Category Archives: Technology

Day 1 at the MTS07: Keynote

Keynote:

They keynote was delivered by Bill Hilf. Bill comes from the open source community but now works for Microsoft, as the General Manager of Platform Strategy. His intent is to build the community, for the benefit of the software community as a whole as well as for the benefit of Microsoft. Bill seems to get the idea about how open source can benefit Microsoft, and how collaboration can help as well.

Bill is unapologetic. Microsoft is in the OSS to make more money. For him, this is not an emotional process. By building partnerships with other companies, he can sell more software (licenses, etc.). They sponsor every open source conference, to some extent. They will speak and sponsor at every event.

Port25 is the community front end for communicating the strategy and intention coming out of the open source lab.

http://port25.technet.com

Codeplex is open source community for developers, based on Visual Studio

Bill described a set of lessons about cooperating as well as competing with other companies, that he has taken from his favorite video game: Official Strategy Guide, World of Warcraft

Collaborate and compete, but there are challenges to doing so:

  • The Observer Effect – when you enter into an environment you change it by becoming a part of it
  • Balance – how much to compete, how much to cooperate
  • Perceptions – small but loud open source philosophers.  They believe that commercial software shouldn’t exist.  Huge base of people who write and deploy code and make policy about code: much more pragmatic.  Understanding the audience is important, and don’t target the business policy to the philosopher.
  • Red Oceans and status quo – what could you build?  Windows and Office are existing markets that make a lot of money.  Moving those markets is not a trival task. 
  • Focus – limited resources
  • The benefit and bane of history.  History of Microsoft, what has been problematic, what has been done and what they don’t do well.

 

Things that matter include:

  • Relationships
  • Platforms
  • Communities
  • Ecosystems
  • Value
  • Making Money

 

Lessons:

  • Patience is the key
  • Learn what you can handle
  • Invest in friends and skilled allies (hire people smarter than yourself)
  • Identify goals and suitable targets
  • The right place at the right time
  • Use all resources – “play long, play hard, and use as many sources as you see fit”

 

Port25
Community front end for communicating strategy and intention coming out of open source lab
CodePlex
Open Source Community for developers, based on Visual Studio

Bill Wagner on DotNetRocks

Check out Bill Wagner’s latest appearance on DotNetRocks, Show #223. For anyone who doesn’t know, Bill is my business partner and author of Effective C#, The C# Little Black Book, and various articles. I haven’t listened to his DNR podcast yet, but I plan to listen to it on the way home from Redmond tomorrow.

Bill on Dot Net Rocks

UI Smackdown 2007 Early Bird Expires Today

If you’ve been planning to attend the User Interface Smackdown 2007 event to explore GWT, Flex, and WPF, today is the last day to get early bird pricing. At close of business today, we’ll be updating the pricing, so if you’ve been planning to attend and have just been procrastinating, the time is now.

We’re also getting really close to reaching capacity for the event. Unfortunately, the “Buy now” buttons for Google checkout don’t seem to support limiting quantity, so we’ve been manually watching registrations.

On a more technical note, I’m going to have to look into tying into the Google checkout API, I think. My wish list for Google checkout includes support for limiting quantity, being able to specify how many items to buy at a given time, and being able to add a comment field, so that people can manually add information about who they are registering. That’s probably a bit much to ask for in the Buy Now button realm, but hey! Anyhow, I’m looking forward to diving into the Google checkout API to see what we can do with it.

And, back on topic: register now if you’ve been planning to attend. Hope to see you there!

Registration link

UI Smackdown 2007 Event Details

Day 0 : Microsoft Technology Summit

I’m here in Redmond, WA, for the Microsoft Technology Summit, an event geared toward people who have been identified as community leaders in a geographic region and who do NOT predominantly use Microsoft development tools.

