
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004, 3:45 PM in .NET
Intro'ing Longhorn for Developers Ch4: Storage
Here.
In this chapter, Brent Rector provides his overview of WinFS, including the programming model and how to access items from the WinFS API and via SQL directly (the latter sounds a lot more fun that it is : ).
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2004, 5:01 PM in .NET
Inside Avalon: Timing Is Everything
Here. Jeff Bogdan, one of the chief architects on the Microsoft Avalon team, kicks off the new Avalon column that he shares with Chris Anderson, the other chief architect on the Avalon team. These guys know Avalon because they had a hand in inventing it, so I'm *very* much looking forward to this column. Recommended.
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2004, 4:58 PM in .NET
Creating Indigo Applications with the PDC Bits
Here. Yasser Shohoud, a member of the Indigo team at Microsoft, kicks off his new Indigo column with a walk-through of how to get started programming Indigo using the Visual Studio .NET templates that come with the Longhorn SDK. Yasser is also the author of the well-regarded Real World XML Web Services: For VB and VB .NET Developers, so I'm looking forward to more discussions of how to apply Indigo in the real world. Recommended.
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2004, 4:33 PM
Evidence of Life on Mars
Here.
Getting this from Tim Ewald, a high-brow New Englander [1], set me up for the punchline even more.
[1] but in a good way!
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2004, 9:07 AM in .NET
Don Box on Indigo
The new .NET site TheServerSide.NET has an interview with Don Box on Indigo.
Tuesday, Jan 13, 2004, 9:09 PM in .NET
Passing the Torch on Wonder of Windows Forms
Here. This month, Mike Weinhardt takes over for me on the Wonder of Windows Forms column so that I can concentrate on Longhorn. Mike is the co-author on the 2e of Windows Forms Programming book and a co-author with me on a couple of Windows Forms Designer integration pieces for MSDN Magazine, so he's well qualified. Plus, as an Ozzie, he's got quite an interesting outlook. Recommended.
Monday, Jan 12, 2004, 4:39 PM in .NET
Joe Hewitt on What Longhorn Needs for Developers
Here.
Joe has a particularly dim view of where we've come with GUIs in the last 10 years. In fact, it's much more dim than my own view. On the other hand, I think he nails one point:
"There is a core set of patterns that are repeated over and over in thousands of applications, each of which has their own subtly different behavior and visuals. Back and forward, undo and redo, delete, find, bookmark, etc... And there are a core set of graphical objects like images, text, maps, and calendars, which everybody has to reinvent every time they need one in their application, and they usually do a lousy job of reinventing it. Sure, there are classes for some of these things in GUI libraries, but the user doesn't see that - they see the programmer's personal interpretation of how they think it should look and work."
As a app builder in my heart, I absolutely want the tools to build *good* applications, not just *pretty* applications.
Monday, Jan 12, 2004, 4:27 PM in .NET
My Windows Forms Book On Amazon's Top 10
Holy cow! Windows Forms Programming in C# is #10 on the list of best-selling Microsoft-related books. I'd like to thank the academy...
Monday, Jan 12, 2004, 10:46 AM in .NET
WinFX 247 Web Site Beta
From the same folks that brought you dotnet247.com comes winfx247.com. Since half of my .NET coding research yields answers at dotnet247.com, I'm excited to see the Longhorn/WinFX equivalent. It's new, but I'm sure it will be a very useful site over time.
Saturday, Jan 10, 2004, 10:12 AM in Interview
Interviewing at Lego
Sat 1/10/2004 10:12 am
Jamie, a contender for a Master Builder spot at Lego, describes a very different interview process than you're likely to get at Microsoft (except that 'softies hit you with sneaky stuff, too, sometimes : ).