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!