Travel here was uneventful. A friend who used to live in Ann Arbor, but now works for Microsoft (Stan Kitsis) picked me up at the airport and after lunch we went off for a hike at Snoqualmie Falls. The waterfall was rushing today, and mist was reaching the observation platforms. We did the hike to the bottom of the falls (about ¾ of a mile). It was a great hike, well worth the climb back up. And the weather here was gorgeous … sunny skies with high clouds.

Tonight was the Evening Welcome Reception at a restaurant near the hotel. This was a nice small party, with most of the people in attendance. There are people here from Thailand, Malaysia, even Australia (I may have missed one country). At dinner, I sat next to Yakov Fain. He is a certified Flex instructor from New Jersey and we both know James Ward, who is a Flex evangelist. In the “small world news”, Yakov lives in a town one over from where my husband grew up. On the other side of me was Duncan Buell, Computer Science Department Chair at the University of South Carolina. We had some interesting discussions about IDEs and teaching kids computer science (in addition to other things). Also at the table was Peter Laudati, Microsoft Developer Evangelist from New Jersey, and Tanya Young, who is coordinating the event. I also met Scott Preston from Columbus who was wearing his CodeMash t-shirt! Cool!

Yakov sent some links to his eBook: "Java for Kids, Parents and Grandparents", in response to Duncan's question about the right balance between spending time introducing OOP and actual coding. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Duncan mentioned that his university is putting together a summer program for kids, using the Alice programming language. Interestingly enough, I’m heading to the Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing conference on Friday night, and there’s a session on using Alice to teach programming at that event. One of my colleagues in Ann Arbor, Aydin Akcasu, has done talks on using the Kids Programming Language (at Day of Dot Net in 2006)

Back to this conference, events kick off tomorrow, with a keynote followed by sessions on Microsoft Research, SOA, Dynamic Languages on the CLR, CardSpace, and XAML/WF/WCF, and the day will finish off with a visit to a local restaurant.

UI Smackdown 2007 Explained

Is this wrestling or deciphering software technologies? Definitely the latter!

A few people have asked me about the name we chose for our user interface event on April 4, which will include Flex, GWT, and WPF. Honestly, the name was proposed by one of the participants, and we couldn’t think of one that we liked better!

This will NOT be a confrontational event, and I hope that no one has signed up to witness the World Wrestling equivalent in the software world. Instead, like CodeMash, the idea is to bring together people interested in different technologies and learn an appreciation for what each one provides. We think that this is a huge win for the vendors involved, since it offers an honest glimpse into the perspective that programmers bring to technologies as they evaluate them.

I’m really looking forward to the event. I’ve seen quite a bit of Flex and it’s very impressive. I’ve seen enough WPF to find that compelling as well. GWT sort of serves a different purpose, but we included it because it’s a different approach to the same problem: how do we build user interfaces that customers can use, but that programmers can maintain and understand.

If you haven’t signed up yet, but have been planning to, the time is now (we had some glitches with our registration page, but I moved it to a different site and I think it’s all working now; if you have problems email info@srtsolutions.com and we’ll get you set up). We have had a great response, and we may end up cutting off registrations. The early bird deadline is Monday (March 26), and the fee through Monday is $75. After that, we’re raising the price to $90, but with the rate at which we’re getting signups, I may end up closing registration before we even get to that point. And from my perspective, that’s a VERY good thing. If we need to choose a larger venue for a future event of this sort, that’s just fine by me!

Microsoft Technology Summit 2007

No, you didn't stumble on Bill's blog accidentally. Really, I'm going to Redmond!

I’m heading off to Redmond on Sunday. Yes, Redmond. No, I do not typically develop on the Microsoft platform (at least not recently), but that’s the point of this conference. This is a conference targeted at community leaders not currently developing on the Microsoft platform. It’s an honor to be included (which is a response in large part, I’m sure, to the many hours I put in to help organize CodeMash). Only about 50 people have been invited and we will be meeting with the product and research teams. It sounds like we will have an opportunity to provide feedback to those teams as well as be exposed to the latest cool things that Microsoft has available. I’m looking forward to not only learning about the latest in what Microsoft has to offer, but I’m also interested in meeting the other participants and helping to build that community as well.

