Next month I'm off to the Global MVP Summit. This is a semi annual event for MVP's and provides the opportunity to meet with the product teams - yes real Microsoft developers and managers - plus some of the top execs. This year, Bill Gates is presenting the keynote - last time, Oct 2005, it was Steve Ballmer.
So, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to see and say during this 4 day pilgrimage. Here's my list thus far. I'd love you to add to it! Tell me what is important to you and I will endeavour to ask the right people and get an answer.
Orcas
- anything about Orcas, esp. Team System. At the 05 summit we where asked about some of the wizz bang new stuff they were thinking about putting into Orcas and beyond. It will be interesting to see how much of these ideas made it to a real product. At the time I was very excited by some of these ideas, particularly in the debugging area.
SQL Server v next
- it's hard to see how they could improve on SQL 05 in any major way but apparently the next version is under development.
- what's the future for WF, WCF & WPF?
- the expressions tools are very impressive. How will these fit in a development team currently using Visual Studio? Yes, I understand the promise but it would be good to here about the reality. I seriously worry about mixing developers and designers :)
Languages
- C# 3 is changing in many ways. The language gods are certainly taking note of functional and dynamic languages. It's hard to separate the language from the tool some times - i.e., what is C# like if you only have Notepad ? Will it be impossible to use C# 3 or VB 9 without Visual Studio or one of it's spin offs? Not that I would dream of doing this you understand, but I think it's an indication of the level of purity in the language.
AJAX & JavaScript
- I have a few issues with AJAX and the Asp.Net platform. I need to know if this is just me or not. Also, I have an idea for working with JavaScript in Visual Studio - I'd like to see if Microsoft have the same idea. I'd like to have Visual Studio provide better support for js files - the intellisence is not as good as it could be, but more importantly I'd like to have .JSX files - these would be JS files but with the ability to include server controls and markup (<% %>). So you'd have a CS or VB code behind file for them - this could also be the same code behind as the ASPX/ASCX that uses the JSX file.
Software Factories
- we have software factories for web services, web sites, smart client. What's next? What about EFx? I'd like to see this in action.
Can you add to this list? Please comment and let me know.
Oh, just remembered. Most of what we discuss and see at the summit is provided under a non disclosure agreement so I can ask your questions, but I may not be able to tell you the answer - at least not precisely :)