*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

Codemash 2010 is officially over and we await with anticipation for another year to go by so we can walk into the winter paradise of the Kalahari. 

This year Codemash was both exhilarating and exhausting!  First thank you to those attendees who sat through a full day Pre-Compiler about .NET.  I had a blast doing it and I hope you went away seeing all the various pieces of the platform.  I’ll be posting the slides later on.

I had the pleasure of being this year’s Master of Ceremonies for Codemash, an absolute honor.  It isn’t everyday one gets to stand in front of 700+ people of various technical backgrounds all with a common goal of breaking outside of their comfort zone.  Codemash just makes this happen. 

One of the things I did as MC this year was try to have a little fun during the lunch announcements.  The first lunch day I put together what I called a “Smartphone Typing Throwdown”.  The idea was simple.  Get as many different types of Smartphones as I could on stage and then see who could type the fastest.  Hopefully this would solve the world’s most troubling question: “Can phones with virtual keyboards type faster than phones with real keyboards?”.

Now of course this doesn’t scientifically prove ANYTHING, but it was fun.  As you watch the video, take out your phone and type the following sentence (complete with spelling and punctuation) and see how you fair against the contestants. 

Codemash continues to kill the Kalahari network.

Enjoy the video, and I’ll see you next year.

Got back home from Codemash this evening and turned on the beast.  I had a Java installer staring me in the face so I said to go ahead and install it.  Then I got presented with this.

Yeah, I’m just as confused as you.

I’ve been preparing a new laptop for the majority of the weekend that I am planning on using at Codemash 2.0.1.0 to teach a full day seminar.  It has blown my mind at the amount of software, and patches and service packs I have had to install in order to setup a new development environment to mainly get the http://www.dinnernow.net demo to work.  We have to find a better way!

Hopefully someone at Microsoft is listening and reading this.  If you work for Microsoft, please pass this plea of help along. 

My Problem

Let’s look at the problem real quick.  As a .NET developer we all understand that we have to install Visual Studio.  So we do.  Then there is always a service pack, or a service pack to the .NET framework (depending on when you are installing during the life cycle).  Then we need to install SQL Server, and then a few service packs for it, and then we need to install the ASP.NET MVC kit, then the Silverlight kit (which has a few dependencies) and then we have to install…. well you get the idea.  It is a never ending install of one thing and another.

Having a lot of friends that work at Microsoft and knowing how things work internally a bit, I know that different teams are responsible for various pieces of the .NET developer ecosystem.  I also understand that what I am about to ask is not going to be trivial to build but I think it is a must because of how large and vast the .NET platform is these days.  And of course it is about to get bigger when Windows Mobile 7 launches and comes out. 

What I Want

I want my cake and to eat it too.  Of course. But seriously, here is what I want.  I want a *tool* or something baked into Visual Studio whereby I can install different things with a single click.  Hmm, I’ve seen this somewhere before, oh yeah, the “Microsoft Web Platform Installer”.  Here let me give you a clearer picture:

This tool, targeted at web developers only, is a start in the right direction, but the problem is the scope is too narrow.  It needs to encompass the WHOLE platform.  Personally I think this tool should be expanded to allow me to easily find any and everything I as a developer could possibly want to install.  This may be CTP of MVC 2, a new release of Silverlight, or a new mobile SDK, or a Dublin or Oslo preview.  Whatever it is it doesn’t matter, I should have a ONE stop shop whereby I can grab whatever I want. Oh, and it should interface with my MSDN account too in case there is something I need that I can only get off of MSDN. 

Here’s a question: Why do I have to do a web search to find what I am looking for?  Why do I have to figure out all of the dependencies by reading multiple web pages and so on.  Every time I have to do a search for something that I need an angel looses their wings.  Please help us keep the wings on the angels. 

I understand this would require the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing but we as .NET developers need a simpler way of finding what we need and installing it than what we have today.  Not to mention the fact that it boggles the mind of those to no end trying to learn .NET.  I know this can be better.  It just takes focus and prioritization. 

You know what, even thinking about it more, 3rd party vendors would LOVE this tool if they could plug their stuff into it.  And I, as a developer would LOVE to be able to install my favorite add ins without a fuss.  This could be huge.

