Robert MacLean

Being a MVP gets you very little, some status boost in those who misunderstand it (MVPs are not awarded for technical skill & a lot of people think MVP = expert), a MSDN subscription, a lot of paperwork (including multiple NDA’s), some access to product teams (this varies from product team to product team – some have great interactions others are poor) and a trophy.

To the right is my MVP trophy (as well as ALM Rangers award and MVP of the year cube) and I think it looks pretty awesome but how does it get to me?

In this post I want to take a slightly tongue in cheek look at the box the MVP award comes in and what it is saying about MVP’s.

Above you can see the three years of the trophy box. So lets analyse those box covers. I am assuming that the person on the box is supposed to represent MVP’s.

• MVP’s are dress smart casual always – chinos & a blue shirt are required. Hah, not likely.
• MVP’s have neck problems causing them to tilt their heads. This is likely true from all the time people spend at their machines.
• MVP’s always have their laptops with them. Also likely true. Next year he better have a Windows 8 tablet though.
• Interesting that 2010 guy got one cover while 2011 guy got to come back in 2012. Guess 2010 guy wasn’t re-awarded
• 2011 guy has gotten smaller in 2012 – are we shrinking away or did Mr 2011 not do enough work?
• In 2010 and 2011 the ghosts of MVP’s past are clearly standing in support for the MVP. In 2012 they aren’t concerned anymore and just chatting with each other.

What would I do differently? Easily, take a photo from MVP summit with real MVP’s engaging with each other and put that on the cover. What may be nice is to have new 2012 MVP’s (i.e. first timers) get together to pose for it and so there is extra incentive for 2013 – a box with real MVP’s that could include you.

I recently read an insightful post about how being a developer is less about coding and more about tooling, and while I do not agree with all of the post, the fact we as developers are tool obsessed rings very true. This obsession with tools becomes a white hot rage when our favourite tool is threated with extinction or causes a world of panic when a competing tool is proposed without enough information on it.

Let’s look at two key examples of that:

• WinForms was very popular and when Microsoft brought us WPF, there was major push back from those who did not want to change and learn a new tool. If you reading this, then you are thinking well time solved that, I disagree. This very week I was asked about WinForms vs. WPF again. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, it just gives some of us time to move on.
• To illustrate the world of panic I can use a more recent issue – Windows 8! Remember all the discussion before //Build about the death of <insert your favourite tool here>? The confusion caused by incomplete discussions around tools we love caused panic.

So what is the solution to this? I think simply a mind set change would be enough. The mind set change needed is to remember that a platform is more important/powerful/useful than a tool. I would like to take credit for this idea, but the first time I heard anyone mention this was a few years back and it was Scott Hanselman talking on MVC almost three years ago to the day. He mentioned that ASP.NET > ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET > ASP.NET MVC. In short he was saying that the core understanding of ASP.NET, the core features and the core uses of the platform are bigger than a single implementation (tool) could be. Sure, you need to learn a new tool, but you aren’t starting at zero if you know the platform.

Why I am bringing this up? It is because of the discussions I have been having about another tool recently: Silverlight. We are approaching the panic stage on this tool due to rumours of it’s demise. However it is VERY important to take a step back and see what the platform is and how knowing the platform means that a tool can move along and we are still able to work/code/make money etc…

The platform Silverlight uses is XAML based UI technologies, a core set of how we can layout UI components using an XML dialect called XAML. This platform also has lots of options for things like binding, the MVVM patterns and so on that are either difficult or impossible to do with other UI technologies (like WinForms for example).

XAML based UI technologies started with a single tool: WPF – an implementation of the platform designed to run on top of the .NET Framework. A second tool, Silverlight, later appeared – this is an implementation of the platform designed to run as a plugin in a browser. A third tool, Silverlight for Windows Phone 7, came next and while very close to Silverlight it had it’s differences as it was an implementation of the platform for the phone. In the last few months we have had the forth implementation of the XAML based UI technologies appear: WinRT. This is the Windows Runtime in Windows 8 and when you develop with C#, VB.NET or C++ your UI technology is just another implementation of the platform.

Every implementation of the platform has been different, some in big ways and some in smaller ways but the core of the XAML based UI technology platform hasn’t changed and there is not a single rumour, plan, or hint that we are even close to seeing the end of XAML based UI technologies. We may see a tool end of life and die (like some rumours say about  Silverlight) or other tools just find completeness and not need new work done (like WPF if) but the platform remains and grows and learning a platform is always more important/powerful/useful.

