Over at Canadian Developer Connection, we’ve got one more video from PDC in which Yours Truly conducted the interview: it’s with Jeff Atwood, the guy behind the blog Coding Horror and co-creator of Stack Overflow. It’s a brief interview; there were many people who wanted a slice of Jeff’s time, and we were lucky to even be able to buttonhole for as long as we did.

We’ll catch up for beers and Rock Band soon, Jeff!

Links

• Video interview with Jeff Atwood
• Stack Overflow
• Coding Horror
• Where the name “Coding Horror” came from

Interview with Chris Slemp, MSDN

Here’s another video interview featuring Yours Truly at the PDC: it’s with Chris Slemp, Program Manager for the Server and Tools Online group at Microsoft. In the interview, we talk about MSDN and its new social bookmarking feature.

Click here to watch the video.

“Grim Fandango’s” Puzzle Document

If you’re looking to get into the mind of a game designer and the design of one of the most highly-regarded computer adventures games, be sure to check out the Grim Fandango Puzzle Document. Tim Schafer, in “a temporary fit of Cake-induced Grim nostalgia,” decided to put the game’s puzzle design document online in PDF form (it’s 2.3MB in size).

Here’s a great summary of the Grim Fandango Puzzle Document, written by Andy Geers:

I use that word "crafted" because that’s exactly what this newly released document shows: true craftsmanship. We see the incredible attention to detail, the pacing of the narrative as it builds and as the puzzles get increasingly sophisticated, always coaxing the player along with them. As somebody whose spent the last few years trying to write my own adventure game, what struck me most about this document is the sheer simplicity of it – it’s well established that it takes a great deal of clarity and hard work to boil down something so vast as Grim Fandango into such a simple representation that conveys so much information in such a succinct way.

It’s a considerably more interesting read than most specs.

My Job-Related Reading List

Nothing gives you that frozen-caveman-thawed-in-modern-times feeling like returning to a software platform after not developing in it in seven years. Getting back into the swing of Microsoft’s development tools has been fun so far, but it is, as a lot of people have told me, like drinking from the firehose.

To quickly get acclimated with C#, ASP.NET and XNA, I’m expensing the following books I bought today:

• Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform by Andrew Troelsen
• Professional ASP.NET 3.5 in C# and VB by Bill Evjen, Scott Hanselman and Devin Rader
• Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming by Alexandre Santos Lobao, Bruno Pereira Evangelista, and Jose Antonio Leal de Farias

I’ll let you know what I think of these books as I read them.

“Zero Punctuation” Reviews

And finally, a couple of reviews from my all-time favourite game reviewer, Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw. The first one’s for Saints Row 2, which includes a great argument for why it might actually be a better game than Grand Theft Auto IV as well as a brilliant concept for a new game:

and here’s the latest review, for Dead Space, which he summarizes as “competent but bland”. Luckily, his review is anything but…

A number of people have asked me how many sessions I attended at last week’s Microsoft Professional Developers Conference; my answer was “I only attended the keynotes”. Since every session was recorded on video (with a split screen showing both presenter and presentation) and made available online, I decided to focus on what you can’t replicate outside the conference: getting to know people in the Windows developer community.

It’s standard procedure at Microsoft to assign “buddies” to new hires to help them get acclimated. I have the very good fortune of having John Bristowe as one of my buddies; not only is he a warm and friendly guy, but I also already know him (his sister Ashley and I went to Crazy Go Nuts University together). John’s big on podcasting and was very generous in sharing the interviewer’s chair; he let me do a lot of interviews as a way to both get podcasting practice and introduce myself to people in the Windows world. Thanks, John!

You’re going to need Silverlight to view these videos. If you’re rolling your eyes at the prospect of having to download yet another plugin, keep in mind that Silverlight is a pretty cool tool for writing rich internet apps, I’ll be covering it rather extensively soon, and it’s catching on. Besides, you can’t see the videos without it!

Don Box on My Joining the Dark Side, Demos, Oslo and M, Zombies and How to Pronounce “Azure”

Click the picture to see the video of the interview.

After introducing myself to Distinguished Engineer (yup, that’s really his title) Don Box as “Microsoft’s Newest Employee”, I told him about my coming to Microsoft from the F/OSS world and asked him to please tell me that I hadn’t made a tragic mistake and ruined my life by coming over to the Dark Side. We also talked about his preparation process for his keynote demo, the Oslo platform and the M programming platform, the proper way to pronounce “Azure” and whether or not Microsoft is ready for the zombie apocalypse.