My involvement with CodeMash and my participation at the various Open Spaces events that Bruce Eckel has been hosting (including Programming the New Web, Web Frameworks Jam, TurboGears Jam, and most recently, the Java Posse Roundup) has given me the opportunity to realize that I really enjoy building community. I have been involved with this in the past (Ann Arbor Computer Society, and the Ann Arbor ITZone). I’m trying to work with the Ann Arbor Java User group, and I’ve been going to Python User Group meetings as well. A large part of being an entrepreneur in software is networking. I really dislike some aspects of that. I dislike going to meetings and shaking hands, and delivering elevator pitches. What I do like is getting to know people at conferences or user group meetings, learning what they do, who they work with, who they interact with in the community and what technologies they use. I LOVE meeting new people and talking geek stuff with them. I don’t like meeting business people and giving spiels. I know that this business requires a bit of both, but I would really rather spend time with the fun, cool, technical people when I can!

About a week before CodeMash, we created a google group for people to communicate with one another prior to the event. In addition to helping plan logistics, like carpooling, room sharing and such, it gave us an opportunity to build some community in advance of the event. Face it — geeks can be shy. If this helps to bring us out of our shells so that the face-to-face meeting is a little easier, then that’s great. It gives us all some context about the rest of the group, so that when we finally do meet, it’s a bit more relaxed (I think, at least).

Anyhow, I offered to create a group for the MTS2007 and the Microsoft staff took me up on the offer. People have been signing up all week and I’m looking forward to meeting all of them in person.

I’ll blog more from the event (Microsoft is OK with us blogging about it).

Sun Project Blackbox Tour

Tour coming to Southfield tomorrow!

I first heard about the “datacenter in a shipping container” on the Java Posse. Today, I got an email from a local friend that Sun is doing a tour of the “Project Blackbox” in Southfield, MI on Tuesday, March 20, 2007.

This demo/tour is open to the public and free. If you want to sign up, go to http://www.sun.com/events/st/loc.jsp

They are holding these events all over the country.

Sounds like an interesting tour. I’m looking at my schedule to see if I have time to attend.

Practice of Java in Atlanta: An Open Spaces Event

My friend and fellow Open Spaces advocate, Barry Hawkins, is helping to organize an Open Spaces event for Java in Atlanta. Barry has been at several of the Open Spaces events that I’ve attended, including the most recent Java Posse Roundup. Barry and I met at an Open Spaces event facilitated and hosted by Bruce Eckel, and have been repeat offenders ever since. Bruce has set the bar really high, providing amazing learning and community building opportunities. I know that Barry will do an extraordinary job with this event as well. If you’re in the area (or feel like going there), definitely check it out. It’s your event to make what you want it to be.

In April, the Atlanta Java User Group will hold "The Practice of Java in Atlanta", the first Open Space meeting for the Java programming language in the Atlanta area. This is a meeting for passionate Java practitioners to discuss the state and direction of Java development in the Atlanta area.

What: The Practice of Java in Atlanta

When: Thursday, April 19, 2007 – Friday, April 20, 2007

Where: Holiday Inn Select (where AJUG regularly meets)

Who: The first 200 registrants

Why: See below

What is Open Space Technology?

Open Space meetings allow a group of persons passionate about a topic or issue to organize their own agenda in a way that is efficient and effective, yielding exceptional results. The following excerpt from the Open Space World wiki briefly describes Open Space Technology:

"Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired meetings and events. Over the last 20+ years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.

In Open Space meetings, events and organizations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create?

With groups of 5 to 2000+ people — working in one-day workshops, three-day conferences, or the regular weekly staff meeting – the common result is a powerful, effective connecting and strengthening of what's already happening in the organization: planning and action, learning and doing, passion and responsibility, participation and performance." [0]

Why Open Space?