Very different from my normal ramblings but I thought worth a quick post, Microsoft has Lightswitch on sale at the moment for 33% off the price! This is a world wide offer so you can get it via your distributors, LARS or from the Microsoft Online Store.

So if you are looking to get started in Lightswitch, NOW IS THE TIME!

Last year I wrote two posts (finding the best talks at Tech·Ed & why is the Tech·Ed calendar is awesome) which really aimed to help improve your Tech·Ed Africa experience. They are both still relevant this year but I thought of one new tip to share and that is related to travel.

Short version: Book your inbound flight EARLY, your outbound flight LATE and stay at the HILTON.

Why inbound early?

Day 1 is a busy day for you – after you land you need to find the shuttle from the airport to the conference venue. I got separated from the group and lost in the airport last year . Once you are at the conference venue you need to register and get your swag (do this before you go to the hotel) then you need to find the bus to get to your hotel, if you follow the tip below about the Hilton this is easy else you may have a small wait. Once at your hotel, check-in, sort out stuff, see what the swag is etc… and then finally find the bus (wait) and get back to the conference venue for the keynote & opening party. In short – it is a VERY BUSY DAY, so having an extra hour or two helps.

For speakers there is also the advantage of taking that extra hour or two you can get to do a quick tech check the day before and help calm those nerves.

Why outbound late?

The last day ends with the closing keynote and those can run long – I have seen people RUN for the busses and have to drag luggage around with them in the closing because of time constraints. Plus when you get to the first few busses you have the fight for bus space! It really just messes with the last day, rather take a later flight which means you do not need to fight for bus seats or rush around.

Why the Hilton?

The Hilton in Durban is the best place to stay, as it is RIGHT next door to the ICC where Tech·Ed is held. In fact the picture to the left, the bottom left hand corner is the ICC. You don’t even have to cross a road!

So it means getting up later, staying out later (Hilton bar is famous for after parties), it means being where all the Microsoft staff, media & presenters are (great for those informal discussions in the elevator) and generally a top end experience.

Big issue, it sells out FAST so you should be booking NOW!

Follow these travel tips and you will be on your way for a great Tech·Ed!

I was put onto this interesting feature of Twitter by Scott Hanselman, but it needs repeating. When you use Twitter and send a tweet then your followers get it, except when you start with a name. For example:

The above one was seen by everyone who follows me!

The one above starts with William Branders name, so only people who follow both of us will see it, in other words (or Venn chart style), it is only that group in the middle that will see it!

So how do you send a reply & have all followers see it? Start with a dot like in the tweet below.

Important to note that this doesn’t make replies private like a direct message is – these tweets are still public and can still be seen on your Twitter page, it is just they do not show up in followers view.

16 November 2011: This application has had a major update, see the details in this post

Following the same idea as my AA Rate WP7 app, another very popular spreadsheet I built is one that verifies South African ID Numbers so I also decided to build a Windows Phone 7 app to do that.

This does a little more than the spreadsheet could, so it has lots of info about what in an ID number does not verify which is very useful.

In addition it includes a awesome new feature a South African ID Number GENERATOR! With this you put in a few required details, hit a button and BOOM! An ID number that will validate.

Important to remember that validation of a number doesn’t mean it actually exists, just the math works. So please don’t use this for anything except interest or development!

(btw screenshots are from 1.1, which is soon to be out – so if you download and it looks different then give it a day or two)

16 November 2011: This application has had a major update, see the details in this post

One of the most popular posts on my website is the AA Rate calculation spreadsheet I built in 2008. The goal of the spreadsheet is you provide the details about your vehicle and it tells you what the AA Rate for your vehicle is. So I decided to rebuild this for Windows Phone 7!

This was a lot of fun because it has some complex issues (matrixes of values) which had to be solved, so that tickled my developer brain.

This also allowed me the opportunity to update the calculations since they change every so often which is important for you!

An interesting thing that I learnt with this release is that the official/documented calculations is NOT equal to what the AA online calculator does. So there is an option now called “quirks mode” which runs it equal to the online calculator where if you turn it off, it runs it using the documented mode!

Found this little C# compiler optimisation which is really cool. Here is start code

int y = 0;
int x = 10;

if (x * 0 == 0)
{
    y = 123;
}

Console.WriteLine(y);

If you know a bit of math, anything multiplied by 0 always equals 0 (line 4). So the compiler optimises that out and then because x is never used that is also optimised out and you end up with

int y = 0;

if (0 == 0)
{
    y = 123;
}

Console.WriteLine(y);