Fair comments on Scoble not being a .NET developer, but the speculation is that Windows and .NET development will become synonymous in Longhorn. I'd wait until the interview airs before determining how relevant the material is to .NET developers.
Randy, Do you really think anything terribly important can be said on the air? If somehting is important, Scoble will have to keep it to himself, because it will be one of those "I can't tell you until after the PDC" things.
Otherwise, we would have known it already, methinks.
After hanging out with Scoble for a considerable amount of time this week, he knows more about .NET development then some people who make their income designing with it.
Jeff. That maybe the case, but I'm more worried about that conversation turning into one big hype ball instead of a developer oriented programme (which I've grown to know and love). Do you really think you'll hear anything new? Anything that's not been hyped before? Will we learn some tricks of the trade? some .net dev tips that could point us in the right direction in the problems we are facing as developers? I don't think so. I think it's going to be about how great .Net is, and wow, that group is working on *oops secret* and that group is *oh I can't say*. In short, I'm worried it will be a recap of his blog - nothing really useful - lots of hype on the PDC/longhorn.
What did you actually learn in the last episode in the pub besides not going to their training because they will make fun of you. I think there are tons of developers who don't read blogs, but do listen to their show and that is the audience they are after right now. For us, we will just have to watch an MSDN TV episode instead of listening to the show.
Jeff. That last episode totally BOMBED. What can I say? If they continue like this they *will* become irrelevant for me as well. Right now, though, it looks like innocent mistakes. I applud what they do, but somehow inviting Scoble seems - irrelevant. As for your answer - I don't want it to become irrelevant for .Net bloggers. It wasn't in the past, why should it change now? That would totally suck.
You may be a bit too harsh Roy, but Jeff.... no way. No friggin way. Scoble knows more _technical_ details about dotnet coding than someone using it? Simply put, NO. He was not part of the internal development of any part of it. He is not a coder. He has never claimed to even write a single line of code with it.
With all due respect to Scoble - he is very good at his job, "technical" (he corrected me on this) evangelist - but he has NEVER ONCE made a cliam to be a dotnet developer nor part of the groups that designed any of it.
That said, I understand the bulk will be general talk and hype over upcoming products - particularly Longhorn. But even Roy admits that 1 out of 100 posts are enough to keep him reading Socble. I'd expect about the same ratio in this interview, meaning it'll be one of the most downloaded dotnetrocks yet.
For the record: I have written more than one line of code in Longhorn and in .NET. :-)
My skill comes from being able to talk to developers and translate that into plain English that most other people can understand.
I know quite deeply what the possibilities are with Longhorn. The teams I'm working with are building the demos for Gates and Allchin and are building the app that will be distributed to attendees. I might not be able to write code, but I've had an unbelieveable look at the inside of Microsoft's most technical teams.
I'm no Don Box, but I know more than I let on on my blog.
Dave: you are not correct. I'm in constant contact with the teams who are developing the features. Last night one of the top Avalon developers was here at the house.
Also, I'm on the team that's developing an app for distribution to all PDC attendees.
Certainly not a guy who slings code, but certainly very close to the inside. And, I've read every word in Brent Rector's very technical book about Longhorn.
I'll take back some of my statements then! :-) In my defense though, I'll say two things Robert.
First, I did try to clearly say that you haven't made any claims to writing code before. I'm not aware of your entire background, but have known you since you wrote for Fawcette. It does age me to day this, but my memory of things you specifically wrote for VBPJ is very hazy. Oh, and I never meant to say I thought you knew nothing of coding either.
Second though, is my comment on your association with the history behind dotnet. I definitely wasn't clear on this. By many accounts the most popular dotnetrocks interview was the one a few weeks ago with some of the people involved in the migration of VB from VB6 to VB.NET. These are the kinds of interviews that (1) I find exceptionally revealing and interesting, (2) have a great deal of connection to dotnet and (3) I weould figure _in this specific instance_ you would have little to add to because you were not employed by MS during the time the VB port to dotnet was accomplished.
While a dotnetrocks interview with you would probably have less direct connection to dotnet coding or dotnet specifics like this interview had, I would expect the "revealing and interesting" aspects, as they pertain to working for MS and the future direction of their products WOULD be well worth hearing what you have to say.
I have to chime in here. You don't have to be a .NET developer to be a guest on DNR. You have to have something to say of interest to .NET developers. We have had several guests that are not developers or who have a casual relationship with development (Jonathan Zuck, INETA, the Microsoft .NET Evangelism Team to name a few).
We frankly wanted to promote blogging, and we could think of nobody better than Scoble to introduce blogging to our blog-newbie listeners.
We did learn a few things about Longhorn that we didn't know, but most of our conversation was about blogging.
As for us making fun of our students, Jeff, that's just not fair. Mark has taught hundreds of classes and thousands of students. He mentioned a story where there was a problem student in an HTML class. It wasn't even a .NET or a franklins.net class. Anyway, we took that story out of the show, but it was completely benign, and actually funny as well.
Carl - thanks for that comment. It means a lot to me that you took the time and trouble to respond.
I understand what you're saying. .Net Rocks is not strictly about .Net. I'll go ahead and say that up until about 4-5 shows ago your program was one of the best things in the .Net sphere.
There were shows there that definitely were pure gold. but just to clear my point - the shows you mentioned, that involved less .Net and more "around" stuff, were, IMHO, much less interesting. As an extreme opposite example, I'll take the case of Paul Alen - that show was mostly about stories. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. You know why? It was relevant to me as a developer. I got to learn how the tools I use evolved into what they are today.
With Scoble, I just didn't see such a chance. I might be totally wrong here, but my biggest fear was that Scoble was going to come onto the show and sell the hype that we're being fed with for the past couple of months. Frankly - that would suck. If you're assuring me that that's not the case, I totally and whole heartedly apologize.
The problem with Scoble is whenever he uses technical words.
He's reflecting quite well the feeling one gets when reading Microsoft msdn papers. After all, with this company technical papers are marketing papers.
Stephane - There's a difference between insulting and constructive criticism. Please, keep such stuff away from my blog.
-Roy.
Heh lets call it quits before it starts getting ugly here... :)
Everyone reads scoble and no-one does it looking for deep technical development insights. I personally have yet to learn any new skills from the .NET Rocks shows, but I love the peeks that they provide into the mindsets of people like Sells & Paul Vick... People who are helping shape the future versions of the products we work with today.
Rename the show to "the .NET Community Rocks", and you get both a more accurate description and a sensible reason why Scoble *should* be on it.
My 2 cents :)
Roy, dude, you are such a purist! :-) One of your charms, for sure, as I'm definitely a fan of your blog. As for my 2-cents on the interview, Scoble rules and Carl Franklin is the King of Cool. This is one .NET Rocks show I am not going to miss.
Whoops... Didn't realize how href formatting works. The URL I mentioned above is www.remotesoft.com/linker
Carl
Carl -
Heh - I got mixed up with Alan Cooper - father of VB. That's the interview I meant. Anyway -Great to hear about all those upcoming shows, methinks some of them are going to be very cool!