Useful Don Box/Oslo Links

• Video of my interview with Don Box.
• Video of Don Box’s and David Langworthy’s PDC 2008 presentation, Oslo: The Language, which introduces the M programming language.
• Video of Don Box’s and Florian Voss’ PDC 2008 presentation, “Oslo”: Customizing and Extending the Visual Design Experience.
• The Oslo site.
• If you’d like to read more about Oslo in Don’s own words, a good place to start is this entry in his blog.
• Don’s blog, Don Box’s Spoutlet.

Miguel de Icaza on Mono

Click the picture to see the video of the interview.

I had a great chat with Mono Project lead Miguel de Icaza about Mono, their answer to Silverlight, the number of people in the Mono Project and how you, as a Windows developer, can take Mono out for a spin. We also talked about how to pronounce “Azure”, and Miguel speculated that the name was a clever choice because the disagreement over its pronunciation is a great way to get people talking about it.

Useful Miguel de Icaza/Mono Links

• Video of my interview with Miguel de Icaza.
• Video of Miguel de Icaza’s PDC 2008 presentation, Mono and .NET.
• The Mono Project’s site.
• Miguel de Icaza’s blog.

John Lam on IronRuby

Click the picture to see the video of the interview.

It’s always good to catch up with Toronto-area guy turned Redmond guy and IronRuby creator John Lam. We had a quick chat about IronRuby and the current state of the project. In the interview, he reminds us that IronRuby is an open source project, talks about the Ruby standard implementation tests it’s currently passing and what to expect from IronRuby in the near future.

Useful John Lam/IronRuby Links

• Video of my interview with John Lam.
• Video of John Lam’s PDC 2008 presentation, IronRuby: The Right Language for the Right Job.
• The IronRuby site.
• Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby — the most whimsical introduction to a programming language, ever!
• John Lam’s blog, John Lam on Software.

Phil Haack on ASP.NET MVC

Click the picture to see the video of the interview.

Phil Haack not only has the coolest surname for a techie, he’s also got an MVC framework for ASP.NET, just like the ones the Rails, Django and Cake people get to play with. In this interview, we talk about MVC web frameworks for the uninitiated, as well as get his take on how to pronounce “Azure”.

Useful Phil Haack/ASP.NET MVC Links

• Video of my interview with Phil Haack.
• Video of Phil Haack’s PDC 2008 presentation, ASP.NET MVC: A New Framework for Building Web Applications.
• The official ASP.NET MVC site.
• Phil Haack’s blog, You’ve Been HAACKED.

.NET Micro Framework

Click the picture to see the video of the interview.

Believe it or not, there’s a .NET framework for embedded devices, the .NET Micro Framework. In this interview, I learn about .NET programming for small devices, the “Dare to Dream Different” contest (where you can win great prizes for coming up with new applications for the .NET Micro Framework) and about what donuts have to do with microcontrollers. Mmm…donuts!

Useful .NET Micro Framework Links

• Video of my .NET Micro Framework interview.
• The “Dare to Dream Different” contest site.
• The .NET Micro Framework site.

Over on my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, I’ve got a long (but entertaining) review of the hotel I stayed at while attending the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference titled A Dump with a Future.

On Tuesday night, attendees of the PDC were treated to a night at the Universal Studios Hollywood amusement park, which was closed off to everyone but us. Everything was free: rides, food and drinks, and the park was dressed up for Hallowe’en, complete with horror movie characters including Freddy Krueger, skeletons and chainsaw-wielding zombies.

I’ll post more photos on the Accordion Guy blog later, but in the meantime, enjoy these photos featuring the new “Simpsons Ride”, which was very amusing. It’s one of those “ridefilms” or “simulator rides”, in which you’re placed in a ride car that seats 8 that gets jolted around in sync to an IMAX film. The basic plot:you’re trying out the new ride in “Krustyland” when suddenly, Sideshow Bob takes over the controls as an act of revenge, and hilarity ensues.

One of the best things about the ride is that they try to keep you entertained in line with…you guess it, Simpsons cartoons. These new cartoons were made specifically for the ride, feature a number of Simpsons characters and best of all, feature writing that’s a lot funnier and sharper than the show has been lately.

