"Microsoft's .net talk at the SPA" by petrovg

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:33:00 PDT

I found it astonishing that some people in the software development community still use the What-was-he-smoking? joke. But what I found even more astonishing is that some people (thank god not many) still laugh at it!

Anyway, Microsoft seem to have grown up a bit (it takes some battering, love, hate, near death experiences, and other emotions that don’t normally come from programming) so there was none of that at their talks. Oddly enough their talk this morning was actually funny (delivered by Eric Nelson, apparently a Geordie).

It almost made the Apple vs PC adverts abundant in London’s tube seem completely irrelevant. May be it is only geeks who pay attention to them.

Microsoft seem capable to develop some really cool and adventurous stuff nowadays. The UI they showed us, made with Windows Presentation Foundation is very impressive, easy to make and easy to use. It’s just good. It also completely separates development from design. Like, I write this thing here in terms of buttons and tables and test it that way, but then some designer somewhere else can make my button look like a picture and my table look like a Christmas tree. Like web for the desktop…. pretty cool.

If that’s not good enough, look at the seemingly simple, but actually quite insightful things like Powershell. Hint: everything’s a .net object. Hint2: look at that URL. Or IronPython. Or all the little things that show Microsoft as one of the most open-minded ego-less companies that exists at the moment.

Contrast this with some companies’ teen-minded Mum-said-I’m-better-than-you or Sun’s where-did-I-leave-my-glasses attitudes….

Supple software comments on Microsoft's .net talk at the SPA

"Microsoft's .net talk at the SPA" by petrovg