Open Space meetings have been around for 20+ years, and have begun to make their way into technology circles. In the past year, Bruce Eckel's Programming the New Web [1], Dynamic Web Frameworks Jam, and the Java Posse Roundup 2007 [2] have been a few of the Open Space meetings that have people talking. Members of our AJUG community have attended these meetings, and the consensus has been that these are among the most engaging, beneficial gatherings in which they have taken part.

Our Theme – The Practice of Java in Atlanta

The Java presence in Atlanta is a significant one, and AJUG makes that evident. Our monthly meetings and mailing list include Java champions, authors, committers on key Java projects, and seasoned Java veterans with deep experience and insight. Our desire is to hold a meeting about what we are doing and should be doing with Java. What's working? What is not working? These are the conversations we wish to have, passionate discussions about where things are going. We hope you'll join us.

[0] – http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/wiki.cgi?AboutOpenSpace

[1] – http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=153596

[2] – http://mindview.net/Conferences/JavaPosseRoundup

Please direct questions to Barry Hawkins at barry@alltc.com

User Interface Smackdown 2007

Explore Google's GWT, Adobe's Flex, and Microsoft's WPF for creating user interfaces

Registration is now open for the User Interface Smackdown 2007, being held April 4, 2007 at the Ann Arbor ITZone (Spark Central). The user interface toolkits that we will discuss and work with include (at least) Google’s GWT, Adobe’s Flex, and Microsoft’s WPF.

I’ve had a lot of fun doing Open Spaces events that Bruce Eckel has hosted in the past year. I exposed Bill Wagner (my business partner and co-founder of SRT) and our consultants to Open Spaces at CodeMash and they all enjoyed the experience as well, so we decided to start doing them locally, and we hope to do about 1 per quarter. Hopefully we will have the next one planned by the time that this one takes place (teaser: we already have some ideas in the works).

We believe that these events benefit the developer community. Not only are they an efficient and interesting way to bring timely knowledge to programmers, but they also bring the community together in a way that fosters continued communication and builds community. This helps everyone.

We believe that innovative user interfaces will be a key differentiator for software offerings in coming years, and learning how to use modern toolkits to build them is essential. We hope that we have a great turnout for this event and that it provides us with the motivation and interest to do more of these in the future, on different topics.

Cost for the event is $75 before March 26, or $90 after March 26 (and at the door, if space is available). Registration also includes continental breakfast and lunch.

This event is sponsored by Adobe, Microsoft, and SRT Solutions.

Hope to see you there!

Swag at the Java Posse Roundup

Cool swag

Is it rude to brag about the swag at a conference? Ah, well, I’m gonna do it anyhow. Next year, I’m convinced that the Java Posse Roundup 2008 will sell out during the early bird registration period, and it won’t be just for the swag.

But it was cool swag.

Cenqua and Google and O’Reilly sent t-shirts. There was a serious lack of shirts in small sizes. Kathy Sierra would NOT be pleased. She’s right … it DOES matter. Even the guys were amused at the number of XL and XXL. Not a small or medium in the bunch of Google or O’Reilly shirts. I didn’t check out the Cenqua shirts (I like their product, though).

O’Reilly sent some books and notepads. But they made the mistake of labeling the box “Dark Chocolate”. OK, the notebooks were great, but the expectation of chocolate kinda set the bar!

Google also sent some really cool flashy pins. Bruce’s company (Mindview) has great floaty pens.

Adobe sent a training video for Flex and a nice travel mug too.

Sun sent developer tools. I hope that I didn’t forget anyone. The swag table was quite laden with goodies. We have some cool notebooks that I could have taken, but the thought didn’t occur to me.

But next year, someone better send chocolate. I definitely know what SRT will take to its next event. Hmm, we’re sponsors of the Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing in a few weeks. Maybe I should see if we still have time to get chocolate!