I’m meeting up with a lot of interesting new people and catching up with old friends and collegaues here at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2008 in the Los Angeles Convention Center. Among the people I ran into was John Lam of the IronRuby project. This was the prefect opportunity for me to conduct my first podcast interview as a Microsoft Developer Evangelist. I asked John to explain IronRuby to people who’d never heard of it and to give us a quick summary of the current state of the project.

My thanks to John Bristowe for suggesting that I conduct the interview and for doing the camera and post-production work!

This morning at the PDC keynote, one of the announcements made was about the online, web-based versions of the Office Apps we know and love: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. They look better than their Google Apps equivalents — so good that it’s quite hard to tell the web version from the desktop version. Take a look…

Word

Take a look at these two photos that I took at the keynote. Which one is the desktop Word and which one is the web Word?

Click the picture to see it on its Flickr page, where you can see it in larger sizes.

Click the picture to see it on its Flickr page, where you can see it in larger sizes.

The answer: The top one is the web version; the bottom one is the desktop version.

OneNote

Try the same thing again, this time as OneNote:

Click the picture to see it on its Flickr page, where you can see it in larger sizes.

Click the picture to see it on its Flickr page, where you can see it in larger sizes.

The answer: The top one is the desktop version; the bottom one is the web version.

Excel

One more time, with Excel:

Click the picture to see it on its Flickr page, where you can see it in larger sizes.

Click the picture to see it on its Flickr page, where you can see it in larger sizes.

The answer: The top one is the desktop version; the bottom one is the web version.

Live Collaboration

One more thing: in the demo, they were running the web, desktop and phone versions simultaneously on the same document, with each user’s edits updating the other two’s versions. There are some great collaborative possibilities here.

Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.

One nice thing about PDC: there are plenty of free snacks, some of which are healthy, some of which, well, not so much…

Choose wisely, my geeky friends.

Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

I’m on my way to PDC2008. I expect to land at LAX at 11:00 Pacific and should be there for the afternoon sessions and evening hijinks. See you there!

No tech conference is complete without a Bingo Card, and I noticed that nobody’s made one for PDC yet! As a brand-new Microsoft Developer Evangelist who’s trying to make a splash during the three-month probationary period, I took matters into my own hands. Pictured below is the PDC2008 Bingo Card — simply fill out a square as you see or hear what’s described in the square at any point in the conference:

I would’ve make a “Keynote Bingo” card, but as someone still new to this particular scene, I haven’t been to a Microsoft conference in a very long time, and I don’t know what Ray Ozzie’s particular keynote mannerisms and speech patterns are. Hence this card, which is generalized to cover the entire conference and not just the keynotes.

Developer Evangelism is all about helping you make your own stuff, and conference bingo cards are no exception! Click here for a blank version of the PDC Bingo card where you can supply your own text. I recommend you use the “Segoe UI” font, which comes standard with Vista.

If you make your own bingo card and post it online, send me a link in the comments!

Credit Where Credit is Due

I can’t finish this post without mentioning my fellow evangelist (and tech training buddy) John Bristowe, who suggested I make a Bingo card for PDC. Thanks, John, and see you in L.A. tomorrow!

In honour of PDC2008’s host city, Los Angeles, I decided to take my “Geek Gang Signs” graphic from a post I made back in May (which was based on this poster of actual L.A. gang signs) and make a set of PDC-specific gang signs:

Please note that these signs are for entertainment purposes only, or at most for flashing within the confines of the convention centre. Out on the streets, they’ll get you in trouble with the law, or worse:

Recommended Viewing

For some mistaken-identity/gangsta hilarity, nothing beats the Krazy Kripples episode from season 7 of South Park:

You’ll get way more value out of PDC2008 — the 2008 Microsoft Professional Developers Conference — if you stay healthy. With that in mind, here are some health tips that I’ve picked up in thirteen years of geek conference-going…

Wash Your Hands

Logo for Global Handwashing Day, which took place on October 15th.

It applies to everyday life, and doubly so at conferences where you’ve got thousands of people shaking hands and passing around swag, business cards and drinks: washing your hands is the single most effective way to prevent the spread and catching of infections. Do it between sessions or when you have a spare moment, and especially if you’re about to grab a bite to eat.

If for some reason you can’t wash your hands — maybe you’ve staked out a front row seat at one of the Ray Ozzie keynotes and there’s no one to hold your place — you can always opt for a hand sanitizer. Just remember that you’re going to have a slight greasy handshake afterwards.

