Microsoft: Behind the scenes with Scott Hanselman

This LinkedIn Dot Net User Group Event gave some insight into how Microsoft works:

Get a look at life inside Microsoft, from the perspective of Scott Hanselman, with this Q&A session. The session will span Scott’s life inside “The Big Blue Monster”, so come along and to this Q&A session and ask the questions that’s been on your lips

Scott's blog: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/

I have read the few 200 hundred pages of his MVC 1.0 book, in particular the "Nerds dinner" application which demonstrates the beauty of rapid application development with MVC.

He was rather dismissive about "MS Access for Professionals" the usual guff about professional and Access being oxymoron? Sure mant developers cut their teeth on Access before going on to large apps running on SQLServer or Oracle. However Access is still a great tool and I was intrigued when I find an access application support the SAP Gui client software (it helps with command recall).

Apparently VS2010 should be un-installed before upgrading Windows 7.. he discusses how Microsoft disseminate this information - follow the blogs of ScottGu, Scott Hanselman and Phil Haack. There is also stack overview, but I can't quite see this?

  

"Turning off is when you are really productive" nice quote, although it sounds like he keeps very odd hours - working through the night?

Another interesting question "Microsoft and Culture Change", I initially laughed at this question (to me this did seem like an oxymoron), but to be fair MVC is open source and ScottGu's team are leading the way in terms of open-source development.

Karl Seguin at CodeBetter Canvas blog is a great way to view and learn better / latest code. Reading and reviewing code is best way to learn new stuff.

Much of the webcast was about the personality of Scott, he was presenting himself as hard-core geek with geek toys and organic gardening. This makes sense, developers want positive role models, but it could have been more sutble ... During the podcast the question popped-up "do you think the work, people like Scott does gives Microsoft a more 'human' face?"

"An architect that doesn't code isn't a useful person" - another good quote. I have always fancied progressing into a more senior technical specialist role, but in my experience the architects seem to "document bound".

Nadjib asked a "really good question":

How to install all the .Net framework versions and MVC in one go. 

The answer is to either use:
http://www.microsoft.com/web
http://www.hanselman.com/smallestdotnet/

He gave a "strong defence" of webforms, however despite his denial that "webforms are definitely not dead" the tone was that webforms are now the old technology.

Apparently he used voice recognition to write his books - but you have to (a) use a high quality mic and (b) pre-load all the technical terms you are going to use.

Regarding virtual meetings, he made the good point you need a strong visual (document, video, ...) for everyone to focus on.

Lastly regarding speaking at forums, he advice was to get involved and speak at your user group until they ask you to stop ;-) There are no professional speakers now. Good advice!

oxymoron |ˌäksəˈmôrˌän|noun: a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true).ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Greek oxumōron, neuter (used as a noun) of oxumōros ‘pointedly foolish,’ from oxus ‘sharp’ +mōros ‘foolish.’