So there you have it, what do you say? Or maybe someone out here on the Internets has even a better idea.  Like for example, maybe create PowerShell scripts that help us (similar to apt-get on Debian Linux).  I personally don’t care how you do it, you have smart people there that can figure it out, I’m just the messenger telling you there is an opportunity here.

Thanks for listening,

Keith “is this thing on?” Elder

I’ve been wanting to post this for a few days now but wanted to wait until I got the *official* email.  This morning it finally came so I can break the news that I’ll be doing a full day pre-conference session at TechEd 2010 in New Orleans, LA.

The conference is officially slated for June 7-10th this year but as typical with most conferences like this there is a pre-conference that happens the day before the conference.  The pre-conference sessions are typically full day lengthy sessions whereby attendees can get deeper into a technology.  This year I will be doing a pre-conference entitled “.Net From Scratch” (at least I think that is going to be the title). 

.Net from scratch will start attendees at the beginning of what .Net is and work through all the layers of the platform building upon one another.  Some of you may recall my “Back to the Basics” series and this is born right out of that.  I know there are attendees that go to these larger events where some get their first exposure to the .Net platform.  There are a multitude of reasons why this is but I’ve never seen any sessions tailored to bringing new people into the platform.  The bottom line is if you don’t have a way to get people introduced the platform, the platform doesn’t grow.  Most of the time speakers like to talk about the new shiny thing, leaving out those people that are just getting started.  Someone has to fill this gap and I am truly passionate about filling this void. 

What is the moral of the story?  If you are going to TechEd 2010 and don’t know .Net but want to learn it come to this pre-conference session. Or if you know someone that is going to TechEd that is trying to learn .Net and the platform tell them about this pre-conference session.  It’ll be a great primer for things they’ll see and learn later in the week.

I was wanting to host a crawfish boil at my house (which is only 1.5 hours from New Orleans) on the Saturday before TechEd this year but I don’t know if I’ll be able to prepare all that I have to prepare for and host a crawfish boil.  We’ll see how things pan out.  If you’d be interested in attending a Pre-TechEd Crawfish Boil in Hattiesburg at my house on Saturday before TechEd let me know (comment, IM or carrier pigeon).  If there is enough interest I’m sure I can make it happen.

Codemash 2.0.1.0 is just a few days away and it is going to be a busy few days for me this year.

This year I was asked to be the official MC of Codemash.  I was truly honored to be asked and I’ve been gargling salt water and oils to keep the throat fresh ever since. 

On Wednesday for the pre-compiler I’ll be doing a full day of what I call “.Net From Scratch” or “.Net Basics”.  This is a perfect opportunity for those that don’t know .Net to get a full picture of the platform from ground zero.  Here is the official abstract from the Codemash site:

.NET Basics with Keith Elder (all day)

Technology/Platform: .NET
Difficulty Level: 100/200

Abstract: This all-day session is targeted to anyone new to .NET. You’ll start out with basic “What is .NET?” and move through building applications on in various .NET technologies. Topics covered include:

• What is .NET? Discusses the fundamentals of the .NET platform, what it is, where it can be used, and a few myths about .NET.
• How to Use Your Hammer – Visual Studio Walks you through how to use Visual Studio features like Intellisense, Source Control integration, debugging, and other critical foundational skills.
• A Programmer’s Primer Programming in C# Covers the basics of the C# language from Object Oriented Programming principles all the way to generics, collections, and LINQ. This is a programmer’s primer, which means you should already know at least one language and have some experience programming.
• Client Applications Covers standard Windows applications, Windows mobile applications and newer Windows applications based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
• Web ApplicationsCovers the variety of ways to build web-based applications in .NET. standard ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight and Web Services.

As if that wasn’t enough, Woody and I will be recording some podcasts for Deep Fried Bytes here and there when we can.  It is going to be a busy few days but I am ready. 

My only hitch at the moment is I hope to get clearance from my eye doctor to fly.  Right now I am grounded since I had eye surgery on Monday.  If the Dr grounds me when we meet on Monday, I’ll just start driving.  See you there!