Get Some Sleep

Many developers have a relationship with sleep that’s reminiscent of many models’ relationship with food: it is both the enemy and a secret shameful love. Models load up on water, eat ice cubes and kleenex and load up on stimulants; developers just load up on stimulants. Consider how caffeine is part of our culture, from giant coffees to energy drinks to Jolt Cola awards to caffeinated soap and lip balm.

When I started taking up busking as a hobby, I came into contact with a lot of homeless people. Sleeping rough on the streets is full of interruptions, so many of them are not only home-deprived, but sleep-deprived. Even when the weather’s good and they’re getting food, they’re still more prone to falling ill. More importantly, lack of sleep does terrible things to their minds, making them increasingly erratic and robbing them of the ability to make good decisions. Some of their most immediate problems can be solved simply by somehow giving them a steady roof over their heads so that they can get a good night’s sleep on a regular basis.

Sleep is important at information-rich conferences like the PDC. A well-rested mind picks up information more quickly and retains more, and that’s at least one of the reasons you (or preferably, your company) shelled out the big bucks to attend. You’ll also do better social networking if you aren’t falling asleep in your beer.

Try to get some decent sleep on at least a couple of the conference nights. If you’re arriving on Sunday, you might want to take it easy on Sunday night so that you can hit Day One of the conference, which includes the first Ray Ozzie keynote, with full force. It would appear that Tuesday night might be the busy night, as that’s when the big attendee party at Universal Studios is happening, so make sure you plan around that.

If you can find a point in the day where none of the sessions are that interesting to you, declare “nap time”, especially if it’s in the long doldrums of the afternoon, when your attention is most prone to wander and the urge to nod off is greatest. Head back to your hotel room, ste the alarm clock and give yourself anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes’ worth of rest, if not outright sleep. You’ll be recharged for the evening, when the human contact part of the conference — the most irreplaceable, irreproducible part — kicks into high gear.

All the sessions are recorded on video with one camera on the speaker and one on the projected slides, so unless you’re dying to have a one-on-one with the speaker or just want to catch the “vibe” of a particularly exciting presentation or keynote, you can always download the video later. It’s the meeting other developers and Microsofties (like me!) part that can’t be downloaded on video or distilled from the presentation slides and notes.

And remember: caffeine is not a sleep replacement! It might keep you going a little bit longer, but you won’t be firing on all cylinders, and it won’t help recharge your immune system like sleep does.

Eat Well

“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food,” as Hippocrates said. Remember, food isn’t just fuel; it’s also construction material, which means that the best way to stay healthy is to eat healthy.

I have no idea what sort of food will be available at the venue, but it is in Los Angeles, one of the most health-obsessed cities in the most health-obsessed state in the union. It shouldn’t be that hard to find healthy food.

Make sure you try dishes made with local produce. A lot of vegetables are grown right in California, and even the produce at the local big-chain grocery store is better there than most toher places in North America.

Cold-fX is Your Friend

If you’re American, if I say “a pill that prevents colds”, it’s likely that you’d think of Airborne. You’re probably also aware that they recently lost a class-action suit for falsely claiming that it prevents colds. The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that there isn’t any credible evidence that Airborne prevents colds or protects you from germs.

However, if you’re Canadian like me, if I say “a pill that prevents colds”, you’d probably think of Cold-fX. Health Canada, the Canadian equivalent of the American FDA (except that they’re more cautious), has approved their claims that it “helps reduce the frequency, severity and duration of cold and flu symptoms by boosting the immune system.”

It’s pricey — a 60-capsule bottle typically goes for slightly under CDN$30 — but I always take it with me for long flights and conferences. I personally recommend it.

Cold-fX is widely available in Canada, and I think it’s also available in several parts of the U.S..

Boozin’

Scoble and me at South by Southwest 2008, back in March.

Let me cite a passage from my favourite etiquette book, The Modern Gentleman:

Recall the flower of youth, when running on slippery pool decks before hurtling into a cannonball seemed a biological imperative; later in life, wait an extra ten seconds before launching into a graceful swan dive. These boyhood lessons translate into all social behaviors, especially drinking. Be a refined tippler, the part-time, lovable degenerate. Impetuousness ripens into spontaneity, impatience into timely verve, unbridled energy into charisma and elan. Mastering alchohol means picking times to roar, not becoming the nightly wet rag or fun vaccuum. Instead of floundering into slurred oblivion, revel in a sustained buzz of balance and loose chat. Aspire to be “the man that can hold his liqour” as opposed to “that old pathetic drunk”. Get in touch with your chakras and vitality; the venerable vices are not an intrusive competition, but a limbering stretch of control. The ethic of alcohol is about acknowledging personal limits, even as you intentionally step past them.

Since the big Ray Ozzie keynotes are on Monday and Tuesday morning — at eight-freakin’-thirty in the morning — it might be a good idea to go easy on the boozing on Sunday and Monday nights. The big party is on Tuesday night, so be sure to hydrate if you want to catch Microsoft Research’s Rick Rashid’s keynote at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

Oh Yes, the Rumpy-Pumpy

I have two pieces of advice:

1. Use protection. If you don’t know why, you shouldn’t be doin’ the rumpy-pumpy.
2. If you’re a straight man, do a gender-check. I remember the incident at Def Con 9 in which a guy got “Crying Gamed” in one of the hot tub — the entire thing was caught on video with one of those camcorders with night vision and a ridiculous amount of zoom, and by mid-morning after the unwitting sausage party, everybody had seen it. If you’re a straight guy, you probably don’t want this to happen to you. If you’re not, give him one for me!

My job/conference timing is uncannily good this year. Back in March, my first day on the job at b5media was spent flying to the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, where I spent the better part of the week conferencing, carousing and establishing accordion-powered bona fides on b5’s dime.

It’s happening again: a week after my first day at Microsoft (which is tomorrow, by the way), I’ll be flying down to Los Angeles to attend Microsoft’s 2008 Professional Developer Conference, a.k.a. PDC2008.

What is PDC?

The PDC is a Microsoft developer conference where they announce major new tools and technologies. It’s been held only when there’s major, bet-the-company stuff to announce. PDCs from previous years were used to announce and provide information on things like:

• The Win32 API
• “Chicago”, which grew up to become Windows 95
• “Windows NT 5.0″, which you might know better as Windows 2000
• .NET
• C#
• Windows XP
• “Longhorn”, which grew up to become Windows Vista
• Aero

The last PDC was held in 2005 and it was where they introduced LINQ, Silverlight and ASP.NET Ajax (as well as things that got put on the back burner, such as Hailstorm and WinFS). This PDC will be the first one of the post-Gates era, and it promises to be interesting one.

What’s PDC2008 Going to be About?

Mike Swanson, “Content Owner” for PDC2008, describes it as the “Software Plus Services PDC”. A lot of the announcements that will be made at this PDC will revolve around the apparent “sea change” at Microsoft in the way they think about software, how it’s built and where it runs.

Among the things that I expect to see announced and/or covered at PDC2008 are:

• “A comprehensive services platform”, as Mike Swanson puts it
• “Red Dog”, which is supposed to be Microsoft’s cloud computing platform
• Windows 7
• “Oslo”
• Silverlight 2
• The next version of Visual Studio
• Possibly some stuff about the DLR

(Keep in mind that these are educated guesses and that the last item is my own personal wish. I haven’t been briefed on any of the goodies that Microsoft has up its sleeve; in fact, I don’t even have my @microsoft.com email address, passcard or Borg implants yet.)

When is PDC 2008?

PDC2008 starts on Monday. October 27th and runs to the end of Thursday, October 30th and takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I’m going to catch most, but not all if it — I’ll be at Cory Doctorow’s wedding the night before and will miss the Monday morning keynote, where Ray Ozzie is expected to make some pretty big announcements. I land at LAX at 11:00 a.m. and will report from the conference (and the extracurricular activities!) from Monday afternoon onward with stories, photos and probably some audio and video as well, with my trusty new travelling accordion by my side.

More Information on PDC2008

For more information about PDC2008, check out these sites:

• The Official PDC2008 Site. Complete with agenda and speakers list.
• Dan Rigsby’s Writeup. Developer Dan Rigsby writes about PDC and why you should attend.
• Countdown to PDC2008. A short video podcast featuring Mike Swanson, “Content Owner” of PDC2008, who talks about what to expect at the conference, from talks to the free 160GB external drive packed with goodies that every attendee gets.
• The Devil’s Field Guide to the PDC. Thomas Lewis’ guide to attending, maximizing yoru experience at and surviving PDC.